I think we've had eight years of neglect in this area under the Clinton Administration. The first step is to try to figure out what's causing these problems. In all of these areas, there are local factors you can point to. A breakdown in the Explorer pipeline this summer set off the gasoline price spike in Chicago. In California and Montana, deregulation of electric utilities has played a role.
Some people think there is price gouging going on.
Demand for energy has been growing with our expanding economy, and the supply of energy isn't keeping up. When demand starts bumping up against supply, that's when the cracks in the dike start forming. Even if you could build a new refinery, it would be almost impossible to build a new pipeline to get your product to market. Yet not one new power plant has been built to serve that area since 1982. We're going to talk today to a California executive who builds power plants about all of the problems they're having in that area.