Political Quotes

“Madam President, yesterday a number of us--I think the number now is somewhere in the 37-to-38 ballpark of Senators-- introduced legislation to expedite consideration of the Keystone XL Pipeline. What is interesting to me about all of this is that this is a project that has been literally reviewed and analyzed and studied and scrutinized now for the better part of 3 years. In fact, they have had two comprehensive environmental evaluations and 3 years of study and review. Then, just recently, the Obama administration deferred a decision on the permit until after the 2012 elections, essentially putting off the decision for about 18 months. Well, what is ironic and sort of interesting about that is this is a project which--after having been carefully vetted for the past 3 years, carefully reviewed, carefully studied, all of the environmental impact analysis done--would lead to all kinds of economic development for this country and job creation in many of the States that are impacted. Our State of South Dakota happens to be one of those. The pipeline traverses South Dakota as it heads down to refineries in other places in the country. But it would benefit my State by generating significant amounts of State and local tax revenue, revenue that is much needed by many of the local jurisdictions: school districts, counties, municipalities in the State of South Dakota.…”