[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 23, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H3124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           CONGRESS MUST PAVE THE ROAD TO ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my 
Special Order at this time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from Ohio 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, Memorial Day weekend marks the 
beginning of the summer driving season, the time of year when high gas 
prices will most harm families struggling to stretch family budgets 
already at the breaking point.
  More than 31 million Americans will take to the Nation's highways 
this weekend for long trips. Each of those miles will cost consumers 
dearly at the pump because of misguided energy policies.
  The simple fact is that the White House and the Republican Congress 
knew before they passed it that America's dependence on foreign oil 
would increase under the Bush energy bill. But there is hope. On 
Saturday, I joined my colleague, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, 
in Cleveland to announce our plan for a better, brighter future.
  Our plan invests in ethanol and other biofuels grown in the Midwest, 
not drilled for in the Middle East. It requires increased production of 
flexible fuel vehicles capable of burning an 85 percent ethanol blend 
called E-85. It requires increased investment to make E-85 more 
available in America's service station. It creates incentives to 
encourage early adoption of these commonsense technologies that are 
ready to be put into production today.
  Our plan also expands the tax credits for consumers who buy 
especially efficient hybrid cars, and it cracks down on gasoline price 
manipulation.
  It makes it crystal clear to Big Oil that manipulation, either direct 
price gouging or withholding supply to drive prices up, is against 
Federal law. Not slap-on-the-hands kind of antiprice gouging 
legislation, but serious penalties and fines that will make the oil 
industry pay attention.
  It also redirects Federal support to help rebuild the energy 
industries of the future. Rather than subsidize Big Oil, we should be 
helping farmer-owned biofuels, innovative hybrid, and fuel efficiency 
component manufacturers, and other emerging energy industries to grow, 
the kinds of jobs perfect for Ohioans who know so much about 
manufacturing and Ohio farmers who have contributed so much to our 
State.
  This is about energy in my State, and it is about jobs in Ohio. With 
our natural resources and real leadership on energy policy, Ohio can 
become the Silicon Valley of alternative energy. Our plan is to invest 
in research.
  In the 1940s, the Manhattan Project brought the Nation's best 
scientific minds together to develop the means to end a global 
catastrophe. In the 1960s the Apollo Project brought the Nation's best 
minds together to help our country reach a bold new goal.
  Our plan creates a new advanced research project agency for energy, a 
mission-driven task force based on those successes, to help us build an 
energy future that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.
  Those are not the only things we should do to protect consumers. We 
should also create public gasoline reserves to discourage supply 
manipulation by Big Oil and provide a cushion for consumers. We know 
whenever there is an interruption in supply from a hurricane, from a 
disturbance in the Middle East, or from a refinery fire, we know that 
the oil companies take advantage by spiking the price even higher than 
the supply interruption would suggest.
  I suggested this idea to create public gasoline reserves 3 years ago. 
Senator Durbin has a similar idea pending in the Senate for the last 
year or so. The Consumer Federation of America and the AAA have both 
testified that a gas reserve system would help consumers.
  The White House is actually talking about the idea now. Talk is 
cheap, gas is not; but the White House could be on board and help move 
this proposal. This is a pocketbook issue for America's working middle 
class.
  At our event in Cleveland, Senator Reid and I were joined by two 
mothers from northeast Ohio who know firsthand how hard it is to keep 
up with these gas prices.
  Reverend Lois Annich, a Presbyterian minister, called it ``a social 
injustice of the highest order'' that families were struggling to pay 
higher gas bills while Big Oil was posting record profits: $8 billion 
last quarter for ExxonMobil while its CEO earned $18,000 an hour, while 
Ohio minimum wage earners who buy that gasoline are making $10,000 a 
year.
  And Jennifer Tucker, a working mother of two, explained how rising 
gas prices were making her family's economic future less secure by 
making her nursing education harder to afford.
  Lois and Jennifer, millions of Americans just like them, know what I 
know: that it is well past time that this Congress and this Bush White 
House start putting the interests of the American people ahead of the 
interests of Big Oil.

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