[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 44 (Thursday, April 14, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2086-H2087]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ENERGY POLICY DESPERATELY NEEDED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I heard a colleague just a few 
moments ago refer to tomorrow being the day that is known as the filing 
day for our taxes. Some might call it a rainy day in April. The 
gentleman is so right. It is the day that so many Americans are filing 
their returns and are hoping to pay for the governance of this Nation. 
Many Americans in this time frame are facing some very difficult times.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to put before this body a challenge that I 
think is enormously important. What do you say to Americans who are 
filing their tax forms and who are facing $2 plus and growing price per 
gallon on gas? This is an indistinguishable amount, meaning you can be 
a multi-billionaire or a person who is simply trying to make ends meet, 
keeping the doors open, paying the rent, providing for four or five 
members of their family, working in a blue collar or hourly job, and in 
order to get to a job across town, across county, or into the next 
State, we are asking Americans to pay $2 plus per gallon for gas.
  Internationally, gasoline is quite high. The United States has always 
had the opportunity to experience a better quality of life. This is a 
hardship on Americans. And as the committee of jurisdiction has marked 
up energy legislation, I frankly believe it is not soon enough and it 
will not move soon enough. I think it is important for the President of 
the United States to announce an energy relief policy that deals 
specifically with the high price of gas for those who are now suffering 
under that burden.
  I do not want to leave industry out. As I have traveled through the 
airports, I am delighted to see that the numbers have gone up after 9/
11. But, frankly, representing Houston's Intercontinental Airport and 
the fourth largest city in the Nation, realizing the traveling public 
has many needs to travel by airplane, the cost of jet fuel is killing 
our airline industry. In fact, my hometown airline, their employees 
have taken an actual cut in salary so the airline can survive. But as 
they have done that, the jet fuel prices continue to go up and up and 
up.

                              {time}  1700

  Any legislation that we pass next week or the following week will not 
address that crisis, so I call upon the administration to acknowledge 
this as an economic crisis and establish some immediate relief, whether 
or not it is going into those petroleum reserves on a temporary basis, 
a 60-day basis, to bring some relief because there is going to be a 
point when those airlines that equate to a sizable proportion of our 
GNP are going to collapse under the burden of jet fuel cost; and there 
will be a time when whole communities, urban areas and rural areas, 
will have a population of employees who on an hourly basis are working 
and cannot afford to get to work.
  That is why, Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about and to add to 
the discussion what I think was an unfortunate legislative initiative 
that was passed today. We all would hope to run away from bankruptcy. 
That is not the direction that the American people desire to go. I find 
the American people innovative, hardworking, desirous of a better 
quality of life, desirous of giving their children a better quality of 
life.
  And so I am offended by a bankruptcy bill that suggests that we 
represent a bunch of ne'er-do-wells and those who are running away from 
their legitimate debts. That is what we did today. Frankly, we passed a 
bankruptcy bill, Mr. Speaker, that puts in place a provision that 
clearly is not needed. We have a bankruptcy code and a series of 
bankruptcy judges and each and every day they make a decision when a 
frivolous litigant comes through the door and looks in all the raging 
color, this is certainly a person who is just simply trying to avoid 
paying their debts, has the resources, and that person, if you will, is 
dismissed or their case is not allowed to proceed in the bankruptcy 
court.
  Now, in the backdrop of a number of corporate filings of bankruptcy, 
my own constituent, Enron, that filed bankruptcy and put 4,000 people 
out of work, some of whom lost their lives because of the tragedy, when 
we allow all of these major corporations to file bankruptcy, now we are 
going to stand in the door of the courthouse and tell hardworking 
Americans and middle-class Americans, if you don't pass a litmus test, 
you get back out there and fall under the crunch and the concrete of 
your debts. If you have a medical emergency, if there is death in the 
family, if you have lost your job or if you happen to be active duty 
Reservists whose families have lost the income of that breadwinner, who 
now are in Iraq and Afghanistan not for 6 months but for 1 year or 2 
years and some who are forced to re-enlist again because of the 
shortage of personnel, these individuals now will have to pass a means 
test in order to be able to file bankruptcy because they are burdened 
by the responsibilities that they cannot pay.
  Mr. Speaker, we voted on a bankruptcy bill, and we defeated the 
motion to recommit that would help these Reservists. It is a shame on 
us and a shame on this House. Mr. President, I beg of you not to sign 
this bankruptcy bill until we take care of the active duty Reservists 
and National Guard. That is the least we can do for those who are 
offering their lives.

[[Page H2087]]



                          ____________________