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Floor Statement: Gas Prices & Energy Policy

Gas Prices & Energy Policy - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 View video | Can't view the video?

Mr. President, I want to join my colleague from Alabama, my friend, Senator Sessions, in talking about the item that is at the top of everyone's agenda in America, and that is high gas prices.

But, first, I want to just say in 2006, much to my chagrin, the Democratic party won control of both houses of Congress. And I say that because it's more fun being in the majority than it is in the minority. But with becoming the majority and Senator Reid having become Majority Leader, he has the complete power to schedule legislative action on the floor of the United States Senate. And with that power comes responsibility. And I want to point out a few areas where I don't think we are living up to the responsibility that the American people would have us live up to.

There is good news. The good news is it took only 145 days for us to pass the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The problem was in those 145 days, our intelligence officials were hampered in their ability to listen in on conversations between terrorists. And thank goodness. At least so far as we know in the public domain, that has not resulted in other attacks against Americans, but the fact remained it took 145 days to get that done and it shouldn't have.

But it's been 602 days since the Colombia Free Trade Agreement has been pending. Now, why is that important? Well, in my state we sell about $2.3 billion worth of agricultural products and manufactured items to Colombia. Because we have not acted on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, they bear a tariff which makes those more expensive than they should be and correspondingly when Colombian items are sold to American markets because of another agreement, they don't have any tariff at all. So this is a burden -- a millstone around the neck of American manufacturers and farmers that is unnecessary and unfair. It has been 602 days without any pending action by the Senate or the Congress.

It has been 737 days since some nominee who's have been nominated to the Federal bench by President Bush have been waiting for a simple up or down vote on the Senate floor.

And to the point of my main remarkses it has been 813 days since Speaker Pelosi, when she was running, hoping that she would be Speaker in the 2006 election, her party would have the majority in the House and she would be elected Speaker, it has been 813 days since she said Democrats elected would have a commonsense plan to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump. Well, what happened since that time? 813 days. Well, gasoline at -- I'm sure seemed too high then in January 4, 2007, if it's $2.33 a gallon. And, you know, there are some people today who are pining for the good old days when gasoline was just $2.33 a gallon. The average price of a gallon of gas today is $4.11 a gallon. And no indication at all that it's going to go down. Every indication that it is going to go up.

And I wonder how long it's going to take the distinguished Majority Leader, Senator Reid, to recognize that the American people are hurting and the impact that these high energy prices are having on not only the lifestyle, not only the daily routine, but the ability of the American people to do the bare essentials they need to do in order to provide for their family and in order to get their children to school and in order for home to get to work. How long will this go on? Will it take $5 a gallon gas? Will it take $10 a gallon gas? How long will it take before the Majority Leader will allow us to vote on a balanced plan that will allow us to deal with this crisis?

Already, if you compound the price of energy, including gasoline, along with the other burdens that Congress has imposed on the American working family, things like Federal taxes, it takes 74 days of every year for people just to pay their Federal taxes. Another 39 days for them to pay their state and local taxes. Another 60 days to pay for housing, health care, about 50 days, food, 35 days and transportation 29 days. So even in things like food we've seen because of the price of energy, the diesel and gasoline that our farmers use in order to be able to bring their crops in and actually produce them, the price of food continues to go up. And a large part of that is because of the price of energy, the price of diesel, the price of gasoline. And the squeeze continues on the American people.

So what's the solution? Well, I've seen that the Majority Leader wants to bring a bill to the floor that deals with speculation. And, of course, that deals with the way that oil is bought on the futures trading platform, the commodity futures trading system which allows people to guess, basically, what the price of oil will be in the future and to bid at that price and, of course, for every willing buyer, there's a willing seller willing to buy it. And, of course, we do need to police the commodities future trading system to make sure that there is not abuse, that's there's complete transparency. And we need to make sure that we have more people, more analysts, more cops on the beat so to speak to make sure they have the personnel to be able to do their job.

It is just shortsighted and, frankly, naive, to think that Congress can continue to suspend the law of supply and demand. Just dealing with that narrow component is not enough. Is that part of an overall balanced energy package? Yes, it is. But it's not enough by itself. We've got to deal with this by finding more and using less. What do I mean by that? Well, using less means we need to be more efficient. We need to be less wasteful. We need to conserve energy. America consumes about 20% of the oil produced worldwide every day. And we need to find ways to be more efficient and that's why I think our manufacturing sector, whether it's producing plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2010, which eventually, hopefully, will provide an alternative. The CAFE standards the corporate fuel efficency standards that Congress has passed, those help.

But it is not enough because you can't conserve your way into energy independence or energy self-sufficency. There is about 85 million barrels of oil consumed globally every day. 85 million barrels globally every day. So even if America were to continue -- were to use less, that doesn't mean China and India are going to use less. In fact, they're not going to use less. They're going to use more. Their economies are getting bigger. Their people are becoming more prosperous. They want to buy cars. They want the same sort of things that Americans have come to expect as a matter of -- as commonplace. They want more and they're going to consume more. Because they know that energy drives their economy. And particularly countries like China that are growing at 10% gross domestic product a year, it's because they're building two coal-powered plants every week, and they're consuming more energy.

So we're going to have to produce more energy while we use less just in order to allow us to transition by using renewable fuels, by the research we need to do and things like clean-coal technology, we're going to need some time to transition into more energy independence and a clean energy future. And that's only going to come by producing more oil here at home.

Of course, this is a national security issue because, of course, where we buy a lot of our oil is from dangerous regions of the world like the Middle East. Or from self-avowed enemies like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Why doesn't it make sense to rely less on them, people who don't necessarily wish us well and rely more on ourselves and create more jobs here at home here in America.

Now, I know that attitudes are changing. You look at things like the Rasmusen poll that says 67% of all of the respondents say that we should produce more natural resources here. And I know there are folks on the other side of the aisle like our distinguished Presiding Officer who are trying to work to find a bipartisan solution. And we need to do that. But, frankly, we should not leave here in August without addressing this issue and doing it in a meaningful way. And I don't mean by just trying to go after the speculation part. We need to deal with all of this in a balanced sort of way to allow us to give the American people some relief at a time when they need some relief because of the squeeze that continues to be put upon the average working family when it comes to high energy costs which in turn ripple into the high food costs.

If we're successful -- and I hope we are, Mr. President -- in weathering this financial crisis we've seen as a result of the subprime market and the housing crisis -- unless we do something about high energy prices, we're going to end up in a technical recession. I have no doubt about that. So, we can weather those -- and I hope we do -- and still find ourselves in the ditch from an economic standpoint if we don't do something about high energy costs. And, frankly, now that the President has lifted his executive order banning offshore exploration and development, the only thing that remains to be done now is for Congress to get out of the way and to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

I wish our side of the aisle could do it. We can't because we're not in the majority. Only the Majority Leader has the power to call this up and allow debate and a vote on a commonsense energy plan that will allow us to find more and use less. And, I'm asking him today again, as a number of us had, to please, to please listen to what the American people are telling us. They're telling us that they are hurting, that their costs are going through the roof, whether it's the food price or just the price of filling up their car at the gas station. And, really, it's the United States Congress that's part of the problem. We need to be part of the solution. We need to listen to them and do what we can to help make their lives just a little bit better.