Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, there has been an unfortunate and devastating accident in the Gulf of Mexico that caused the death of 11 workers. Now we must deal with the attendant oil spill estimated at 42,000 gallons a day. To provide a bit of perspective, the gallon capacity of an Olympic-size swimming pool is 648,000. At the current spill rate, it will take 15\1/2\ days to spill the equivalent of an Olympic-sized pool. Historic production of oil from the Gulf is 1.7 million barrels per day. The U.S. consumes about 19.5 million barrels a day. There will be those who will say this spill is reason enough to cut off future offshore oil production. That would be disingenuous. Until this accident, the industry has had an impeccable record in the Gulf. According to Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University, in the last 15 years, there was not a single spill of more than 1,000 barrels among the 4,000 active platforms offshore. She said offshore drilling was considerably safer for the environment than the tankers used for importing oil. We need to clean up the spill, not use it as a political football. ____________________”