Pastoral Resources

First, we should not be opening our coasts, all of our coasts, to oil drilling when we have not taken the first step, not the first step, to conserve oil.

Drilling in the refuge will not solve America's energy problem. The Energy Department's own figures show that drilling would not change gas prices by more than a penny a gallon, and this would be 20 years from now.

I will continue to work in Washington to oppose any efforts to expand drilling off our Coasts and to challenge my colleagues to adopt responsible energy policies.

In reality drilling is the slowest, dirtiest, and most expensive way to solve our energy crisis.

There is no doubt that now, more than ever, we must work to end our dependence on foreign oil sources. But we cannot do so by ignoring the wishes of the coastal communities that oppose drilling.

Today 80 percent of all the oil that comes out of the Gulf is from 1,000 feet or more and today almost a third of it is more than 5,000 feet below the surface. What hasn't happened is the safety and the ability to respond to a negative event such as this blowout, has been far outrun by the technology of drilling itself. We need to close that gap.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

If we don't act, drilling will be allowed only 3 miles off Florida's east coast beaches.

But for the children of the poorest people we're stripping the curriculum, removing the arts and music, and drilling the children into useful labor. We're not valuing a child for the time in which she actually is a child.

Drilling in ANWR fails to lower energy prices today and sets no long term energy strategy for tomorrow.

I've often argued that oil and gas exploration is a state's rights issue. It is abundantly clear that the State of Florida does not want drilling to negatively affect its beaches and shores.

The fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all.

I cannot in good conscience vote for final passage of legislation that would pave the way to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Simply put, drilling in ANWR would be expensive, environmentally devastating, and would do very little to fix our energy crisis or to bring down the price of oil and gasoline.

Writing the story of your own life is a bit like drilling your own teeth.

We should start by allowing drilling in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge. It can provide billions of barrels of recoverable oil and trillions of cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.