[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 72 (Wednesday, May 23, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H2576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  INACTION OF BUSH ADMINISTRATION WORSENS ENERGY CRISIS IN CALIFORNIA

  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Kingston) had it exactly wrong. The fact of the matter is 
that in California, we are using less energy than we did in 1998. In 
1998, we paid $7 billion for that energy and today, we are paying 70, 
7-0, $70 billion, ten times as much. Why? Because the Bush 
administration refuses to tell the Federal Energy Commission to enforce 
the Federal law for just and reasonable wholesale prices.
  So the people of California who have an energy shortage because of a 
bad deregulation plan, because we have not built as many generators as 
we should, and because of a drought in the northwest, are now open to 
price gouging and profiteering by the energy companies.
  The Federal Energy Commission has made that finding. It is not my 
finding, it is their finding, that these prices are not just and 
reasonable, but they refuse to enforce the law to put caps on at a just 
and reasonable price so that the energy companies will get their 15 or 
20 percent return. They simply will not get to continue to gouge the 
people of California, the small businesses, the large businesses, 
people in hospitals who are having the lights go out, their life 
support systems turned off because of the Bush administration's 
inaction.

                          ____________________