Date: 2008-04-30
Speaker: DAVID DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Tennessee

And youre exactly right. I think when Speaker PELOSI took over. oil. I think. was $58 a barrel according to your chart. Now its $115 a barrel. And I can bet by tomorrow if we use that same chart. that $115 will be gone and youll have to change that chart again. I do thank you for your leadership in this issue. You know. weve been busy in this Congress. So far in the 110th Congress weve named 78 post offices. Federal buildings or roads. Weve also passed legislation honoring LSU for their NCAA Football Championship. and the Red Sox for their World Series sweep over Colorado. and even commemorated the Detroit Tigers for winning the American League pennant. Granted. post offices need names and championship teams need to be honored. but when I go back to the First District of Tennessee. people dont ask if Im working on these types of things. They ask. DAVID. how am I going to fill up my pickup truck if the gas prices dont come down? What we havent done is pass a sensible energy policy that will break our dependence on foreign oil. And I dont know about you. and I think you will agree with me. it scares me that were dependent on foreign nations for our energy needs. dependent on people that. hate us and hate our freedoms and. quite frankly. hate our religion. It is a dangerous precedent that we set when we become more and more and more dependent every day. Its time to get our priorities straight and help the citizens. families and small businesses in each of our districts across America. There is no excuse for this when families in my district are struggling to fill up their vehicles just to go to work. I can remember a time 10 or 12 years ago. before I came to Washington. when there was a lot of talk about one party would steal milk from babies. or have senior adults eating dog food. Well. I can tell you. this worries me when I have families in east Tennessee that are to the point that they have to decide. do they buy food thats going up. or do they buy energy to go to work? This worries me. There is no excuse for small businesses in my district to be forced into bankruptcy because they cant operate under high energy prices that theyre facing. There is no .excuse when families in my district have to choose between driving to work each day or putting food on their table or sending their kids off to college. There is no excuse. Energy is the foundation and lifeblood of the American economy. creating the conditions that help us support goodpaying jobs in the United States and allowing our industrial base to compete with the rest of the world. Gasoline prices have increased more than $1.23 per gallon since the majority party took control of this House last year. increasing from a nationwide average of $2.33 per gallon on the very first day of the 110th Congress to now $3.55 per gallon. And again. that will probably change by tomorrow. and its changing every day. What we need is no more excuses. We need an energy policy that allows us to use American energy. We need to drill for oil in ANWR and off the Intercontinental Shelf. We need to use our abundant coal supplies through the use of clean coal technology. One of the first things I did when I was elected to Congress is went to the Pentagon and spoke with the Secretary of the Air Force. And one of their top priorities is to use American coal. American energy. and take that coal and turn it into a fuel that we can actually fly our jets with. Thats not too much to ask. And we think. boy that sounds a little out there. a little futuristic. Well. let me tell you how futuristic it is. The Germans ran their war machines in World War II by changing lumps of coal into gas. In World War H. This is not futuristic. some pieinthesky issue. this is something that was done in World War II. it can be done now. fl 2045 And we need to create safe nuclear power plants and we need to build refineries. And we need to expand our green energy initiatives like switchgrass. The University of Tennessee has a wonderful program looking at that possibility. Wind power. solar power. hydroelectric power. I think we have to look at green energy. but I think weve got our heads in the sand if we feel like we can run the American economy off green energy. I think we have to have an energy plan. And an energy plan. an energy policy. combines all of these things together. Its a supplyanddernand issue. Its that simple. If you have a lot of something and a few people want it. the price will come down. This is basic economics that you learn in high school. If you have a small amount of a product and a lot of people want it. the price will go up. We have a limited supply. And its not just Americans now that want the supply. China wants the supply. India wants the supply. We live in a global marketplace. There are people in this Congress that believe you can tax and regulate yourself into prbsperity: It never has happened. It wont happen today. and it will not happen in the future. If theres anybody that serves in this House that believes that you can put a tax on a business and that tax wont be passed on to the consumer. they havent taken economics. They will pass that cost directly on to the pump. Now we see that gas prices have gone from $2.33 a gallon. when the majority party took over. to $3.65. according to your chart today. Can you imagine if we put more taxes on top of that. what thats going to do? Thats going to put a higher burden on the American consumer. on the American family. There are families back in East Tennessee that sit around their kitchen table trying to decide how theyre going to put a budget together. and its putting a real dampening spirit on them when they have to try to spend $50 or $60 to fill up their vehicle. Mr. Speaker. some people here in Washington believe the best way to reduce our gasoline price is just to tax the oil companies that are providing our energy supply. You cant tax and regulate yourself out of an energy crisis. You cant tax Joes or Johns or Chriss pickup truck full of gasoline. It just doesnt make any sense. The American middle class deserves better. They deserve an energy policy that is dependent on American energy. not foreign energy. Thats why 2 weeks ago. I signed onto a piece of legislation thats carried from my good friend from Texas. MAC THORNBERRY. called the "No More Excuses Energy Act." "No More Excuses." Weve talked about energy for years. before I ever came here. As I was running for office in the last election. I heard the majority party say if youll just let us take power. were going to lower your energy costs. Well. I certainly dont see it in your charts today.