Political Quotes

“I am here now for the 87th consecutive week the Senate has been in session to urge action on climate change. We have had an interesting couple of weeks on the Keystone Pipeline, but from a climate change and carbon pollution point of view, this would obviously not be helpful. Indeed, it would be a disaster leading to as much as 27 million--27 million--metric tons of additional carbon dioxide emitted per year. To put that number into some perspective, that is the equivalent of adding 6 million cars and trucks to our roads for 50 years. So it is a very considerable carbon price to pay. We have seen a poster used on the Senate Floor that says it will have no environmental effect. That is not precisely true. Indeed, precisely the opposite is true. This is the environmental effect it will have, and it is considerable. The report referred to went on to say that it would be offset by the fact that this fuel would go out by rail anyway. But that offset was conditioned on a fuel price above $75 per barrel of oil, and we are at $50. So there is no way that conclusion can stand, and the underlying fact is what prevails--27 million metric tons of additional carbon dioxide. It is obviously very bad from an environmental perspective. It is a lot of ``not much'' from a jobs perspective. Every 4 days we add more jobs than the construction of this pipeline just through the economic recovery that is taking place.…”