[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 6, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S28-S30]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                IDAHOANS SPEAK OUT ON HIGH ENERGY PRICES

  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, in mid-June, I asked Idahoans to share with 
me how high energy prices are affecting their lives, and they responded 
by the hundreds. The stories, numbering well over 1,200, are 
heartbreaking and touching. While energy prices have dropped in recent 
weeks, the concerns expressed remain very relevant, particularly in 
light of our economic times. To respect the efforts of those who took 
the opportunity to share their thoughts, I am submitting every e-mail 
sent to me through an address set up specifically for this purpose to 
the Congressional Record. This is not an issue that will be easily 
resolved, but it is one that deserves immediate and serious attention, 
and Idahoans deserve to be heard. Their stories not only detail their 
struggles to meet everyday expenses, but also have suggestions and 
recommendations as to what Congress can do now to tackle this problem 
and find solutions that last beyond today. I ask unanimous consent to 
have today's letters printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       My wife and I are retired with fixed retirement incomes and 
     our IRAs and annuities. We live about six miles from Moscow. 
     We are now limiting our trips to town and will reduce/
     eliminate the travel we had planned this summer. We use our 
     Ford 500 that gets about 29MPG instead of our pickup as much 
     as possible. Our home is heated with wood pellets, but we 
     wonder if wood pellets will be available next fall because of 
     the failing timber industry.
       We have little hope that gas prices will decrease. Both of 
     the Presidential candidates have bought into the global 
     warming hoax and do not want to develop our oil resources. We 
     expected it of the Democrat candidate but are very 
     disappointed in John McCain's position. It is difficult to 
     believe that he thinks the liberal environmental industry 
     will vote for him because he claims to be an 
     ``environmentalist''.
       We feel that [the candidates] should visit ANWR and see 
     that it is not like the Grand Canyon. It is a frozen desert 
     where the oil resource could be developed with little impact. 
     We encourage you to help change positions on oil development. 
     [Our country] will miss a golden opportunity if they do not 
     use the ``drill here, drill now, pay less'' position. Thank 
     you for asking for our opinion.
                                           Ned and Arleen, Moscow.

[[Page S29]]

