Political Quotes

“a few months ago, the President signed into law an Energy bill that did virtually nothing to prepare America for any kind of crisis for a disruption in the oil supply. Now, a few months after that new law was signed, a scavenger hunt is underway to come up with yet another bill to address the issues that Congress ignored in the 2005 Energy bill. The problem is that much of the new legislation tracks the troublesome trends of the bill that was signed. What I want to do this morning is spend a few minutes talking about why I think that is the case, why I think this legislation is misguided, and then to suggest some alternatives. The central problem, in my view, is that this new legislation essentially says to these well-stuffed, well-oiled energy lobbies: We will give you more than you got. This is on top of the fact that oil refiners have seen their profits skyrocket by 255 percent over the last year, an extraordinary fact--a 255-percent increase in profits for the oil-refining sector. And now we are talking about another piece of legislation to subsidize these folks and others who are literally swimming in cash today. I do not believe that one of Congress's top priorities, after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, should be to help these special interest lobbies that already are swimming in cash. There are too many Americans who are far from swimming in those kinds of funds. They are still trying to clean up the flood waters.…”