[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 121 (Wednesday, July 23, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H7050-H7051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          AMERICAN ENERGY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to address the House and urge my 
colleagues to allow a vote on the American Energy Act, a bill that was 
filed today by many of my colleagues, a bill that I think is very 
important to bringing real solutions to this national energy crisis 
that our country's facing.
  And if you look at what's happening across the country now, you look 
at the fact that gasoline is over $4 a gallon; you look at the fact 
that people are starting to make decisions on whether or not they're 
even going to take a summer vacation; you look at the fact that this 
isn't only affecting people at the gasoline pump when they pay a price 
that's too high, a price that we should not have to afford for 
gasoline; but the fact that when you go to the grocery store now you're 
paying higher food costs because the trucking, the transportation of 
all of our food products are driving up the cost of food; the fact that 
when you go to a shopping center to buy clothes for children that are 
going to be going back to school, you're paying more money for those 
clothes; the fact that many small businesses are starting to have to 
lay off people or even make decisions on whether or not they're going 
to be able to make it because they can't pass on these cost increases, 
this is a crisis that's facing our entire country.
  And what's really sad about it, Mr. Speaker, is that we have the 
ability to do something about it right here in our country. We have 
American solutions to this American crisis, and there is a long-term 
and a short-term solution to the problems we're dealing with. And 
that's why the American Energy Act that we filed today does not just 
deal with one side of the issue. It deals with all of the above. It 
deals with a very comprehensive approach to solving this problem that's 
addressing and facing our entire country.
  And so what we're trying to do on the long-term solution is address 
the alternative fuels issue, to try to explore different methods of 
providing energy that it's going to take for people to do things that 
they do in their daily lives.
  I was honored to go on the American energy tour, just got back 
Monday, where over the weekend Leader Boehner, as well as about 10 
other Members of Congress went first to the National Renewable Energy 
Lab, and we went and looked at the future of the technologies that are 
being developed to try to create some alternative sources of energy. 
And there are some very good alternatives that we are trying to pursue, 
and in fact, in the American Energy Act that we filed, we support the 
continued development of these alternative sources of energy because 
that is our future.
  But one of the other things we saw is that those technologies are not 
on the ground today for consumers to buy. They're not things that are 
going to help our consumers, the people across this country, improve 
their way of life and address the problem of this high cost of gasoline 
that they're paying.
  We looked at things like wind, like solar, like hydropower, like 
electric cars. You drive an electric car right now--and we test drove 
an electric car. The capacity on an electric car right now, with all 
the best technology, you can drive 60 miles, and at the end of those 60 
miles, you will run out of electricity in the car. It will take you 6 
hours to recharge that battery. Now, I sure hope that we continue to 
pursue this technology so that someday people can drive 300 miles on 
that electric car and maybe can recharge it in 15 minutes. But we're 
just not there today, and we're not going to be there for a few more 
years according to the experts. So we need to also address, in a 
comprehensive strategy, the short-term problem.
  The short-term problem that's truly leading us to the $4 a gallon 
price that we're dealing with, over $135 a barrel gasoline, is a supply 
and demand issue. And on the supply and demand issue, you've got a 
global increase. It's not just American increases in demand; it's a 
global increase in demand. And yet the supply is flat. And any 
economist, anybody that's studied Economics 101 can tell you, if you 
have got demand going this way and supply staying flat, you're going to 
have an increase in price.
  And that's what our country is facing right now, and what we're 
trying to do with the American Energy Act is say let's deal with the 
short-term problem as well.
  And Mr. Speaker, all we're asking for is a vote, a straight up-or-
down vote here on this House floor, on what is the most important issue 
to our country's economy right now, the issue that's affecting most 
people in our country.
  One of the things we did is we went to Alaska on the American energy 
tour, and we talked to the people in Alaska. You know, I talked to the 
Governor of Alaska, and I said what do the people of Alaska think about 
exploring, opening up some of these moratoriums that Congress has, and 
exploring our own American energy to make our country more independent 
of Middle Eastern oil so we don't have to rely and be concerned about 
what OPEC's going to do. We can solve our own problem with American 
ingenuity, with American natural resources. And what she told me is 
about 80 percent of the people in Alaska want to explore for oil right 
there in Alaska because they understand that this can be done in an 
environmentally safe way.
  And I think that's one of the points that many of the opponents of 
exploring American sources of energy don't get, the fact that the 
technologies have advanced so much over the last few decades that in my 
State in Louisiana, we have extensive drilling. Our State

[[Page H7051]]

supplies about 30 percent of the Nation's supply of oil and gas, and 
we're proud to do it because we know we can do this in an 
environmentally safe way. And in fact, if you want to go fishing in 
south Louisiana, you go next to an oil rig because that's the best 
place to go fishing because the fish actually use that as a sanctuary.
  We've got the ability to solve our problem here in this country. All 
we're asking for is a vote here on this House floor, Mr. Speaker.

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