Political Quotes

“And the two areas that we are talking about, the two areas that are in dispute where drilling is not allowed today are the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, those 200,000 acres that we are talking about, and the 85 percent of the geographical reach of the Outer Continental Shelf on which drilling is not allowed. So we will hear people on the other side say, ``Well, there's 85 percent that we are not drilling in that the moratorium exists and we are not allowed to survey and do the drilling.'' Again, 80 percent of the known oil in the Outer Continental Shelf is already in areas where we are allowed to drill. So don't be swayed by the fact that people will throw out the geographical reach. It would be as if we were to say ``the entire geographical reach of the United States'' when we know that there are only certain areas where there is oil. And to that point, we talked about the 200,000 acres in ANWR. Now, as we move forward on drilling on those 68 million acres, if we get to the point where the oil and gas companies have drilled on them all, which is going to be a long time, and if they do the surveying work and they come to the conclusion that there is not going to be any oil or any gas there for them to take up from the ground, then that is fine.”