Political Quotes

“Florida has been one of the big opponents, but recently we received a letter that was sent to MMS, the Mineral Management Agencies, urging them to open up the Outer Continental Shelf as soon as possible. The largest business association of Florida, with 10,000 members, sent a very clear message, a 2-page letter that my staff said, I am surprised you did not write this letter because it sounds like you talking saying, we must open the OCS. Yes, here in Florida we love our tourism businesses; but if people are not successful in America, they are not going to have money to come to Florida and have their vacations, because tourism is a huge part. I am not trying to pick on Florida, but they have been much of the reason we have not dealt with this issue as a State. I have not understood that, because they are great consumers of natural gas. They are a big farm State. You take farmers, who get hit by the energy issue probably as many times as anybody. When they plow their fields, they use petroleum. When they harvest, they use petroleum. When they dry their grains, they use natural gas. When they plant, and I missed this in the beginning, they use fertilizer, which up to 71 percent of the cost of making fertilizer is natural gas, and those prices have doubled and tripled in the last few years. Farmers do not set the prices that they sell the products for, and with these huge energy cost increases, they just cannot raise their price.…”