waiting for the house to come in for general speeches then they come back at noon for legislative work on a number of bills including one that bans the i r s from using private contractors to collect back taxes senates and today as well working on surface transportation issues president bush today will greet pope benedict when he arrives in washington actually it andrews air force base later this afternoon we'll cover that on c span three at about four p m eastern also today on capitol hill house and senate conferees continue working on the farm bill c q reports that lawmakers have until april eighteenth that's this friday to finish work on the measure when a short term extension of current law expires the article reports of conferees cannot agree by wednesday lawmakers said they may have no choice but to extend current law for at least a year or write a bill that fits within their existing budget the reporting there of congressional quarterly lots of political news online for you have capit the house will be in order pursuant to the order of the half of january fourth two thousand and seven the chair will now recognize members from lists of minute by the majority minority leaders for morning hour debate the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from north carolina mrs fox for five minutes thank you madam speaker i'm here to talk about the palosi premium once i nightmare scenario for dollar gasoline may soon become a harsh reality on speaker pelosi is watch today drivers are paying a dollar more per gallon at the pump than when the speaker took office this palosi premium is hitting working families sort of that when they are confronting soaring cost of living a slowing economy and a housing crunch middle class relief not more broken promises were operating under a set of broken promises speaker pelosi promised the american people a common sense plan to lower gasoline prices but house democrats have not only failed to offer any meaningful solutions they put forward policies that will have precisely the opposite effect we cannot tax middle class families and truckers tanks from empty to full speaker nancy pelosi for eighteen of six democrats have a plan to lower gas price says speaker nancy pelosi on four twenty four zero six democrats have a common sense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices speaker pelosi aug fourth two thousand and seven democrat excuse me democrats have voted though four times to raise taxes and one hundred tenth congress january eighteenth august for december six zero seven feb twenty seventh eight the palosi premium continues since democrats took control of congress gasoline prices have skyrocketed by more than one dollar per gallon forcing working families to pay a palosi bring them at the pump with reports indicating gasoline prices are beginning to hit four dollars per gallon the palosi premium couldn't come at a worse time for middle class families are already being squeezed by the s cost of living the price we pay for both gasoline and oil is fundamentally an issue of supply and demand but while u s oil consumption is largely remained the same over the past few years world oil consumption has spiraled to eighty four million barrels a day nearly twenty five percent from sixty eight million barrels a decade ago this results in tremendous increase in prices as you are fully aware gas prices have increased by one dollar and five cents per gallon since nancy pelosi took control of congress on january fourth two thousand and seven this represents an increase of nearly forty five percent at the same time that world oil consumption has skyrocketed access to world energy struggle supplies has struggled to keep pace no where is this trend been worse than in the united states who stands today as the only industrialized nation in the world that refuses to tap eighty five percent of our available deep sea energy reserves while the us has held its consumption steady more needs to be done to build a bridge from where we are today to the renewable and alternative energy future and which we all want to live in act under the democrats in congress we've gone from fifty percent of our oil impact ports coming from o to fifty seven percent coming from opec in one year but before we achieve those things in the future we'll have to figure out a way to live work and prosper in the present for too many democrats growing our economy today tomorrow or next month isn't much of a priority in fact the majority has voted for separate times to raise energy taxes in the hundred tenth congress but even if we had access to all the oil in the world we would need places to turn that on oil into gasoline regrettably the us has built a new refinery for thirty in thirty two years and in fact to successfully shut down several at that time the results are stunning today the us has only one hundred forty nine operable or oil refineries compared to three hundred twenty one in one thousand nine hundred one that means roughly double the recognizes the gentleman from georgia mr westmoreland five minutes thank you mr speaker i want to read from you want to read to you mr speaker a memo from the democratic congressional campaign committee that was sent out in two thousand and six and this was sent out to the democratic candidates and it was attained by the chicago tribune demonstrates your dedication to firing for middle class families bach clearly explaining how you will work to keep down the price of gas if elected to congress hold in the vent at a gas station or other logical locations where you will call for