Jay Rockefeller: “The Senator from Alaska has mentioned politics and that the steel industry evidently decided not to take advantage of…”

“The Senator from Alaska has mentioned politics and that the steel industry evidently decided not to take advantage of this multibillion-dollar offer that he and I talked about a number of times. I made it very clear to the Senator from Alaska during our conversations that whereas we do make pipe in the United States, we only have about 40 million tons of production left. And we don't make pipe of the size that was required for what the Senator was talking about at ANWR. That was the only reason. It was not politics. The Senator talks about letters from the White House. I don't know if the Senator disagrees, but the Senator talks about letters from the White House. There was a reason for that. That was that the White House was and still is--they have been e-mailing all over the country and getting other people to e-mail because they have opposed this from the very beginning. They have opposed legacy costs. They made it very clear. All of their Cabinet officers made it very clear. The President made it clear. That is the reason we are reduced to simply having 1 year of health benefits because we have no other alternative. I would have, as the Senator from Alaska knows, voted probably for ANWR if Senator Stevens, who was equally as angry as I was over what transpired, had been allowed to proceed. But it was simply bludgeoned. I hope that the Senator would agree with that.”