[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 113 (Thursday, September 21, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H7939]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                             ENERGY POLICY

  (Mr. GEJDENSON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, the American people are being held 
hostage by foreign oil producers and American energy companies. We are 
now heading for our second cycle where we go from heating oil crisis to 
gas crisis, and now we are heading back for another heating oil crisis. 
At a time when oil companies should have been filling the reserves of 
Americans to keep their homes warm this winter, they were shipping 
refined No. 2 fuel oil overseas.
  We need aggressive action from this administration: the release of 
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We need to have weatherization funds. 
We need real conservation programs that have been blocked for the last 
20 years since the Reagan presidency. We have had no energy policy as 
far as conservation, alternative energy, energy conservation. We need 
to move on these things now or seniors and others will see their lives 
and their life savings threatened this winter for a shortage of oil.
  We have made some progress. We have got millions of barrels in 
reserve, now gallons in reserve in Connecticut; but we need to do a lot 
more. We need the Senate to move the legislation that gives 
authorization for the heating oil reserve.

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