Political Quotes

“This amendment was offered in committee markup, and it failed on a bipartisan vote simply because it was a bad idea. This amendment, Mr. Chairman, has one goal--to stop the development of natural gas on Alaska's North Slope. This amendment is completely unnecessary and irrelevant. Currently, there is no way to export natural gas out of ANWR. There are no liquefying gas facilities on the shore. There is also not a single natural gas pipeline out of ANWR to transport natural gas anywhere in the United States. In fact, there are limited ways to export Alaska natural gas. One of the preferred methods, of course, would be to build a pipeline to cross the U.S.-Canada border and then back into the United States; but under the gentleman's amendment, this wouldn't be possible. I might add, we all know how the gentleman feels about pipelines in general. Another method would be to convert gas to LNG and ship it to the United States. I know the gentleman is well aware of this process because his home State gets about 40 percent of its natural gas from countries like Yemen, Egypt, or Trinidad. However, should Alaska choose to convert to LNG and try to ship it to California, this amendment would stop them from considering that because the import terminal in southern California is in Mexico, where they get their natural gas from Gazprom, which is in Russia. The transportation of natural gas across Alaska is a tremendous challenge.…”