a real commitment to  prices in play which is a member of congress you will fight for families in your district not all in gas executives for which this republican congress has fallen so hard now those are some pretty interesting comments coming from the d triple c oh may the tenth two thousand and six baron hill said this and congress out support measures that will strengthen our economy and lower gas prices instead of rewarding big oil companies and special interest lobbies mr speaker once mr hill got elected to congress and voted to raise taxes on the american energy producers he was somehow shocked when higher taxes higher taxes resulted in higher gas prices march twelfth two thousand and seven in a press release mr hill said gasoline prices have increased significantly over the past few weeks with little explanation for higher prices the explanation for higher prices is because of higher taxes mr joe donnelly in a july the third two thousand and six interview i will be an independent voice who will represent the people of the second not the wealthy all in pharmaceutical companies that have bought our congress center running our country we need leaders who will stand for good jobs a better prescription drug plan for our seniors and a real energy p that will work to drive down scott rocketing gas prices mr donnelly i'm sure you can stitch the other people in this country are waiting for that energy to go forth and some results april twenty sixth two thousand and six press release by mr ed markey congress once again has an opportunity to help the american people through this financial pinch you keep in mind the republicans are in charge in the democrats were trying to win votes mr speaker but buying norton legislation like the windfall profits and consumer assistance act congress says known once again that it would rather put the needs of the special interests ahead of the needs of the american people there's a calls to this kind of corruption in washington and it's a seventy five dollars a barrel and climbing price of oil mr markey the price today is a hundred thirteen dollars a barrel and you have not reintroduced your windfall profits and consumer assistance act to congress but what have we done ok what we have done the chairman of energy and commerce has got a solution raise gasoline tax by fifty cents a gallon i don't think that's what the american people had in mind july the twenty sixth two thousand and six in a town hall meeting jim klavern who is now the majority will says this thomas from owns burke asks what are you doing about gas prices they're ridiculously high mr claiborne klavern answered house democrats have a plan to help  ross curb rising gas prices we have outlined our plan in a proposal called energizing america i join my fellow democrats in believing that drilling for all is not a long term solution to our nation's interview crisis what is it by and bicycles the palosi plan thirty baht sickles for thirty thousand dollars raise in taxes fifty cents a gallon by the chairman of energy and commerce proposal five cents a gallon by the chairman of transportation a dollar a barrel all from the chairman of transportation those are some great ideas april the twenty seventh two thousand and six when gas was two dollars in ninety one cents a gallon and now remind you that is three forty four today a letter to speaker hastert eighty eight democratic members of congress i said this just this week the price for all increased over seventy dollars a barrel don't we yearn for those days of seventy dollars a barrel minus one hundred thirteen dollars today we believe congress has an obligation to determine the underlying causes behind these got rocking prices congress has an obligation to take action on behalf of the consumer where is the action schelm is time as all of our no b  the grand all party is that again five hundred billion dollars in profits to the oil industry sent george bush the oil man and dick cheney the oil man took office remember what they told us they could deal with the industry that talks the prices then they could deal with opec that talk the prices down opec is violating international law the president won't file a complaint in the world trade organization for their illegal constrain of production which is driving up the price president refuses to take any action against his friends in the opec consortium or cartel now big oil companies forty billion dollars in profits for one exxon mobil last year their generous campaign contributors the g o p grand ol party is doing very well but now they're crying crocodile tears here on the floor and saying they really care about consumers after the bush cheney energy bill which gave subsidies to exxon mobil who made forty billion dollars last year after the republicans refused last year to strip those subsidies from the oil companies they complain about the high price to consumers they're born again consumer advocates that's great i've been a consumer given a long time i have consistently supported a windfall profits tax i've also consistently said we've got to go after the opec cartel and file complaints and we need new technologies and we need new fuels and we need conservation none of those things were in the bush cheney energy bill written behind closed doors by big oil and the g o p the grand oil party but now there presumptive political nominee mr mccain has come up with a great idea let's suspend the gas tax now let's see in one thousand nine hundred three the gas tax was eighteen point three cents a gallon and gas was a dollar five a gallon today in