[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 82 (Tuesday, June 15, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H4145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     MANIPULATION OF ENERGY MARKET

  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, 3 years ago, with a bipartisan group of 
lawmakers, I met with Vice President Cheney to discuss the then crisis 
and run-up of electricity prices in the western United States. On a 
bipartisan basis, Republicans and Democrats, we told the Vice President 
that we believed the market was being manipulated by Enron and others, 
and he lectured us and told us that we were out to lunch, that this was 
nothing but market forces and, in fact, if we did not build a 500 
megawatt electric generating plant every week for the next 16 years, 
prices would stay up at $2,000 or $3,000 a megawatt hour.
  Now, of course, the transcripts are now out there from the Enron 
traders. I cannot read them on the floor because they are absolutely 
chock full of obscenities, but they carry on about a few things. They 
carry on about how great it is going to be when the Bush administration 
goes to the White House, no more price caps; how Ken Lay was the 
greatest single contributor to George Bush over his political lifetime 
and might even be Secretary of Energy, or otherwise would be setting 
energy policy for the United States.
  One has to wonder why Vice President Cheney is still hiding the 
records of those conversations. Then, as they manipulated the market on 
450 out of 573 days, one day they were on the phone yelling, cheering, 
``burn, baby, burn'' as power lines were scorched by fire. They bragged 
about stealing millions from Grandma Millie in California.

                              {time}  1800

  They talked about withholding power, increasing prices, wandering 
power through Oregon and other neighboring States in order to jack up 
prices in California, and still today people in my State are paying 
about 43 percent more for their electricity than they did 4 years ago 
for the same electrons generated by the same plants because of these 
scams by Enron, scams that of course Vice President Cheney said were 
nothing but market forces.
  Now the Republicans are refusing to do anything about it. This energy 
bill does nothing to deal with what Enron has done to defraud the 
people of the western United States and roll back these illegal and 
unfair contracts and prices.
  But now we are on to a new one, oil. Now, this is kind of familiar. 
Dick Cheney and George Bush say it is market forces, nothing we can do 
about it. In fact, the White House has done nothing about the 
escalating oil prices here in the United States.
  Now, it is kind of interesting because it is awfully similar to the 
electricity industry. There have been 2,600 mergers in the petroleum 
industry in the last decade. There are virtually no more small 
independent distributors, and many of the smaller companies have been 
gobbled up by others. Tremendous concentration in this industry.
  Of course the same thing that follows with these market forces is an 
absolutely obscene runup in profits. We are seeing just in the first 
quarter this year British Petroleum 165 percent increase in profits. 
ChevronTexaco, 294 percent increase in profits. Conoco-Phillips, a 
measly 44 percent. Their market forces are not working as well as the 
others, I guess. And Exxon-Mobil, 125 percent, and this next quarter 
promises to be even more lucrative for these companies.
  Now, there was a day when the United States Congress set an 
independent path on critical issues to the American people, like the 
oil crises of the 1970s, and the Congress actually took definitive 
steps. They enacted windfall profit tax to get at the price gouging of 
the industry. They adopted mandatory fuel economy standards. They in 
fact capped the price of fuel, because they knew that this was being 
manipulated and the American people were being gouged.
  But not this Congress. This Congress is offering the same old lame 
energy bill that it passed 3 years ago, 2 years ago, last year, and now 
we are going to vote on it again, same bill, $18 billion of subsidies 
to the suffering oil-gas industry that has record profits, profits of 
over $700 billion last year, and the taxpayers should subsidize it. Oh, 
come on now. I guess that is market forces. No. Wait a minute. How can 
subsidizing the industry be market forces? Well, I guess it is 
socialism, but we do not count that as socialism because we are giving 
it to a meritorious industry that needs the money; or, well, it does 
not need the money but it should get the money.
  Now, what is going on here? When are we going to begin acting on 
behalf of the American people? When is the Bush administration going to 
file their complaint in their favorite organization, the World Trade 
Organization? They love rules-based trade. They love the WTO, but guess 
what? Eight of the OPEC countries are in the WTO. They are violating 
the rules of the WTO by constricting supply to drive up prices; but the 
Bush administration, no, they are not going to file a complaint against 
OPEC.
  Then of course there is the Petroleum Reserve, which the President is 
filling at outrageous prices, and the list goes on and on. I have 
offered productive alternatives, as have other Democrats, but this 
administration stands mute because their friends in the oil industry 
are making out like bandits.

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