[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 108 (Friday, September 2, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H7637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H7637]]
                              {time}  1515
             BIG OIL COMPANIES LOOTING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before when I reserved my 
right to object, I think that this debate should have been going on 
before we passed the bill, not after we passed the bill. I appreciate 
the opportunity to speak on this, but this should have been part of the 
debate.
  Mr. Speaker, there is looting going on. We know there is looting 
going on. You can turn on your television and see looting going on. But 
the real looting that is going on is the looting of the big oil 
companies, looting the American public, picking the pockets of the 
American public.
  It is unconscionable that gasoline prices in a matter of days have 
been spiked 30 to 50 cents a gallon. This is price gouging on the part 
of the oil companies. There is no way that the disaster in the Gulf 
States could have been reflected so quickly with an upswing of prices 
at the pump. There is no way, except for greed and price gouging.
  Big oil companies should stop the looting of the American people. 
When the price of a barrel of oil goes down, it takes a month or two to 
be reflected at the pump. Why, then, is it quite the opposite when 
disaster hits? Why is there an immediate increase in the price of 
gasoline?
  How dare the oil companies use this disaster to line their pockets. 
How dare the oil companies use this tragedy to get richer and to stick 
it to the American people. The American people demand answers and want 
to know why they are being forced to pay so much for gasoline.
  This Congress and the President should do everything possible to 
bring down the cost of gasoline. If it means releasing the strategic 
reserves, as I have been calling for for months and the President says 
he will do, we should do that, and then some; and we should call on the 
oil companies to put back some of their profits into helping the 
American people bring down the cost of gasoline.
  Now, of course, I support this legislation. Of course, we must help 
the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. As a New Yorker, I am 
appreciative of how the country responded after September 11. We need 
that kind of response today.
  Why were these things not in place before the hurricane happened? We 
knew the hurricane was going to happen. Why did we not have food and 
clothes and water and all kinds of things for the people? Why is it 
still, days and days later, taking time to evacuate people? Why are 
there dead bodies floating around? What is the administration doing 
about this? Government has dropped the ball and heads should roll, 
quite frankly, because it is unconscionable that we are standing by and 
not responding properly or effectively enough.
  I flew over the tsunami. I flew over Indonesia and I saw the 
devastation there. It is one thing to have devastation in a Third World 
country, as terrible as it is; but in the United States of America in 
the 21st century, days later, for people to be there stranded without 
water and food and shelter, it is unconscionable.
  Again, how dare the oil companies take advantage of this and raise 
the price of a gallon of gasoline so that the American people during 
Labor Day and after are suffering. It is shameful that they are using 
people's misery in three States to line their pockets and spike the 
price of gasoline for the entire American public.
  Mr. Speaker, the other issue involves us weaning ourselves off 
foreign oil. Local gas stations in New York and elsewhere and in places 
outside of the Gulf Coast supply lines have gasoline. Their suppliers 
and shippers have gasoline. So why are prices going up so much?
  Again, it is simply price gouging by the giant oil companies. I 
realize that gasoline is priced on a futures market and that gas prices 
today reflect what is expected in the future. But it is bad enough that 
this Congress passed an energy bill several weeks ago that did nothing 
to help the American people in terms of bringing down the price of 
gasoline. So now Congress has a challenge not only to help the victims 
of Katrina, but to help the American people with this spike in gasoline 
prices.
  For years I have been talking about the need to wean ourselves off 
oil because we have to rely on the sheikdoms that are either unstable, 
unfriendly to the U.S. or even supporters of terrorism.
  Now we have another reason to wean ourselves off foreign oil. So much 
of our economy is based on oil, and when Mother Nature gets grumpy, it 
sends us into a tailspin; and the oil companies use the tragedy of 
hundreds of thousands of hurricane survivors as cover to extract more 
profit from our constituents.
  This cannot stand. We need to improve the fuel economy of passenger 
cars and SUVs to a level our advanced technology makes possible, not 
issue CAFE standards, as the administration did last week, which do 
nothing to improve fuel efficiency.
  We need to make America the world's leader in energy technologies, 
not rely on the inefficiencies of the past. We can do this. I am 
currently forming a bipartisan Oil and National Security Caucus to 
highlight the danger of our over-reliance on oil.
  But in the end we will never end our addiction to oil and never break 
the grip of the oil companies unless we act now. So I call on this 
Congress to come up with solutions which are already there to wean us 
off foreign oil, and I believe that this Congress needs to take action 
now.
  Now, provisions and assistance should have been on the ready, as I 
mentioned before, so that as soon as this storm moved on, the food, 
water, medical supplies and personnel, military and civilian, would be 
on their way. We must not ignore the mistakes that have been made. We 
must fix them immediately and learn from them for the future. We must 
help the people immediately.
  Let me finally say that the priority of this Congress and this 
administration has been tax cuts, tax cuts and tax cuts; and this is a 
result of it. We do not put the money where we need to put the money. 
We do not put the money into infrastructure. We do not do the kinds of 
things to prevent disasters from happening again.
  Priorities cannot only be tax cuts and war; priorities must be 
helping the American people, first in Mississippi, Louisiana and 
Alabama, and then taking strong steps to wean us off foreign oil.

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