Maria Cantwell: “While I think my colleagues have done a good job of outlining some of the most egregious parts of this legislation…”

“While I think my colleagues have done a good job of outlining some of the most egregious parts of this legislation, because it certainly is shocking legislation, the point I would like to make in the next few minutes is about how we got to this process and how America is very disappointed in what we have come up with as far as a conference report. It should be no surprise to people here when they find out that this bill has basically been drafted in secret without a bipartisan effort, without a lot of daylight shown on the details of the legislation until just this weekend. Now many people are curiously reading through various aspects of the legislation trying to understand all the giveaways, all the subsidies, and whether it could possibly mesh into any kind of comprehensive energy policy. I think the bill is a disaster as it relates to moving us off our foreign dependence and coming up with a concrete energy policy.”