[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 33 (Wednesday, February 25, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2468-S2469]
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. 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 husband and I are semi retired but the figure of $200 
     way off the mark even for us. We do work part of the year but 
     are not doing so at this time. We live rural and have to 
     travel for groceries, building supplies. When we work all of 
     this involves a minimum of 40 miles each way, not including 
     the around town mileage. We have 20 acres, with a small 
     tractor to keep weeds under control which the county urges 
     all of us to do. We also have a large lawn to mow. Our fuel 
     bill for the month of May was $400. The tractor has a tank of 
     10 gallons, and that alone costs $40 per tank. We are trying 
     to save a bit by purchasing dyed fuel but, by the time you 
     travel to that, you have eaten up your savings. The point is 
     we have very little choice on our fuel issues. We do not go 
     to town on a whim and really never have as long as we have 
     been here (since 1973). The price of food is skyrocketing 
     also in the rural areas. We have a small grocery store in a 
     small town by us, but they have fuel issues, too. We would 
     like to see nuclear power sources and wind generators 
     multiply. Our daughter does websites and she has a customer 
     that has a wind power source for sale for each single home. 
     However, at this point, it is somewhat expensive, 
     approximately $5,500. Although in the past, nuclear power has 
     had a few hiccups so even we were not in favor of it. I 
     subscribe to Popular Science Magazine and it is my 
     understanding they are very close or have reached the ability 
     to neutralize the waste. However, I have not heard any news 
     about it from the media or official science reports.
       Fixed income as well as families and singles cannot get pay 
     raises that equals the cost of living in reality. We dealt 
     with this our last years at work. Companies have their 
     stockholders that have to be kept and for the last eight 
     years of our jobs we steadily lost money from cost of living 
     that the government adjusted to be 3% or less when in the 
     blue collar world did not equate to that. Fuel along doubled 
     and what cost us $30 per week for work fuel jumped within 3 
     months to $60 per week and kept traveling upward since. 
     Property taxes, auto and home insurance also have risen but 
     employers went with the government figures. I would get 25 
     cent per hour raise. It brought home approximately $4 and 
     change per week. It did not cover any of our rising expenses. 
     Anything under $1.00 does not even show anything much on a 
     take home check. So there needs to be some way for an 
     employer with all their overheads to realize this and perhaps 
     hire CEOs, CFOs and other company officials that make a 
     decent wage without the super perks they have received for 
     the last 25 years. Corporate waste is rampant and should be 
     addressed somehow in the near future so the frontline 
     employees can afford today's fuel prices and not be stressed 
     daily by how to make ends meet. Sorry I got off the edge here 
     but it is all one big picture which is why the energy costs 
     are a frontline problem with this. We still have many elderly 
     people who do not have enough to live as is. With this energy 
     impact, I do not know how they can make it. So please keep up 
     your vigil. We need to open up the fields in Alaska and not 
     be selling it to other countries at this point. [When] my 
     husband and I work, which involves truck driving, we see what 
     is happening along the routes we travel. The distress in the 
     citizens and the oil wells being developed and the ones that 
     are not running.
     Darlene, Spirit Lake.
                                  ____

       Thank you for the opportunity to communicate in this 
     fashion my family's challenges with the high cost of energy 
     and our thoughts. I travel a great deal all over America and, 
     as part of my job, I work closely with many convenience store 
     operators around our great country. We own a Dodge Durango 4-
     wheel drive SUV. It is great because it provides the safety 
     my family needs during the winter and the space we need for 
     all the stuff we need to transport when you have two young 
     children. As you no doubt remember with your own family, a 
     nine-month-old baby [needs] a lot of baggage when he 
     travels--car seats, strollers, etc. The daughter wants her 
     bike when visiting the grandparents, her books, and spare 
     clothes, etc. The bad thing is it only gets 13 miles to the 
     gallon on average and, like most families, we did not buy it 
     with cash but financed it which means we owe more on it than 
     we can sell it for. In fact, in this market, many car dealers 
     will not even take an SUV in on trade. So we have no choice 
     but to bear the burden of high gas prices for the foreseeable 
     future. We cannot just throw the car away and run out and buy 
     a new fuel-efficient SUV which is selling at a premium that, 
     frankly, even in today's market, does not even pencil out as 
     a good investment by my calculations. Of course, this is not 
     the only part of the story of how high energy costs have 
     impacted our family but the part those like Thomas Freidman 
     never take into consideration when promoting even higher 
     costs through taxation, cap and trade, and government 
     manipulation of the market.
       What should Congress do?
       Do not do as Congresswoman Maxine Waters suggested in 
     Committee and take over the oil companies. The markets are 
     working just fine, but what they reflect is all the inaction 
     and obstacles that have burdened the supply and demand 
     elasticity of the commodities markets be it oil or corn, etc.
       Again, taxing is not a solution. We should be working to 
     lower taxes for everyone. Not redistributing it. Not to 
     manipulate markets. Fuel taxes should be what they need to be 
     to maintain our infrastructure. We should be encouraging 
     efficiencies in the market place with our tax code and 
     policies.
       The fact is we need to make it easier to drill now. We need 
     to make it easier to refine more fuel now. We need to add 
     capacity to distribute that fuel to the marketplace now. We 
     need to expand our reserves so we have a cushion when natural 
     disasters occur. We need to do something about all the 
     boutique fuels that cause unnatural shortages every spring 
     and fall (winter blend, summer blend, smog blend, this blend, 
     that blend impact refinery efficiency). We need to do 
     something about credit card interchange fees. We need to do 
     everything we can to encourage efficiency.
       And, of course, we need to encourage conservation, public 
     transportation where possible, more not less airports and 
     routes, and alternative even renewable sources of energy.
       Well, that is my 415 cents. Thank you.
     Robert, Twin Falls.
                                  ____