     
                                  ____
       I was thrilled to hear that there was a venue for public 
     input to the increasing energy prices. I drive a VW Jetta, 
     which gets great gas mileage, and I have a decent job, but 
     the price of gasoline has caused me to reconsider many things 
     that weren't really hard decisions before. I have begun 
     buying generic items and do not visit my favorite coffee hut 
     as often because it is not `on my way' to work, therefore 
     requiring more gas, and for the price of my favorite latte, I 
     could buy a gallon of gas. I am beginning to classify 
     everything as whether it is a need or a want, and 
     dramatically cutting out the want. The problem is that many 
     of the needs are becoming expensive. My son's day care has 
     now increased their prices to cover their increased fuel 
     costs. Food has become expensive, prompting my husband and me 
     to start a garden. I have often wondered how others manage 
     when they work minimum wage jobs, and have a family to 
     support. To some extent, I am glad that prices have 
     escalated, because it makes us address this issue and become 
     more environmentally responsible. It also forces us to become 
     more self-reliant, both as individuals and as a nation.
       I would love to see public transportation become more 
     available, however I am not sure how feasible or cost 
     efficient that would be given how spread out we are. Even 
     here in Idaho Falls, I am not sure how well that would work. 
     I work for the INL, so of course I am going to suggest 
     further research into nuclear energy and the possibilities 
     there. It is always frustrating to hear that Congress will 
     not pass a budget, forcing labs to function under continuing 
     resolutions that prevent new research from starting. This is 
     research that could change the way that we, as a nation, look 
     at energy, and reduce our dependence on oil. Hybrid vehicles 
     present an interesting potential, but the purchase price is 
     not an incentive to buy one. Is there a way to provide 
     incentives to automakers that produce these vehicles? This 
     could allow them to produce and sell these vehicles at a 
     lower cost, and then make them more attractive to the 
     consumer. These are just a few suggestions.
       Thank you for the work that you and the committee are 
     investing in this issue.
                                              Brandy, Idaho Falls.
       I am a resident of Bingham County and would like to share 
     my story on how the high energy prices are affecting me and 
     my family. I am an INL employee and have to travel to and 
     from work, a total time of about one and a half hours every 
     day. If I have to drive to work it will cost $80 a week; if I 
     ride the INL bus, it is $22.50 a week. Still a portion of my 
     paycheck goes to travel. I pay approx. $1,150 a month in 
     utility and energy bills. I make on average $2,500 a month. 
     The rest goes to mortgage groceries and supplies for the 
     family, i.e. diapers, wipes, baby food etc. . . . We all have 
     houses and yards to upkeep, to keep sprinklers working, grass 
     trimmed and weed free, and that costs money. I have had to 
     scale back my plans with my family dramatically to upkeep my 
     assets. There will be no vacations this year, no more trips 
     to the local drive-in for ice cream after a hot day, and 
     certainly no running through the sprinkler to conserve on the 
     water bill. My wife (who is from Fiji) has not been able to 
     see her family for six years now. We were planning a family 
     trip this year to see them. Well, not anymore; a six thousand 
     dollar trip for a family of four is unheard of. Guess we will 
     have to see what next year brings. My property taxes rose 
     from $1,400 to $1,850 this year. Did not we pass a bill last 
     year generating a fund to lower this sort of thing? I 
     certainly did not benefit from that.
       The city council in Blackfoot is working on getting a 
     windmill turbine farm set up in the Wolverine canyon, east of 
     Blackfoot. I am in favor of that if we were to actually 
     benefit from it. From what I gather the power that generates 
     from these turbines will be sent to California. If we have to 
     wake up every day to look at these turbines, then we at least 
     need to benefit from them! I have worked out at the INL Site 
     for about four years now; I work around the only test reactor 
     in the world. Every day, when I walk around it, I wonder, why 
     cannot we have a reactor to generate power for all of 
     southeast Idaho? Let us bypass Idaho and Utah Power and 
     anyone else that sends power to us and generate our own. We 
     will not be damming up rivers causing problems for the salmon 
     habitat or building turbines that could hurt the bird 
     migration. Or causing some other environmental issue with the 
     way wildlife runs its course. Let us build a generation 
     reactor in the desert at the INL that will provide power to 
     all of southeast Idaho. This could probably be the cleanest 
     source of energy we have ever used. Let us open up Alaska to 
     drill for oil, become more dependent on ourselves instead of 
     foreign oil.
     Joshua.
                                  ____

       Thank you for the opportunity to direct comments to you on 
     a specific topic of great concern.
       My wife and I are nearing retirement (currently 58 years 
     old), and our home is paid for. However, our home was built 
     in the 1970s under a program promoted by Utah Power & Light, 
     which encouraged constructing total electric homes using 
     ceiling cable heat. UP&L even gave monthly energy 
     ``discounts'' for being total electric. Later . . . much 
     later . . . those discounts were deemed to not promote energy 
     efficiency and were taken away. Even though Idaho electric 
     rates remain relatively low, our home of 2,100 sq ft costs 
     over $300 a month to heat in the winter. We are concerned 
     that increasing energy rates will force us out of our home 
     when we are no longer working fulltime. No incentives are 
     provided for conversion and with ceiling cable there is no 
     duct-work to convert a furnace to . . . so natural gas or 
     propane is not economically feasible.
       Solution--Construct a nuclear power plant on the desert of 
     the INL. Find a willing commercial owner, provide some US 
     government incentives to build a new version to use as a 
     model nationwide, offer an incentive to Idahoans on the grid 
     to get a discount & sell the rest of the power to Utah, 
     Nevada & California. Speed the process of approval & 
     construction. Sell bonds to help build it but do something.
       I know it is an overly simplistic suggestions but we need 
     to do something about energy in this country or our economy 
     will grind to a near standstill.
     Ted.
                                  ____

