[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 9, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H6238]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1045
                             ENERGY CRISIS

  (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, here is the problem: When President Bush 
took over as President the price of a barrel of crude oil was $23. When 
the Democrats became the majority, the price of a barrel of crude oil 
was $58. Today, it's hovering around $140 per barrel of crude oil. All 
we're trying to do on this side is bring forth some solutions. We're 
doing that today with a discharge petition on one such technology, 
coal-to-liquid technologies, H.R. 2208. It's not my bill. It's my 
Democrat colleague, Rick Boucher's, bill.
  The United States has the largest coal reserves in the world, 250 
billion tons of recoverable coal. China has invested $24 billion in 
coal-to-liquid technologies. We, in the United States, have invested 
zero. The largest reserves, zero investments.
  This is how it works: We operate a U.S. coal mine, U.S. jobs. We 
build a coal-to-liquid refinery, U.S. jobs. We have liquid fuel to 
compete with crude oil fuel, we pipe it in a pipeline, U.S. jobs. We go 
to our aviation industry with jet fuel. All these budget airlines are 
going broke because of high cost fuels. This is ``a'' solution, not 
one, but one of many.

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