       I find it odd as the greatest country in the world we are 
     lagging in becoming energy self-sufficient. France, for 
     instance, runs and has, for many years, ran its country off 
     nuclear power. How is it that we cannot do this? If our 
     country was powered off of nuclear power, consider the 
     substantial reduction in oil consumption for the east coast. 
     They are paying to heat their houses with heating oil, more 
     expensive than our natural gas. Drilling for more oil will 
     help but we need a bigger and better solution. Corn is not 
     the answer, either. As the government pushes alternative 
     fuels (ethanol), the price of food rises. Also we do not get 
     the power out of ethanol that we get out of traditional fuel 
     so MPG on our cars drop. So we need more ethanol. It is a 
     very ridiculous cycle. Nuclear, wind, hydrogen, oil--all 
     these options need to be brought to the table now. Waiting 
     until after the election will not work. We all know as soon 
     as that election is over the focus will be on mid-term 
     elections and pandering to voters. Let us get it done now. 
     Does our government really care about our future, our 
     children? Let us act on this now before these same promises 
     are being made to our children's children.
     Unsigned.
                                  ____

       It is time that we get off our cans and get aggressive in 
     drilling for oil on our own soil. I am tired of our country 
     being held hostage to foreign interests and values when it 
     comes to our own energy needs. High fuel costs have had a 
     significant negative effect on my business and my ability to 
     grow my business. Please do all you can to get us out of this 
     crisis.
     Craig, Eagle.
                                  ____

       It is time to reign in the market speculation in oil and it 
     is products. There is no shortage of gasoline or oil. There 
     are no lines at gas stations! It is gouging, plain and 
     simple. Stop protecting the oil companies! Windfall profits 
     tax on all oil-related products of at least 50%. Apply the 
     windfall tax funds to alternative energy research that have 
     no connection to the oil industry. Make it a modern day 
     Apollo project. Repeal oil industry tax breaks. Apply a 100% 
     tax rate on any salary over 10 million per year.
       The economy is collapsing while [the Administration does 
     nothing]. We own a small

[[Page S2469]]

     business; we want support for the middle class. The rich need 
     no help; let them earn a living for a change.
     Mike, Moscow.
                                  ____

       I am glad to see someone taking a stand that actually has a 
     chance to be heard. I am glad that we are going to try and 
     get some relief to the gas prices, but I think we should also 
     be looking into the contributing factors that are causing 
     such a demand for fuel.
       I live in Meridian and must commute to Boise every day for 
     my job. I confronted my employer (a local utility company) 
     regarding other options to having to commute to Boise every 
     day when the air quaility was getting so bad like 4-day work 
     week, telecommuting, etc. and was told it was not an option. 
     My son is 5 years old and has asthma. Every time the air 
     quality gets bad, so does his health. Recently, with the 
     gigantic increase in fuel prices and the demand of fuel, I 
     confronted my employer again about other options that could 
     not only help with the air quality, but help contribute to 
     decreasing the demand of fuel; again, I was again turned 
     down. To me it seems that not only should we be going after 
     congress to help relieve the outrageous cost of fuel, but we 
     also need someone to tell employers to do what they can to 
     start helping with the problem instead of contributing to it. 
     Thank you for what you are doing and I hope a resolution is 
     on the horizon.
     Nichole, Meridian.
                                  ____

       I received your email asking us to share our stories about 
     high energy costs so here goes. We live 5 miles from the 
     nearest grocery store and town. This means that every time we 
     get in the car, the round trip is a minimum of 10 miles. If 
     my husband and I both go into town a couple of times a day, 
     and only go to the nearest town, we drive a minimum of 40 
     miles a day and that is without running errands. going to 
     another town or anything like that. When all is said and 
     done, it is much more like 60 miles a day. We also live in 
     snow country and must have 4-wheel drives so get about 15 mpg 
     which means at $4 per gallon, we spend about $16 just to get 
     to town and back which is almost $500 per month. It is 
     insane.
       What is more insane is the idea that we can explore and 
     produce our way out of this mess. The US consumes about 26% 
     of the world's oil but only has about 2% of the world's oil 
     reserves. We would have to increase our reserves and 
     production 12 fold to cover today's demand and that is never 
     going to happen. The price of oil shot up when it became 
     clear we were going to invade Iraq--financial markets hate 
     uncertainty and invading another country is a big 
     uncertainty. As the war has dragged on and as our President 
     has talked about taking action against Iran, oil prices have 
     soared higher. The best thing our nation could do to lower 
     the price of oil would be to get out of a country we had no 
     business invading in the first place and start spending 
     more, much much more, on the plentiful wind, solar and 
     geothermal we have been blessed with.
       Americans want this, the people of Idaho want this, I only 
     hope Senator Crapo is listening. I ask him to do the only 
     sane thing and think outside the oil box.
     Leslie.
                                  ____

