Political Quotes

“this amendment deals with 100 miles offshore. When we had the debate last year, I wanted to clarify something. Everybody kept talking about a compromise. We passed a major bill in the House that opened up the OCS for both gas and oil. The Senate passed what I call a little small bill in little pieces of the Gulf that President Clinton actually had in the 5-year plan, but never leased it. In my discussions with the other body, we were always hoping to have a compromise, but we never had one. We never had a conference committee. We reluctantly agreed to take the Senate bill because it was something, and America needs something, so we took this small piece in the Gulf because it is some additional energy for America. We will soon be 64 percent dependent on foreign, unstable countries. I hear on both sides of the aisle here that people are distressed about that. These are not our friends. These are countries that are not democracies. They are not real stable. We often lose energy when they just have their government topple or be out of favor for a while. We are dependent on undependable countries of the world who are not our friends. They now set the price. OPEC is back in charge. OPEC turns the spigot and lets big oil make a lot of money. I said to somebody one day, big oil's best friends are Congress and OPEC. Collectively, we have slowed up the ability to produce oil and gas. And when we slow up the ability to produce oil and gas, the price rises.”