Mark Warner: “I have watched the Nation in these 25 years grow more and more dependent on foreign energy. When this moratorium was put…”

“I have watched the Nation in these 25 years grow more and more dependent on foreign energy. When this moratorium was put in, we didn't have $4 to $5 a gallon gasoline prices. We didn't have natural gas at its all-time high. I say to my good friend from California, this is a changing world, and we cannot lock ourselves into a world that existed 25 years ago and ask our citizens to continue to bear these ever-increasing costs. This Senate last year approved legislation which granted to the several States in the gulf the right to continue drilling. So it is not as if I am breaking a precedent. Other States have been accorded this right. Why deny my State, if my citizens, my Governor, decide it is in the best interest of our State? Is there nothing left to States rights?”