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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I don't see this planet being... they're talking about how they're turning around the environmental problems here, but I think it's already too late.

There are nuclear weapons in China, Iran, Korea and Pakistan. It wouldn't take much to send a couple of warheads off on this planet somewhere that would cause a lot of environmental damage, then if you have got someone who wants to retaliate you have real problems.

Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.

There are a tremendous amount of environmental issues that are on the table.

I wanted to help raise awareness, so I created an environmental foundation called Just Within Reach.

Environmental quality was drastically improved while economic activity grew by the simple expedient of removing lead from gasoline - which prevented it from entering the environment.

The position I took at the time was that we hadn't really examined any of the potential environmental consequences of introducing genetically modified organisms.

But my point is that you design something in the end that precludes any unhealthy trading practices that are not going to serve your environmental or your economic objectives but now is not the time to do it.

Pushing production out of America to nations without our environmental standards increases global environmental risks.

This Bush administration has a growing credibility gap, maybe even a credibility chasm, on environmental policy. The President has lost the trust of the American people when it comes to the environment.

I assume we will have figured out a way to efficiently utilize solar energy and tied that to an efficient way to use nuclear energy in such a way that it doesn't pose a serious environmental issue.

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.

One of the responsibilities faced by the Environmental Genome Project is to provide the science base upon which society can make better informed risk management decisions.

Complexity is one of the great problems in environmental design.

I reflect back 35 years ago, and look how far we have come in America with our environmental policy to improve the conditions of our air and water, and we have had some real successes.

There should be more attention paid to scientific research in the ecology area, and I think that such attention to proper environmental concerns would make the public feel much better about it.

The most meaningful engine of change, powerful enough to confront corporate power, may be not so much environmental quality, as the economic development and growth associated with the effort to improve it.

And I know that the younger generation is doing things that are so ingenious. And for them it's not a matter of a political belief or an environmental stance. It's really just common sense.

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.

Of the 55 refineries closed in America in the last 10 years, they were all closed for economic reasons, mostly oil company mergers. Not a single one was closed for environmental purposes or objections.

American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.

My lens of choice was always the 35 mm. It was more environmental. You can't come in closer with the 35 mm.

My efforts in Congress are guided by the belief that environmental preservation and restoration are a critical part of the legacy we leave to future generations.

I've always been a strong supporter of environmental protection and initiatives in that area. But I'm willing to set priorities. If we have to make reductions in one place, we'll have to-in order to increase another place, I'm willing to do that.

I am on the board of corporations who contribute both to environmental problems and their solutions. And I am on the NGO side: the Earth Council and other organizations.

We have fought for social justice. We have fought for economic justice. We have fought for environmental justice. We have fought for criminal justice. Now we must add a new fight - the fight for electoral justice.

The Endangered Species Act is the strongest and most effective tool we have to repair the environmental harm that is causing a species to decline.

I tell my environmental friends that they have won. Every issue we look at from an energy perspective is now also looked at from an environmental perspective.

The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature. We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters... and to convince them to leave their guns on the wall is going to be very difficult.

There is no question that photography has played a major role in the environmental movement.