Political Quotes

“before I talk about financial reform, I did want to say a word about the disaster on the gulf coast now and the oil spillage there. Obviously, all of our hearts go out to the families of the 11 workers who lost their lives and to the thousands and thousands of employees in the region who are going to lose their jobs as this terrible contamination spreads all over the gulf coast. But I hope very much we comprehend, in the midst of the disaster, that when we are dealing with technologies such as offshore drilling or, in fact, nuclear energy, we cannot be 99.99 percent successful. Unfortunately, as human beings, 100 percent success is a goal we often do not reach. That is why, in my view, as someone who has long opposed offshore drilling, I think it is absolutely imperative we understand as a nation if we move aggressively to energy efficiency, if we move aggressively to such clean, sustainable energies as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal, we can, in fact, break our dependence on foreign oil and on fossil fuel in general, and we can create millions of jobs as we become energy independent without having to deal with the calamities we are experiencing today.”