Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your work as chairman of the Western Caucus. The western States are roughly the 17 western States and three island governments, but they also include Members from States who have very similar problems, but who happen to be east of the Mississippi, such as some of the southern States along the Gulf of Mexico that have enormous energy reserves and face some of the same regulatory burdens. Also, people from coal-producing States that are east of the Mississippi, such as West Virginia, where a heavy attack on coal has jeopardized jobs and the future of coal in this country as a contributor to our energy future. As we see from the chart next to me and from what Congressman Pearce has previously told us, even though energy production is up, oil and gas production is up on private land. This is the bar to my far right. Over closer to me to the left, it shows that energy production, oil and gas production from Federal lands has declined--11 percent in the case of oil and 6 percent in the case of natural gas. Now, why is this affecting gas prices? Why does President Obama say that drilling more now on Federal land will not affect oil prices now or the price of gas at the pump? Well, there's two ways to look at that. One is he's correct that it's not going to affect the price of gasoline today or tomorrow.…”