       Like everyone else in America, higher energy costs affect 
     me more every day as the price of everything I purchase 
     climbs. I am very frugal and have been barely make ends meet 
     as it is. It makes me physically sick with worry when I think 
     about the future. What is going to happen when I cannot 
     afford to pay my bills? Who do I stop paying first? Do I stop 
     paying my rent? My utilities? What about all the medical 
     bills I owe? (I have no medical insurance . . . but that is 
     another letter for another day.) Will I lose my home? Will I 
     get sued by my creditors and then get my wages garnished? 
     What about the $100 I pay every month to the Social Security 
     Administration for an overpayment of my disability benefits? 
     What will happen to me when I cannot afford to pay that? I 
     cannot be optimistic anymore and think somehow someone will 
     save the day. No one has offered up any realistic solutions 
     that I have heard. Getting a tax break for the summer will 
     not do a whole lot of good when [other prices remain high due 
     to] the price of oil in the preceding 12 months. Making the 
     oil companies pay more taxes will not solve the problem.
       It just makes my blood boil to listen to [politicians] 
     sugar-coat our problems. This country is in crisis. The 
     powers that be have chosen to put their heads in the sand 
     over the environment and now it is too late to find a 
     ``green'' solution to the immediate energy needs of our 
     country. We need to drill for oil . . . now. It is sickening 
     that after all that has happened in our past with regard to 
     our dependence on foreign oil that we find ourselves here. 
     President Bush thinks he's going to win the war on terror by 
     sending our troops to die in the Middle East? The terrorists 
     will defeat us by using our dependence on them. While 
     everyone looks for a bomb and we lose our civil liberties one 
     by one, they will steal our way of life.
       When I got my stimulus rebate check, I spent it all and 
     went to a family reunion. It occurred to me as I was coming 
     home that it is very likely that I will not be able to go 
     next year, or any year in the foreseeable future. It will 
     simply cost too much. The only reason I could afford it this 
     year is because of that rebate check. I cannot imagine that I 
     will have the ability to save enough money to go next year 
     because it will cost too much to put a roof over my head and 
     food on my table.
       So, Mr. Crapo, my story is simple. The state of the nation 
     makes me afraid and angry.
     Kathy.
                                  ____

       My wife and I own and my wife operates a child day-care in 
     Idaho Falls, Idaho. Since the price of fuel has spun out of 
     control and with no resolution in the near future we are 
     actively attempting to sell or will shut the doors on the 
     business in the next two month. The price of fuel is driving 
     everything else up so high that we need to raise our prices 
     to make up for the increases and we are in many cases simply 
     pricing ourselves out of our customers ability to pay. Many 
     of our customers [have to choose] between day care or paying 
     for fuel, grocery, natural gas, etc. In many cases, one of 
     the parents quit their job to stay home with the kids and 
     simply tighten up their belts and live with the minimums. If 
     I did not have a good job working for a subcontractor to the 
     DOE and had enough income to take care of the day to day and 
     not depend on the business, I would be in bankruptcy court.
       The fuel cost drives not only our vehicles; it drives every 
     aspect of our day to day lives. I am worried that if a 
     radical solution is not set into motion that we will be 
     looking at a depression in this country. My grandparents went 
     through the first one, and I hope that my family will not 
     have to see similar times. Allowing a small population of the 
     world to control the vast majority by controlling them with 
     out-of-control energy prices is not right. I have a problem 
     with so few becoming so wealthy while so many suffer. We have 
     vast oil resources in the lower 48, and we all know the 
     resources that are in Alaska. The Alaskan pipeline did not 
     destroy the landscape or cause the caribou to go extinct like 
     some of the environmentalists would like us to believe. Maybe 
     we should allow our government that is funded by our tax 
     dollars to step in and get involved with the refining of oil 
     in our country and quit depending on someone who actually do 
     not like us very much for our energy. We need to use what we 
     have and we need to not allow the activist groups to tie our 
     hands when we want to use it. If anyone even mentions 
     drilling in Alaska the activist groups go crazy and it make

[[Page S30]]

     me wonder who is funding these groups to keep our hand tied. 
     The short term fix is to use the oil that we are setting on 
     while we work on the research and development required to 
     assist or solve the long term problem.
     David.
                                  ____

