The removal of Arctic and coastal drilling by no means implies this bill is good for America. The House passed a bill loaded down with draconian cuts to programs for the most vulnerable in our country.

Today the Senate gave the oil industry and (Sen.) Stevens the lump of coal they deserved.

This guy is a bully. Bullies are people who say, 'If you don't do what I want, I'll hurt you,' or, 'If you don't do what I want, I'm going to take all my marbles and go home.' That's exactly who Ted Stevens is.

We can reduce the effect of future disruptions by reducing our dependence on oil, not putting up more rigs and drilling our special places. The fact is, we cannot drill our way to oil independence.

We have some reluctance because we believe the details are terribly important. We believe quite clearly this plan is not the final solution, because it still does rely very heavily on people driving their cars, and there are still going to be too many industrial facilities in the park.

When environmentalists say the human (impact) is just too large, people will suspect we are saying the human footprint is just too dark.