my district gas is three dollars and fifty cents a gallon and guess what the federal gas tax is still eighteen point three cents a gallon that money is a tax it's a tax going to big oil and opec and the hedge fund speculators are driving up the price of oil that's the tax the american consumers are playing they won't take on wall street they hedge fund speculators they won't take on opec and they sure as heck are going to take on their friends and big oil well we're willing to do that and suspending the gas tax now i would ask the presumptive republican nominee mr mccain if we suspend the gas tax how many highway projects and bridge projects are you going to cancel how many thousand people are you going to put out of work we already have a deficit in the trust fund if you want to g relief to an american consumers target the real culprits it's not the gas tax has been flat for the last fifteen years it's big oil and it's the opec companies and the hedge fund speculators on wall street let's go after him thank you mr speaker i arrested a to tell you something about my district i go home every single waking in because i take the word representative very seriously i go home and speak with people living and working in my district because they are the ones who sent me to washington to express their ideas and their concerns to common themes come up from the people in northeast tennessee hope and change we hear a lot about those words today they hope this time time in the future they won't have to spend over fifty dollars to fill up their pickup truck they won't change a change that will take them from dependence on foreign oil to clean safe and available american energy energy is the foundation and lifeblood of the american economy creating the conditions they help us support good buying jobs here in the united states and all our industrial base to compete with the rest of the world we all know that the middle class families are feeling significant pain at the pump but the american family isn't the only place where this train was spiking fuel prices can be failed according to recent news reports local schools law enforcement agencies and other community services are paying the press for record how fuel crossed unfortunately democrats in the house who are now in charge have been consistent in offering so called energy legislation that wakings our ability to compete emerging titans such as china india and russia and the united states of today we are sixty three percent dependent on foreign sources of energy sixty three percent and that percentage is growing every year gasoline prices have increased more than one dollar per gallon since a majority party under speaker pelosi took control of the house last year increasing from a nationwide average of two dollars and thirty three cents per gallon on the first day of the hundred tenth congress to now three dollars and thirty four cents a gallon when speaker pelosi took office and had a plan to fix the energy cost all was selling for fifty six dollars a barrel now it's selling for one hundred thirteen dollars a barrel people are looking for hope and change figures from the energy information administration indicate the u s reliance on the organization of petroleum exporting countries commonly known as opec grew from fifty point nine percent of our total crude imports in two thousand and six to fifty seven point six percent in two thousand and seven not only have the majority party failed and our reliance on middle eastern dole for our essential energy needs they've actually helped grow our dependence to historic and dangerous levels we need to make sure that we're not dependent on our energy needs from people that hate us and hate our freedoms all because of their refusal to allow responsible energy production here at home we cannot tax and regulate our way out of an energy crisis the american people want an energy polic comprehensive and addresses our needs for wind water solar safe nuclear clean coal technology and most importantly the use of american oil the american middle class deserve better that is serve an energy policy that is dependent on american energy not foreign energy and with that i yield back here recognizes the gentleman from georgia mr price for five minutes today is april fifteenth it's a momentous day for americans as all americans know it's tax day and it's a day that americans tend to focus a little more of their attention on the amount of money that they send to washington and it's a lot of money it's a lot of money mr speaker and most folks that i talked to say that would be ok a lot of them that would be ok if they were getting good things for their money if they were seeing progress happen here in washington but that's just not the case i like most of my colleagues go home every week and went home last weekend and what i hear from my constituents is what's happening where is the leadership in washington and speaker i believe there's a crisis in leadership in washington and here in this house of representatives whether it's supporting our troops the leadership here apparently is determined that they're going to use our military troops as pack mules to carry their special projects across the finish line which baker that's leadership lacking whether it's protecting our nation in the area of intelligence this leadership believes that our intelligence community doesn't need to have the tools necessary to tell what the bad guys are going to do before they do it mr speaker that's leadership lacking you heard a lot about gas prices this morning sixteen months ago when