[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 4, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H4882]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   WE NEED AMERICAN ENERGY PRODUCTION

  (Mr. McCOTTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. McCOTTER. Over the recess, I had the opportunity to meet with a 
manufacturing community in my district; talk to managers, talk to 
owners, talk to employees. The one thing they all agree on is the cost 
of American energy is adding to their fixed costs at the very time 
international pressure is forcing them to reduce the cost of their 
product. In short, they're facing the nightmare scenario of energy 
prices forcing them to lay off workers in the manufacturing sector or 
to, unfortunately, terminate their employment altogether.
  What we need in the United States is American energy production, 
conservation, and free market innovation if we are to protect these 
jobs and help these workers. It is very cold comfort for the people of 
Michigan and the manufacturing workers of the United States to hear 
that some day a green collar job will come and take away your blue 
collar job. When you're putting them out of work today, the prospects 
for tomorrow look much more bleak than they do to some academic or to 
some politician who is engaging in rhetoric that somehow the government 
will innovate us out of this effort.
  We need American production to help protect manufacturing jobs and 
help provide prosperity for the American people.

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