Political Quotes

“Thank you, Madam Speaker. Tonight, I and other Members of the House are going to talk about energy issues in the United States. Probably a timely thing to start with are the recent comments by one of the individuals who works for the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA. The more we learn about the EPA, the more we learn that they are hostile to real American energy for various reasons. Let me give you some historical perspective that makes this continuous assault on the oil and gas industry make sense to us now in 2012. It seems that back in 2010, 2 years ago, EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz stood up on his bureaucratic pedestal of power and spelled out the true intentions that he had and the goals of the EPA. He declared that the EPA--and he declared this from his marble palace here in Washington, D.C.--that the EPA would target the oil and gas industry, calling it an ``enforcement priority'' as if, Madam Speaker, the oil and gas industry were made up of criminals. He went on: I was in a meeting once, and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting, but I'll go ahead and tell you what I said. And here is what he said, Madam Speaker: It was kind of like how the Romans used to do--you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town somewhere. They'd find the first five guys they saw, and they'd crucify them.…”