[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 49 (Thursday, April 21, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2453-H2454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SERIOUS ENERGY PROBLEMS

  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, well, America has a serious problem with 
energy prices. If you just peruse today's Wall Street Journal and New 
York Times, you will see the airlines are reporting record losses in 
great part despite efficiencies, despite concessions

[[Page H2454]]

by labor because of an increase in fuel prices. You see that General 
Motors has had a huge drop-off in the purchase of their lucrative SUVs 
and other larger vehicles that consume more gas, Ford similarly.
  We find this in small businesses across America; it has been embedded 
in everything. And now we are beginning to hear that there are 
stirrings of inflation beyond the price of oil and gas. This is a 
serious problem; and, unfortunately, this body, the House of 
Representatives, to its discredit did not adopt a serious or effective 
proposal to begin to address this problem in either the short or the 
long term.
  Short term, American consumers need relief from high gas prices. They 
are being gouged at the pump by Big Oil and the OPEC cartel.
  Now, I have asked President Bush numerous times, written to him and 
asked him, he is a big fan of rule of law, international trade 
agreements, the WTO, all of those things. I am not a big fan. But he 
says he believes in rules-based trade.
  Well, the OPEC cartel is violating the rules of the World Trade 
Organization. Seven of the OPEC nations are members. They are clearly 
colluding to restrict production and drive up the price of oil to make 
a profit. That is clearly prohibited by the WTO. But the President and 
his trade representative have failed to take any action against the 
OPEC companies.
  Then we have price gouging by Big Oil. Last quarter saw record 
profits for most of the industry, $8 billion in one quarter for Exxon 
Mobile. Their cash reserves have doubled to over $20 billion in 1 year, 
money extracted from Americans 5 cents a gallon at a time or more at 
the pump by piggybacking on the cartel activities of OPEC, and Big Oil 
is getting away with it.
  This administration is not doing anything to rein in Big Oil. They 
merge, close refineries, and then blame a shortage of refineries on 
environmental laws when they have been closed because of mergers to 
drive up the profits of the oil industry.
  We should reinstate a windfall profit tax on the industry. We should 
break up a number of these huge companies and begin to get some true 
competition again in that industry.

                              {time}  1715

  We cannot continue to bleed this much money. Every day, Americans are 
bleeding money at the pump, which is ultimately going to spill over 
into a tremendous problem for our economy, especially if we look at the 
failing trade policies of this administration.
  Then there is energy efficiency, new technologies, energy 
independence. These are things that seem very foreign to my colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle and to the old oil men who are running 
this country down at the White House and at an undisclosed location.
  Energy efficiency, this bill makes sort of a passing chuckle and nod 
at energy efficiency. It spends 20 times as much money subsidizing the 
oil, coal and gas industry. Wait a minute, were we not just talking 
about the fact they had record profits last quarter? Yes, they do have 
record profits and they are extracting that from American consumers, 
but they want their hands in both pockets. They do not want to just 
take money out of your wallet, they want to take money from taxpayers, 
too.
  So there is $8 billion in this bill, supposedly to help with energy 
problems. Unfortunately, 95 percent of it is subsidies to the wildly 
profitable oil, coal and gas industry, which will provide no help to 
American consumers; and a mere 5 percent is a nod toward the idea 
perhaps America could develop new sources of energy, perhaps America 
could become more efficient, perhaps America could become energy 
independent, but that is only worth 5 percent of what they are putting 
into the bill.
  Just think what it would be like to have an energy-independent 
America relying upon homegrown sources of energy and new technologies 
and new efficiencies, and how that would insulate us from these 
problems around the world. But that is not a vision that is shared by 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They have delivered us 
today something that would not have been a very enlightened energy 
policy in 1955, but is just pathetic in the 21st century, considering 
the threats to our economy and to our national security.
  Unfortunately, they prevailed today, but hopefully, in the future, we 
can do better by the American people.

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