Date: 2004-06-17
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Speaker. to listen to the other side. you would think that the margin between chaos and a healthy economy is 7 percent in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The matter is the gentleman from Vermont has a very rational amendment. You .have a time when families are being stretched by high oil prices. much of it I guess because of the war in Iraq. at a time when people when we are trying to get the economy moving again. we are trying to hire people. we have industries under incredible pressure because of high energy prices. the transportation industry and the trucking industry and the airline industry. It has been estimated that of the middle class tax cuts. half of it has been taken back in higher energy prices. The gentleman from Vermont says just take the artificial customer out of the marketplace. which is the Government of the United States. We have filled about 93 percent of the SPRO. We are going to pause right now because there is turmoil in these markets and we are going to give the American economy and American families a break. a breather from $2.50. $2.70 gasoline that we are paying in the San Francisco Bay area. I represent five major oil refineries. Yes. they are working to capacity. But the fact of the matter is. many economists have suggested that if this amendment would pass. people would get a reduction of 10. 15. or 20 cents. Maybe that is not a lot to Members of Congress. but it is an awful lot to people who are driving long distances in northern California to commute to work. The cost of going to work has increased dramatically for families in this country. This amendment says this is just one of the few things that we can do. There is a lot of discussion that somehow if we had the energy policy that the Republicans were pushing last year and could not get passed.. although they controlled the Senate. they controlled the House. they controlled the White House. they could not get it passed. Why could they not get it passed? Because when the day came to pass it finally at the end of the session in the Senate. they realized it was not an energy policy. It was a tax giveaway for a lot of old. tired ideas about the petroleum economy of the past and had very little about the future. Then they decided. and the majority leader here decided. he was going to protect MTBE. the polluters that are poisoning the wells of small communities all over the country. all over the country. He has decided that those companies are going to be protected from lawsuits from. communities that are trying to clean up and recover their domestic drinking water supply. that that was part of the energy bill. Had that not happened. you would have had an energy bill last year. but you thought the MTBE polluters were more important than an energy policy. It is also interesting when the Senate took a second look at it. they said these $35 billion in tax bills that are paid for by the deficit. we cannot afford it. and they started ripping them out. and they reduced it to 14 billion. And now there is a lot of people on the other side that are upset because they lost their tax cuts in that legislation. It was never about energy. It was about paying old debts to people that were very supportive in the campaign and had some old. tired ideas that they should not have to pay royalties and they should not have to pay taxes on their earnings in the energy industry. It was not going to produce any new. oil. It was not going to produce any new energy. Yes. we are dependent on foreign oil. and we will continue to be dependent on foreign oil for as far as we can see because we cannot produce our way out of that problem. We simply cannot produce our way out either by natural gas or by oil or even by coal for the needs that we have for that energy. Now we can change our usage. We can engage in conservation renewables. but that is not what that energy bill was about. and that energy bill did not pass. So we have an option here. to do the one thing that we can do and we can do it immediately. and it is under our control and that is to simply stop filling the SPR. go back to the March levels when these energy prices started running up. and give the American people and businesses a break. and let them recover and to assimilate these costs. Yes. we would love it that it would drop by 25 cents. but if it only drops 12 cents or 10 cents or 15 cents. that is important. It is certainly important to the business in this country and to the families we have kept our faith with the idea of filling the SPR because we are at the 93 percent level. So I would urge that people would consider supporting this amendment. I think it is important for our constituents. it is important for their families.. it is important for their budgets. We are talking about people in the middle class who are being squeezed. This is not the only place. It is not only high energy costs. They have seeii their deductibles and copaynients on health care go up. They have seen their cable rates go up. their utility rates go up. the cost of their kids college education. This middle class is being squeezed. We can provide some relief -here with the Sanders amendment and lower the energy costs to these families in America. and we ought do it.