[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 23, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H5690]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1945
                        SURGING GASOLINE PRICES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, surging gas prices at the pump surely tell 
us, just before Memorial Day, that something has gone wrong again with 
the rigged oil markets.
  We've seen gasoline prices in our country set all-time highs. Ohio 
families are paying $3.50 to $3.93 a gallon, with no end in sight. And 
when President Bush took office, they were paying $1.46 a gallon. In 
fact, when Vice President Cheney was sworn in, Halliburton's stock was 
worth one-fourth of what it's worth today.
  So we think about America's families and our consumers. They're being 
hurt. Car and truck sales are being hurt. Our economy is being hurt. 
It's all so unnecessary.
  When you fuel up, the chances are 7 out of 10 that the crude oil for 
the gasoline came from an undemocratic foreign country, Saudi Arabia, 
Nigeria, Venezuela, Angola, Mexico, maybe even trafficked out of Iraq, 
places that do not exactly love thriving democracy.
  Meanwhile, in oil-rich Iraq, this week, eight more American soldiers 
were killed in roadside bomb attacks near Baghdad. And this brings to 
nearly 3,400 U.S. service-member deaths in Iraq, plus additional 
Department of Defense civilian employees, and the death toll keeps 
mounting.
  The major oil pipeline and refinery in Iraq is now being guarded by 
our best, the 82nd Airborne, and sundry private contractors. They're 
guarding oil lines and the refinery. In fact, some of that oil has been 
stolen and even trafficked throughout the war.
  Meanwhile, a new hydrocarbon law is being pushed in Iraq, which 
boasts the second largest oil reserves in the world, that would 
privatize the majority of oil in that country to who? That's the 
trillion-dollar question. That's the $23 trillion question.
  How disgusting to me that our finest military have to die in an oil 
war. When will the American people begin to connect undemocratic oil 
regimes, imported oil, and the lives of our sons and daughters while 
our gasoline-consuming public is subjected here to the oil marketeers?
  I don't think anybody would admit it is a free market in oil. It's a 
cartelized market. It has been for half a century.
  Exxon and the other major oil companies are raking in historic 
profits at the expense of our sons and daughters. We see U.S. military 
power fully projected in Kuwait, in Iraq, benefiting their neighbors, 
too, like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, who have had to hire growing 
legions of private security firms to hold up their kingdoms and 
emirates. Saudi Aramco is the largest privately held company in the 
world, and Exxon Aramco the most profitable oil company in history. Are 
you starting to see the picture?
  Let me ask a critical question: Would any of the oil profits made off 
the pocketbooks of Americans be going to hire more security guards in 
Saudi Arabia, or in Bahrain, or in Kuwait? As Will Rogers would say, 
``You betcha.''
  Our Nation's military power is now fully projected in the deserts 
over there, and here in Washington sits Congress and a President who 
say they want to break oil addiction from imported sources. But since 
President Bush took office, we are importing a billion more barrels a 
year, a billion more barrels a year every year since 2001. It is 
projected we will spend a trillion dollars on the war in Iraq, and it 
is not anywhere close to over. Yet we passed a bill out of the House a 
few months ago that just put a thimble full of additional resources in 
renewable energy. Is there any dispatch here? Is there any urgency? Is 
there any seriousness? Let the American people tell us. Do you see it? 
Do you hear it? Do you feel it in your pocketbooks?
  Citizens are expressing their frustration with our inability to rein 
in the abuses of the oil companies. And I have got a partial solution. 
This week I am introducing a bill to give something back to the 
American people tired of being gouged by the oil companies. It is 
called the ``Give America Something Act of 2007,'' the GAS Act, G-A-S. 
Give every American a one-time immediate $100 gas payment refund. They 
can use it to pay for higher gas prices. They can use it to pay for 
higher transit costs. And we pay for it by imposing a windfall profits 
tax on oil revenue to provide the revenue to finance the program. This 
is long overdue.

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