Sherwood Boehlert Quotations

For the second straight year, craft beer is the fastest growing segment of the U.S. alcoholic beverage industry. In 2005, craft beer experienced a 9 percent increase in volume, nearly triple that of the growth experienced in the wine and spirits industry.

Mr. Speaker, the time for an increase in the minimum wage has not just arrived; it is long overdue.

Craft brewers are committed to promoting the safe and moderate consumption of their beverage, and work closely with their communities to prevent underage drinking and alcohol abuse.

But our energy woes are in many ways the result of classic market failures that can only be addressed through collective action, and government is the vehicle for collective action in a democracy.

Let me start by emphasizing that I am open to efforts to expedite environmental procedures for true emergencies or in other clear cases where current laws are needlessly burdensome.

About 60 percent of the oil consumed daily by Americans is used for transportation, and about 45 percent is used for passenger cars and light trucks.

So we in Congress have a very clear choice. We can take largely symbolic action and sit back and fiddle while Americans burn more gasoline. Or we can pass concrete, effective legislation that will save consumers money while significantly reducing U.S. oil consumption.

Well, for starters, we have to do more to create demand for new technologies that can reduce our dependence on foreign oil and environmental degradation.

Having yet another vote on refinery legislation that uses high oil prices as an excuse to weaken environmental protections and to give more legislative gifts to the oil industry is misguided in the extreme.

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.

And autos are not the only product that could be made more energy efficient if we just put in place sensible requirements. This is also true of many appliances and even of entire buildings.

I don't see a groundswell of people willing to raise gas taxes right now. That leaves fuel economy standards as the only effective tool we have as a nation to make a dent in our dangerous and ever growing consumption of oil.

So the only way we're going to improve fuel economy or appliance efficiency swiftly and to the maximum extent practicable is if the government requires it.

The way things are going, we are not too far from the day when it will take an hour's labor just to pay for the gasoline to get to the job.

Our oil problems are only going to get worse. Our trade balance is only going to get worse. So we have to slow the growth of U.S. oil consumption, particularly imported oil consumption.

The national minimum wage has not been increased in 9 years. By year's end, 21 States across America will have a minimum wage exceeding the Federal minimum wage.

What we couldn't accept was the new mandatory spending under this bill, which would open the federal purse to developers, ... Reforming the law should not be a euphemism for gutting the law, and that's exactly what the bill would do.

Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue should follow the example of Ten Downing Street, and focus national attention on this.

Perhaps worst of all, the bill still does virtually nothing to limit the nation's growing demand for oil: the core cause of price spikes.

I am extremely uneasy about this budget. This budget is bad for space science, worse for Earth science and possibly worse for aeronautics.

We are extremely pleased that the President has nominated Mike Griffin to be NASA Administrator ... Dr. Griffin has long been a resource to the Science Committee, both as a public witness and in providing private counsel. He has broad expertise, knows NASA inside and out, and is an imaginative and creative thinker and leader. He is also known for his candor and directness. We look very forward to working with Dr. Griffin at this critical time for NASA.

Judd Road was very important in going forward with Consumer Square and The Orchard,

Our voice is being listened to now more than it has in the past.

NASA cannot use aeronautics and science as a piggy bank to fund human space flight.

NASA cannot carry out all the tasks currently on its plate without significantly more money.

We need to reduce or at least limit U.S. demand for oil as quickly as possible, and we need to develop new technologies that can further help address our addiction to oil in the future.

We need to put together a full picture of the actual risks and costs of the space shuttle before deciding whether and how the program should be run.

Without a doubt, the biggest beneficiaries of this bill will be the American consumers. They are sick and tired of paying skyrocketing prices for gasoline. They want relief,

To learn nothing and do nothing would be delinquent,

The question Congress and the administration will still have to grapple with most is not the nature or desirability of the exploration architecture, but rather its timing,

The decisions we make in the next few months will affect the future of the space program for decades to come, ... They need to be made deliberately. That's the proper way to honor the memories of the Columbia crew.

There is a clear message from the election results all over the country, ... The American people, by and large as a body politic, are looking for a more centrist approach.

There is simply not enough money in NASA's budget to carry out all the tasks it's undertaking on the current schedule.

The National Academy of Sciences has made clear that mileage can be increased significantly with current technologies and without reducing safety.

Your husband was a hometown hero, ... And all the people identified with this island are hometown heroes for the good work they've been doing that will benefit everyone. This is what makes us one of the greatest areas in the country.

You're denying resources to programs that serve the middle class and neediest of the needy on the eve of a projected vote to provide tax benefits and breaks to the most advantaged in our society.

The U.S. uses most of its oil for transportation. We can limit U.S. demand for oil by requiring automakers to use the technology that already exists to improve fuel economy - technology that the automakers refuse to bring into the market despite societal demand.

This budget is bad for space science, worse for earth science, perhaps worse still for aeronautics. It basically cuts or de-emphasizes every forward looking, truly futuristic program of the agency to fund operational and development programs to enable us to do what we are already doing or have done before.

This bill, more so than any provision in the recently-enacted energy bill, will lessen that dependence,

This bill has more momentum than ever before -- even after the president's change of heart on CO2.

A lot of people are impatient, understandably, ... And a lot of people want action as quickly as possible.

The bill weakens state and federal environmental standards ... and gives a break to wealthy oil companies while doing little or nothing to affect oil prices,

take advantage of the technology we already have.

The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy just this week recommended a partial transfer, and the president's commission on space exploration, headed by former Air Force Secretary Pete Aldridge, is also reportedly considering such an idea, ... I'm skeptical of such moves for a number of reasons, but, in any event, such a move wouldn't necessarily free up funds for space exploration. The assumption behind such recommendations is always that the money should be transferred along with the program, so NASA would actually have less of a 'piggy bank' for exploration after such a transfer occurred.

If you bring creative professors together with dedicated students in a state-of-the-art facility, the possibilities are infinite,

In such a budget, should NASA receive almost a 6 percent increase? Is it the highest domestic spending priority? I don't think so, and I doubt my colleagues will either,

For the life of me, I can't understand why there wasn't a greater response sooner, ... We knew three or four days in advance that this was going to be a horrendous weather event; why didn't more action take place in advance?

The U.S. uses most of its oil for transportation. We can limit U.S. demand for oil by requiring automakers to use the technology that already exists to improve fuel economy - technology that the automakers refuse to bring into the market despite societal demand.

We need to reduce or at least limit U.S. demand for oil as quickly as possible, and we need to develop new technologies that can further help address our addiction to oil in the future.