Date: 2006-05-03
Speaker: SAM JOHNSON (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. you know. talking about helping our companies. the energy bill that my opponent referred to was equally divided among oil. among chemical. among hydrogen. among all those renewabletype fuels so that we could bring this Nation into selfsufficiency. Todays Democrat motion to instruct conferees is just as bad as it was last week when it failed by a vote of 190232. Yes. gas prices are high. and I cant name anyone I know who is happy about having to pay $3 a gallon for fuel. But this motion is the wrong policy on any number of fronts. It is bad energy policy. It is bad economic policy. and it is bad tax policy. The Democrats just do not want to understand the law of supply and demand. When supply is low and demand continues to rise. the price goes up. We are seeing continuing demand for gasoline both here in the United States and around the world. The demand for gasoline is growing leaps and bounds in developing economies such as China and India. We are not the only consumers of gasoline in the world. and we are sure not the ones in charge of supply. In the world. crude markets. tha price of oil is bumping along at record prices. The worldwide demand for oil is chasing up the price of the basic.commodity. This basic law of supply and demand is something that the Democrats think Congress can repeal. but they are sadly mistaken. This motion to instruct conferees is a reflection of this mistake. The law of supply and demand for gas also has another component that my friends just want to complain about. that is on the supply of refined oil in the form of gasoline. They talk out of both sides of their mouth on the issue of price because they have refused to allow new refineries to be built since 1976. There are 148 refineries in America today. down from 324 in 1981. And last year. during the hurricane season. we saw that refining capacity damaged. Thigcreates a choke point in supply regardless of the rising cost of crude. The ability to refine oil is itself a problem and a demand problem. We have a problem with refineries running close to ca-. pacity and some of them shut down due to damage and basic maintenance. Li 1900 At this point in the year. refineries also have to start blending niche fuels due to clean air requirements. I support clean air. We all do. We like to breathe clean air. My grandchildren like to breathe clean air. But the blending of special fuels for 17 particular marketh hampers the ability of refineries to keep running at capacity as they switch from one fuel to another. The pipelines that move fuel to terminals. the trucks that run from terminals to stations are not carrying generic fuel. They have to move boutique fuels. All of that adds costs and. more importantly. causes disruptions in supply so we end up seeing some gas stations without any fuel at all. Yet our Democrat friends just want to complain about some big conspiracy and own up to no responsibility for creating these supply problems that then drive the price to $3 a gallon. It is easier to send out press releases that claim they are attacking Big Oil than it is to take a semester of Economics 101. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.