this leadership took charge the barrel of gasoline cost about fifty two fifty three dollars a barrel today it's about one hundred twelve hundred thirteen dollars a barrel mr speaker that's leadership lacking what's changed in washington since that time new leadership here in the house of representatives mr speaker that's not the kind of change that america voted for we need to work together in the area of energy we need to make certain that we as americans conserve more we need to make certain that we utilize american resources for americans is incredible resources in our land we can utilize those resources in environmentally sensitive and technologically sound ways to make certain that that we decrease our significantly by that raise food prices around the world because of the action of this leadership mr speaker that's leadership lacking or else is leadership lacking here in the house well mr speaker it's in helping our friends around the world we have a former president meeting with hamas terrorists where's the outcry from this leadership saying that that's not the correct thing to do for a former leader of our nation in the area of fair trade free trade last week this leadership decided that they were going to take one of our friends colombia and south america who have worked with us time and time again one of the glimmering the hopes for democracy in south america and what is this leadership do kick him in the teeth it's not just me saying that headlines all across the nation last week financial times a setback on trade in washington knoxville house democrats holding free trade hostage corpus christi c times congress should pass colombia trade deal charleston post courier politics trumps free trade orange county register trading on ignorance the plain dealer sidetracking columbia train hurts us businesses and workers the chicago tribune caving on colombia los angeles times poll o c plays politics the oklahoman pelosi is ploy colombia deal succumbs to politics the new york times time for the colombian free trade pact the denver post historical failure on colombia trade pact san francisco chronicle trade pandering new york post polo sees sellout seattle times the washington six tampering with trade the boston herald the pelosi doctor duck las vegas review journal trade talks national review free choice st louis post dispatch the politics of trade washington post drop dead columbia and the wall street journal poll o c s bad faith mr speaker there is a crisis of leadership here in washington here in this house of representatives the american people are paying attention the american people want positive change the american people want us to work together i call on the speaker of this house to bring forward the free trade deal with colombia to work together  prices to make certain that we pass a foreign intelligence surveillance act that allows our intelligence committee our community to act positively mr speaker i call on our leadership to be responsible share recognizes the gentleman from texas  thank you mr speaker it has been said by folks that washington d c is the only place in america that is surrounded by reality because people here especially in congress though those people say are in a disney world atmosphere and know how the world really is probably the best example is what's taken place throughout our country in the area of gasoline prices it is going up every day every day we come back to congress gasoline prices continue to rise and there's a constant problem here retail operators who run those mom and pop independent gasoline stations are saying they're not even making a profit off of gasoline they hope maybe they can make one cent a gallon the way they make profit is selling lottery tickets and donuts and it continually the country continues to see higher and higher gasoline prices you know it's a tremendous problem that we have to deal with we have to come out of this disney world atmosphere and solve the problem some say hey what's going to save us all is ethanol let's take all the farmland in america to let up that's grow some corn and let's make some of that unproven predictable ethanol to burn in our vehicles of course what we have done as a nation by encouraging and subsidizing this special interest group of ethanol we've raised the corn prices worldwide in fact they have tripled in the last two years and because corn prices are going up wheat prices are going up and there is a set in the last seventeen years food prices in the world are higher than they ever have been all because the united states has seen this vision that ethanol is going to save us all several years ago those who talked about ethanol that weren't for the concept of f and all said ethanol is not going to be profitable less gasoline ever gets to four dollars a gallon two years ago people in oil be profitable for this country in fact it's driving up pollution science magazine has stated after taking into account worldwide land use changes corn based ethanol will increase greenhouse gasses ninety three percent compared to gasoline over thirty year period in other words see the house was environmentally correct we want to make sure we don't have pollution nobody wants pollution nobody wants greenhouse gases but unproven subsidize ethanol is going to raise worldwide greenhouse greenhouse gases all because we're to wind up our farmland i have here a map of the united states now we're also finding out that where the mississippi river dumps into the gulf of mexico there's a dead zone and there's a dead zone there for various reasons but