Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, according to the U.S. Census, the State of California's largest import is petroleum. Let me repeat that, Mr. Chairman. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the State of California's largest import is petroleum. So I guess it's a good thing that private geologists estimate that over 1.6 billion barrels of American-made energy are ready and waiting to be developed from existing infrastructure in southern California. What does existing infrastructure mean? Well, there are currently about 23 oil and gas platforms located offshore in southern California which account for about 24 million barrels of oil and 47 billion cubic feet of gas annually. The lease sale proposed in this legislation allows drilling from existing platforms or, to put it in another vernacular, those that are already in place. If we are going to have a serious discussion about offshore drilling, it makes perfect sense to drill not only where there is already drilling going on, but from where the platforms already exist, which is why this bill specifically states: ``no new infrastructure.'' We need to drill where there are known resources, and this California lease sale is a commonsense way to limit the drilling footprint while accessing our resources that are known in southern California. In fact, Mr.…”