[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 64 (Thursday, May 9, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H4657]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  WHO DROVE UP THE PRICE OF GASOLINE?

  (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, the question today is who drove up the 
price of gasoline. In May 1993 the Federal gasoline tax was raised 18.3 
cents a gallon. That vote marked the third time in just over a decade 
that Congress increased the tax.

                              {time}  1015

  Since December 1982, the Federal levy on gasoline has exploded 357 
percent, even as the price of gasoline has trended steadily downward. 
Mr. Speaker, inventories were down because of the unusually long 
winter, a fire in California closed a Shell oil refinery, and Saddam 
Hussein's stubbornness in keeping 500,000 barrels a day of Iraqi crude 
oil have caused the price to go up.
  But who in fact drove the price of gasoline up? I submit that 
Congress under Democrat control did by raising the gasoline tax. It is 
pretty clear who the people in collusion are. It is the people here in 
the Federal Government. The Federal gasoline tax was hiked in 1983. It 
has been hiked ever since, and we need to understand that the Democrat-
controlled Congress is at fault.

                          ____________________