Washington, DC – Congressman Peter DeFazio stood up for Americans suffering from the high price of fuel today when he voted in favor of H.R. 6899, the Comprehensive American Energy and Consumer Protection Act. The package will bring down gas prices, protect taxpayers, invest in clean renewable energy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, open parts of the Outer Continental Shelf for off-shore drilling and provide an American-owned energy policy that the Bush-McCain Republicans have failed to deliver for the past eight years. The bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote 236 to 189.

"For the last six years we have labored under the Bush-Cheney energy plan which has driven up gas prices and made us more dependent on foreign oil," DeFazio said. "This bill breaks the oil dependence and the enslavement by OPEC. It moves us towards energy independence on domestic resources and new technologies and new green jobs. This is real and much needed progress."

The package will move America forward toward energy independence in the long term while providing relief to American consumers and the economy in the short term. The measure also:

requires Big Oil to pay what it owes taxpayers and eliminates their subsidies;

creates good-paying, green jobs here in America with $18 billion in tax cuts to spur American energy independence;

establishes a 15% national renewable electricity standard by 2020; and

promotes the inclusion of new renewable sources of energy, including the utilization of biomass from Oregon’s federal forests;

protects the coast of Oregon from oil and gas development. At the end of FY 2008, the current moratorium will expire and there are not the votes to renew the moratorium, thus leaving the Oregon coast exposed to oil and gas development from 3 miles and out. This measure would protect Oregon’s treasured coast for the first 100 miles.