because we're plowing paul in the midwest this farmland and making corn which takes a lot of fertilizer that fertilizer is going down the mississippi river and the dead zone at the mouth of the mississippi river is getting bigger deadzone means exactly what it says nothing grows there and fish don't live there all because of this concept of ethanol so what are we doing about it well first thing congress did we're going to punish those all companies those american oil companies and we're going to tax them raise the taxes on these all companies and that's what congress did that's a simple economic fact you tax something you get less of it what does that mean that means if you tax something you're going to get less production you're going to let get less production of crude oil now we don't drill off our own shores we're the only nation in the world that doesn't take care of ourselves with their natural resources that we have been given the only place we drill offshore mr speaker is right here in this blue zone off the state of texas where i'm from off the state of louisiana and part of mississippi and alabama but you see and all these areas that are red on this map there is crude oil out there and the ocean but we don't drill out there even though crude oil is there and fact we're going to see some new platforms out in the gulf of mexico but they're not from america right here off the coast of florida right there at the tip there is an oil fine but we're not drilling there because we don't drill offshore so the next all regular sea out in the gulf of mexico will be built by the cubans and the chinese they're drilling in areas that we ought to be drilling in because it's been said in this house we can't drill offshore safely that is wrong i live in the area that was hit by katrina and hurricane rita and when those two hurricanes came through that area seven hundred offshore rigs were damaged or destroyed but yet we didn't hear one word about crude oil seepage from the gulf of mexico because it did not happen we have the greatest technology in the a gallon in some places even higher and the only people who seem to be happy about this are the sierra club and some of these other environmental groups and i've noticed that almost all of these environmental radicals are environmental extremists seem to come from very wealthy or very upper income families their latest times and perhaps they're not concerned when their policies destroy jobs and drive up the prices because so they're really hurting are the poor and the lower income and the working people in this country as the previous speaker mr poe pointed out to now some of these environmental groups their policies are causing a food prices to go up worldwide and leaving it in many countries leaving leading to starvation but once again the environmentalists are hurting the poor in the lower income in the working people so perhaps they don't care about a year and a half ago and one of my news letters i wrote this i said many experts are still predicting that the price of oil and thus the price of gas is going to go way back at environmental groups think this is good because it will force people to drive less however many people already have difficulty paying their gas bills especially people from small towns and rural areas where many have to drive long distances to go to work and i might add mr speaker that when you drive these gas prices up the some of these environmental groups want to four or five or six dollars a gallon so people will drive less you know put the final nails in the coffi of some of the small towns and rural areas the environmental groups ladley complain about urban sprawl and yet their policies are leading to more urban sprawl if they continue to drive up these the gas prices syndicated  charitable contributions to help them reduce u s output and that's something that i have thought for quite some time that these opec and countries and foreign energy producers i'm sure are contributing big money to these environmental groups and they receiving huge multimillion dollar contributions that they were refusing to disclose the source leonardo menge area of the italian energy company and that said there are proven all reserves now economically  technologically recoverable of one point one trillion barrels are thirty eight years of world usage in addition he says there are another two trillion barrels of recoverable reserves that will be obtainable as technology improves over the next few years also the international energy administration mr speaker estimates that current prices it will be economic to recover at least another two trillion barrels petroleum from tar sands and the oil sales just a couple of months ago and i wrote in another newsletter this gas prices are far too high and probably will go even higher they could be much lower but very powerful environmental groups want them to go higher so people will drive less that's we have put eighty five percent or six hundred eleven million acres of the added continental shelf off limits to oil production we will not allow drilling in ninety nine point nine percent of alaska all can be found and hip prohibited are restricted production in other parts of the u s we've also placed so many rules regulations and red tape on all types of domestic energy production that small and medium size businesses cannot compete or even enter these industries in the first place all this production could be done in environmentally safe ways some of these environmental groups help the big chair declares the house in recess until noon today