Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, in the United States right now we are experiencing an environmental catastrophe. We are experiencing with the BP oil rig the largest single oil spill in American history. It's a little hard to contemplate just how big this oil spill is; 21 million to 44 million gallons of oil--four times the oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster--have so far spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day--that's a million gallons a day--are spilling, a rate 12 to 25 times higher than BP's original highest estimate of 4,600 gallons a day. The biggest oil spill in American history. If we want to know just how big that is, this is the extent of the oil spill today in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the equivalent in terms of size of Delaware, Rhode Island, and Connecticut combined. Think of that geography. Hundreds of square miles. That's what this is. Just recently it was announced that underwater plumes, not just the surface plume depicted here, have been detected 150 miles away in distance from the original site of the oil spill. Locally what that means is essentially we have an oil spill, a surface oil spill that covers the territory that would be the equivalent of the distance between Washington, D.C., and New York City. That's as of today. In my 11th Congressional District of Virginia, that would mean starting in Dale City near Manassas in Prince William County and going as far as Wilmington, Delaware. That's the thick oil spill.…”