[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 118 (Thursday, July 17, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H6678]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PHOTO-OP IN THE ARCTIC

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, we are soon going to be greeted by a 
photo-op in the Arctic with some of our Republican friends doing a 
little flyover. It is an example of their ``drillusion.''
  We have been fighting the Republican energy policy that is trapped in 
the 1950s. For the first 12 years I was in Congress they made it 
impossible, indeed, sometimes even illegal to even study improving fuel 
efficiency standards for cars.
  For the last 7\1/2\ years, we have had two Texas oilmen in the White 
House, their secret energy task force, their disastrous 2005 Energy Act 
and, by the way, their Dept. of Energy which missed all 34 deadlines to 
improve appliance efficiency.
  And what do we get from years of Republican control and their energy 
policy? $4.35 cent a gallon gasoline.
  Democrats, from the beginning, have provided new energy incentives. 
We have improved auto fuel efficiency standards for the first time in 
30 years. And today we are going to have the Drill Responsibly on 
Leased Lands Act, the DRILL Act, to use the millions of acres they 
already have to be able to provide oil for this country. Together we 
can solve this gas price crisis which is the result of the President's 
failed energy policy and our addiction to foreign oil.

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