[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 12, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H1780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              GASOLINE PRICES AT THEIR HIGHEST IN HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, last weekend when I was home in Oregon I 
noted that gasoline prices have reached the highest level in history, 
and I know that my State was not alone. We apparently have the fourth 
highest prices in the United States. Other States are even higher, and 
I assume that records were set everywhere.
  That might be well and good if it was all due to free market forces 
and the underlying cost of doing business, but I fear it is not.
  We have been through this before. During the first Persian Gulf War, 
Desert Storm, we saw a huge run-up in oil and diesel prices and 
aviation fuel which caused a tremendous amount of dislocation in the 
economy, but the economy was nowhere near as fragile as it is today. 
Then we found out a little bit later that the oil companies had taken 
advantage of the war, war profiteering. They had, in fact, raised their 
prices far in excess of the underlying costs of crude and any other 
additional costs they might have incurred because of the war in Iraq.
  Now here we are a decade later. Again, it appears that the United 
States will soon be at war in Iraq, and we are seeing record prices at 
the pump, and again, they are talking about the underlying price of 
crude and the instability of demand, but the increases at the pump and 
the increases for the aviation industry and the increases for the 
truckers far, far, far exceed the increases in the underlying costs of 
crude, and plus, many of these oil companies are selling themselves 
their own crude oil or they have hedged the price or they have special 
deals with the OPEC cartel.
  No, plain and simple, they have begun war profiteering this time 
before the war has started. It is time for Congress to take action.
  The economy is weak. Three hundred and eight thousand people lost 
their job last month. A number of airlines are teetering on the edge of 
bankruptcy, and a number of them say that if a war happens and fuel 
goes up any more, costs them $180 million per penny, they will not be 
in Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy; they will be insolvent and out 
of business, costing tens of thousands more jobs and more harm to the 
economy, all so a few multinational oil companies can squeeze excess 
profits out of American airlines and families and truckers.
  The President needs to take action. He could release fuel from the 
National Petroleum Reserve, the oil reserve, but he has chosen not to 
do that. So I have introduced a bill to give him more specific 
direction to give him authority once held by President Richard Nixon to 
stabilize the price of fuel with a fair rate of return to these oil 
companies and making them justify a run-up in price beyond a price that 
has prevailed a year ago today, and secondly, to have the President 
draw down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to help drive down 
prices, mitigate supply, require the oil companies now and in the 
future to maintain minimum inventory levels so they cannot cry wolf and 
jack up the price every year when they switch from home heating oil to 
gasoline and all those things they love to do and then they have a 
refinery fire, nothing anyone could ever expect.
  Ban the export of Alaska oil. We are going to hear arguments we 
should allow drilling in ANWR, but guess what, all the Alaska oil can 
and probably will be exported because this Congress, against my will, 
lifted the ban on the export of Alaska oil.
  Finally, this administration is all for free trade. OPEC is not free 
trade. That cartel, those people, Saudis and others, are conspiring to 
drive up the price of oil, setting the price of oil in violation of all 
the agreements of the World Trade Organization. I am not a big fan of 
that organization, but this administration, who loves it and wants to 
expand its authority, should use the authority it has to object to that 
price fixing. It violates all of the tenets of GATT and the World Trade 
Organization.

                              {time}  1800

  So it is time for strong action here in Congress and at the White 
House to stop the war profiteering, the price gouging, driving more 
Americans out of work, bankrupting the airlines, idling trucks and the 
commerce of this country, all so a few multinational oil companies can 
run record profits for the next couple of quarters.
  Choice seems pretty easy to me. We will see what my colleagues and 
the President think.

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