Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose this amendment. The EIS work conducted thus far for the lease sales, and keep in mind, these lease sales were already okayed, is complete, thorough and sufficient to safely and responsibly conduct these lease sales. It is important to note that this is only one of many environmental analyses that these leases will undergo before any drilling can start. At each of multiple stages, additional detailed environmental and safety reviews will be conducted. The language in this bill, underlying bill, allows the administration to move forward with these lease sales in a timely manner, but does not allow drilling until at least several more layers of thorough environmental assessments and reviews are conducted on each lease sale sold at these sales. I think that's what the gentleman was getting to. The underlying bill allows that to happen. These additional environmental studies will allow for the latest and best available information following the oil spill to be included in the studies and applied to any drilling that will take place. In totality, the library of environmental reviews will end up totaling tens of thousands of pages, Mr. Chairman, and hundreds of hours by environmental scientists, engineers, biologists, and other professionals. But this amendment isn't about environmental protection. This amendment is about removing the timelines in this bill to conduct these four lease sales.…”