       Senator, I could sit here and gripe about the high energy 
     costs. However, I regard the problem as a collective problem, 
     not something one sector or another of the economy has done. 
     We are all aware of how the costs are spiraling out of 
     control, and there are things we can all do to mitigate the 
     pinch in our wallet. Every one of us is guilty to varying 
     degrees. Consider the following:
       First, each of us needs to be a lot more concerned with 
     conserving. We can all make one trip instead of three to the 
     store. We can carpool. We can reduce some of our recreational 
     activities to use less fuel getting there and while there. 
     Turn off the lights. Use the energy efficient light bulbs. 
     Use mass transit. The list goes on and on.
       Second, Congress has got to work out a balanced approach to 
     energy availability. Hydro power is still the most efficient, 
     but has been hogtied by the environmentalists who not only do 
     not want new power production, and even want to remove power 
     production that is in place. Nuclear power has been similarly 
     placed into the nether land of total environmental disfavor. 
     The record of these two sources is not perfect, but they are 
     not guilty of producing greenhouse gasses and making the 
     Arabs richer and richer either. They have a place in our 
     infrastructure, and Congress needs to make it happen before 
     we give away all our wealth to Islamic radicals and 
     Communists. Begin a plan to reduce and eliminate foreign 
     import of oil, then make it stick.
       Third, Congress needs to greatly improve incentives for 
     domestic production of oil. Use the oil shale resources we 
     have all over the country. Allow drilling in areas where the 
     likelihood of new fields is good, with a great deal of care 
     nevertheless. Use clean coal production methods for power.
       Fourth, Congress should tax the windfall profits of the oil 
     companies. Use that money for refunds to vehicle owners and 
     taxpayers. There is no excuse on God's green earth for an oil 
     company to make more profits in a fiscal quarter than the GNP 
     of 80% of the world's nations in a year.
       O.K. I have run out of time, but not ideas. I just wanted 
     you to know we are all in this together, and either we solve 
     it together, or the mess will get worse and worse. All of you 
     in Congress need to quit quibbling and do something.
     Lon.
                                  ____

       I appreciate the opportunity of letting you know of how the 
     high costs of fuel/energy are impacting me.
       I feel lucky--I have a good job and make above average pay. 
     However, I am at a point in my life when I need to be able to 
     save for retirement. My wife and I have raised our children 
     and have recently been able to start saving for retirement. 
     With the current prices of fuel, we are not able to save as 
     needed to ensure that we will have the required funds to 
     retire.
       I have discussed the high price of fuel with several 
     contract workers. They are not planning any type of vacation 
     travel and, in most cases, are fearful of the future. Most 
     are not even sure that they will be able to take care of 
     their necessities if prices continue to skyrocket.
       There is a business here in Idaho Falls that purchases 
     plasma. I watched a news report detailing how busy they 
     currently are. Many who are selling their plasma are doing it 
     just to make ends meet. The place is so busy that they are 
     turning people away.
       I worry about my own children. The future is bleak. Never 
     in my life have we had such a dim outlook--not in America.
       It is time for drilling (in an environmentally safe way). 
     It is time for nuclear power to come out of the closet. We 
     need to quit letting the environmentalists run this great 
     country. I am an avid outdoors man. I love Idaho. I live here 
     for the beauty and activities related to the outdoors. I have 
     faith that we can fix the problems and move forward. I do not 
     believe that we have to ruin the outdoors to make things 
     right.
       Thanks for your help
     David.
                                  ____

       When BEA was granted contract of Idaho National Laboratory, 
     [the lab director] held a meeting and asked what they could 
     do to improve the INL. My reply was to better inform the 
     public about nuclear energy and the benefits. During these 
     trying times we are facing, and the extremes of the future, 
     we must have extreme plans to counteract. The only solution 
     is to minimize our use of natural resources. How do we do 
     this? Every structure, school, home, office, storehouse, etc. 
     shall be converted to electricity derived from nuclear power 
     generating facilities. All of the natural resources shall be 
     reserved for transportation and emergency needs. No longer 
     can the government not be in direct competition with private 
     affairs. When it is for the better of the people then it is 
     the right thing to do. Nuclear energy is the only solution. 
     We need to inform the public and gain support for a cleaner 
     more efficient future. I am excited to be involved with any 
     help I can provide with this matter.
     Roy.
                                  ____

       I am a hospice nurse and my patients rely on me to make 
     home visits so they can have the care they need and deserve 
     at the end of their lives. Without this service, many dying 
     patients would have uncontrolled syptoms and unable to get to 
     the doctor. Driving distances are great for me as I [care 
     for] people in outlying areas, sometimes averaging 50-100 
     miles a day to see everyone. This cost in fuel is very hard 
     to manage and at times nearly forces me to feel like 
     returning to the hospital rather than providing this much 
     needed service due to cost prohibitiveness of my work from 
     fuel cost.
     Cheryl, Boise.

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