       I live with a husband who makes his money his. When I had a 
     job, I had an income and contributed to the groceries. It has 
     already been hard for me because I had been on medical leave 
     for over a year from a job I had for over six years that paid 
     a little over $11 an hour. During this time on medical leave, 
     I could not draw any income because of some ``catch 22'' 
     about if my doctor released me to go back to work with 
     limitations, and my job did not allow me to come back to 
     work, I did not apply for short-term disability or assistance 
     is what I was told. After my leave was exhausted and my 
     employer said they did not have a job for my physical 
     limitations, I was let go, and had to pay more money for 
     COBRA. Last fall I had enrolled in BSU with student loans 
     that barely cover school fees, books, and travel expenses as 
     it is, from Mountain Home to Boise and the Air Base. I was 
     doing very well for the first semester, but money was very 
     tight then. I ended up using my savings, my tax refund, and 
     my retirement from the company that let me go, just to pay 
     the bills. I found out that I have a rheumatoid arthritis, 
     osteo arthritis, spondylitis, depression, I take lots of 
     medications and I have had back surgery, neck surgery and I 
     am in pain most of the time. I am still waiting for my 
     disability hearing because it takes so long to get it 
     scheduled and I am down to maxed out credit cards and $150 
     dollars in the bank. My husband wants me to leave him because 
     my medical bills are too expensive. I have two classes this 
     second twelve weeks at the Air Base in Mountain Home that 
     will end on June 30th. I do not know if I will continue with 
     my BSU degree because I cannot afford to drive to Boise 
     anymore. And if I do not get an income I may end up on the 
     street. I cannot pay back my credit cards that I used to pay 
     for living expenses and medical bills and prescriptions. They 
     are maxed out. I am going to have to sell my things to get 
     by.
       To the Congressmen and Senators of this great country: Why 
     are we so hesitant to get on the ball and do something about 
     this crisis that filters down to more than gas? We cannot 
     afford to live on what we have got and now we have to pay 
     more?
       While I am frustrated with my present circumstances, I know 
     God will take care of me. What I am really worried about is 
     this country and our leaders taking us down the path of 
     destruction. Our country needs leaders who will demonstrate 
     true authority, not bickering about what party did what or 
     who is better for our country. We need to put parties aside, 
     put aside differences, fall on our knees and ask God Almighty 
     to forgive this county its many sins and his forgiveness and 
     guidance.
       [Please do your best to] to solve this crisis. I think we 
     should drill for oil, build refineries, make alternatives 
     available to the poor working public, use cooking oil instead 
     of gasoline, use sugar cane like they do in South America, 
     use wind power in windy places like Mountain Home, use 
     geothermal resources, solar power, anything that is greener 
     and healthier. [But please do it now and do not leave the 
     rest of us for fend for ourselves in this terrible economy!] 
     We are tired of the blame game. Someone do something and stop 
     filibustering and stalling progress. [Such efforts stop our 
     country from solving the problems we face.]
       I know I went off on this a little long, but again, I am 
     totally frustrated with inactivity and red tape. Thank you 
     for all you do, but please remember the people who you work 
     for whether they voted you in or not.
     Crystal, Mountain Home.
                                  ____

       Something needs to be done. Prices keep going up 
     everywhere. Not only is it affecting how much I spend in gas, 
     but my grocery bill is outrageous now; Also, Idaho Power has 
     just raised their rates. I have three children, which 
     includes a baby in diapers. It is getting to the point where 
     we can barely afford anything. It is really scary for us. We 
     never have had much money, and one of the things I use to do 
     with the kids was to go on ``drives'' just to get out of the 
     house. We would go to Chevron and get drinks, then drive to 
     different areas in Boise that we had not seen before and 
     listen to music. Now, we cannot even do that. Prices will 
     keep going up because they can, and people like us are going 
     to really ``pay'' for it in the long run. It makes me sick. 
     It is not like we are not trying to make it in life. I am a 
     student at Boise State and I will be a Respiratory Therapist. 
     We are not people looking for handouts. We are a family not 
     only trying to get by, but we want to live, too We want to 
     enjoy life also. It upsets me when even the little things 
     that we were able to do are now a luxury. Something has got 
     to be done. The reality is that there is really people who 
     cannot afford the rise in prices (for gas and everything 
     else). There has got to be some sort of stopping point. The 
     saying,'' The rich will get richer and the poor will get 
     poorer'' sounds more like the truth to me every day. 
     Hopefully, you can represent the families and the people who 
     are being affected by this.
     S.

                          ____________________