Political Quotes

“Again, I agree with my friend from Oregon completely, and as he points out, this didn't happen by an act of God. This happened because of lax or no regulation, regulation we knew was necessary and we took a chance. We took a chance. And we took a chance, why? Because of the almighty dollar. We took a chance because of Big Oil money, making sure that it influenced the process and made sure that it was exempted from normal regulatory review. And you have to ask yourself in those kinds of circumstances, well, what could go wrong? Let me enumerate a little bit what has gone wrong: 200,000 commercial fishing, processing, and retail jobs in the gulf for fishing and seafood on ice; $659 million in annual value on 1.27 billion pounds of seafood caught in the gulf, the largest source of seafood in America, not including the value of fish processing or retail or people's salaries, in jeopardy; $5.5 billion annual value of commercial fishing industry in the gulf coast, including the value of fish harvest processing and retail, in jeopardy; $12 billion of expenditures for 25.4 million recreational trips in the Gulf of Mexico at risk; $9 billion in wages for tourism-related industries in the Gulf of Mexico, employing 600,000 people.…”