Political Quotes

“I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, once again, to repeat, the nature of the lease sales that companies enter into is ``use it or lose it'' because if they don't, within the time period of that lease, utilize that for production, they give it back. That's ``use it or lose it.'' That's the law right now. But let me respond here in the short time I have about comments that have been made earlier about increased American production. That's true, Mr. Chairman, and I'm glad for that. But the implication of that statement being made by my friends on the other side of the aisle is that it's because of the policies of this administration. Mr. Chairman, nothing could be further from the truth. It takes a while to get land or offshore up to speed and in production, sometimes many years. But the reason production is increasing in some areas and has been increasing--it's now going down on Federal lands--is because of actions of prior administrations. That is never said. It's because of prior administrations' actions, because the last 2 years of this administration, oil and natural gas, the production on Federal lands, has gone down. And finally, the main reason why oil production has increased in this country is because it's happening principally in North Dakota and in west Texas, and it's on private land and/or State land. The Federal Government and this administration had absolutely nothing to do with the increase of that production.…”