[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 63 (Tuesday, April 28, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4801-S4803]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                IDAHOANS SPEAK OUT ON HIGH ENERGY PRICES

  Mr. CRAPO. Madam 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 both work out of the home. He is a biology 
     teacher at a high school in Nampa, and I work part-time for a 
     utility company. I work because I have to, but I work as 
     little as I can because raising moral children is the better 
     thing to do. We love Boise! Our home is about equal distance 
     from our jobs, but in opposite directions. I go east; he goes 
     west. Recently, I have approached my employer to allow me to 
     work three full days a week instead of five shorter days. 
     This is solely to save on the expense rising gas prices have 
     on our budget. With the costs of gas, food, electricity going 
     up, we are in a tough spot. I have been with my employer for 
     8.5 years, and my pay is maxed out. I must rely on a cost-of-
     living adjustment at the beginning of the new year, but since 
     that is never a guarantee, it is not included in our 
     budgeting plans until it happens. My husband is in his fourth 
     year of teaching, and teachers' pay? Well, you know how bad 
     that is. He will receive an increase in his yearly salary of 
     $750 this year (for a total salary of just $31,750), hardly 
     enough to compensate for those rising costs previously 
     mentioned. (What is been most troublesome to me lately is 
     that an individual my father associates with gets $36,000 a 
     year in Social Security benefits for ``psychological'' 
     reasons--most likely a result of years of drug use--and she 
     spends $50/day on marijuana. So while the state government 
     does not even pay my husband enough to provide for a family, 
     they are giving an extra $4,000/year to support another 
     person's drug abuse.)
       The situation regarding higher gas prices is leading us to 
     look into carpooling, keeps us from going out as much, and is 
     a deterrent to buying a mini-van (we will try to squeeze 
     three car seats into the back of our sedan when our third 
     child is born). Several months ago, I considered biking to 
     work; but with the traffic in Boise, I am fearful that I 
     might be hit, and do not want to leave two children 
     motherless. I would like to see more people carpool, or take 
     other forms of transportation. Americans take energy for 
     granted and in the past, have not been the least bit 
     concerned about the impact of their selfish choices. I also 
     looked into a bus route, but none runs very close to our 
     home. In fact, the nearest pick-up is still several miles 
     away.
       What should America do? I do not know. Several months ago, 
     I thought a gas ration would force conservation. Sometimes 
     people need to be made to do what they will not willingly do 
     themselves. Nuclear? I am concerned about the waste. Our own 
     sources of oil? I guess I view them like I view my savings 
     account--a reserve for emergencies. Using more of our own 
     resources is a resort if/when we find that conservation is 
     not effective enough. Conservation incentives? Seems that it 
     would be rather hard to enforce, and many do not have the 
     money to buy efficient upgrades. However, building 
     requirements allowing only the construction of energy 
     efficient homes might be a good start. If I am not mistaken, 
     they generally use about 30% less power than a non-energy 
     star home.
       I think the only solution is a combination of solutions on 
     a combination of problems. Sometimes you just have to fix 
     everything at once--it is drastic, but the only way to make 
     real change--even for the government. I do not have all, or 
     even any of the answers, but a few brilliant minds, or even a 
     few people who care, could figure it out together.
     Cheris, Boise.
                                  ____

       You wanted to know how the rising cost of fuel is affecting 
     me and my family. We, as of

[[Page S4802]]

     March, bought a window covering franchise servicing Nampa, 
     Caldwell, Star, Middleton, Mountain Home, while we live in 
     East Boise. Our business is to take the choices to the 
     customer in their home so we are on the road constantly. If 
     the problem of rising fuel on a mobile business is not 
     obvious, I can draw a picture. My costs of doing business 
     increases with gas prices, with will affect me and the value 
     my customers can receive. If this continues, it will make 
     doing business very, very challenging. It is especially 
     frustrating knowing that the reserves are available in this 
     country and our elected officials are toying with our lives 
     the way you are. Caps and windfall taxing is not the answer; 
     get serious!
       On another issue, I had to get into my own business because 
     after 24 years at Micron my mid-management level job was 
     eliminated to off-shore outsourcing, which again, our 
     government has set the stage to make doing business overseas 
     more attractive than doing business at home.
       Good luck. I think if the [conservatives] would make more 
     noise in the public about real solutions the public would 
     force the liberals to made positive productive energy 
     solutions occur. ``We the people'' are not stupid. Get the 
     issues in front of us and those holding up progress will be 
     removed.
     Ken, Boise.
                                  ____

       [My hometown] is based around farming. I can tell you that 
     my son did work for a farmer locally and was laid off. The 
     farmer could not afford to pay him or even raise his normal 
     crop this year due to fuel prices, which has forced my Son to 
     become dependent on me. I have no choice but to retire from 
     my job next year due to poor health. With my loss of income 
     to the household and the ever-rising fuel costs putting a 
     hardship on everything, I see my middle-class family and me 
     selling off everything and moving to skid row and being on 
     welfare since fuel costs are driving down employment and 
     raised the cost on most everything in this area. There are 
     lots of stories like this one around here. And a lot of 
     people in this community feel that the government is doing 
     next to nothing to help. I see our nation in serious trouble 
     if action is not taken now to solve soaring fuel costs.
       I do not know if I have a specific or particular story 
     about the impact of gas prices on me and my family. I am 
     retired and on a fixed income. You talk about the impact of 
     gas prices, and I say yes, I have become $50 a month poorer 
     and will soon be $100, without any increase in income. but it 
     is not just about my personal use. There is a financial 
     impact in a hundred other ways. All food and other services 
     are going up at the rate of 8 cents per item per week. As 
     trucking firms and truckers go out of business and we have 
     heard that a third of the nation's truckers have, we will see 
     costs continue to increase. I used to consider myself to be 
     middle-income but am now in poverty. I cannot afford to heat 
     or cool my home buy good food, enjoy entertainment or visit 
     friends anymore. If I was spending any money and someone was 
     making some, that will stop. It seems that everyone's only 
     solution is to raise prices causing us to buy less and less.
       This is going to spiral into another great depression. [We] 
     have got to open up our oil reserves. Allow states to get the 
     oil we know we have. I am for a clean environment but none of 
     those environmental lobbyists is going to vote you out of 
     office because you allow drilling. There are way more people 
     who want fuel. We know that cheap fuel sources are just 
     around the corner. I guess I am just lucky I have a Geo to 
     drive or I could not go anywhere. which reminds me I cannot 
     drive my comfortable cars trucks and definitely not my motor 
     home. I cannot sell them either as no one can afford fuel for 
     them. I guess that means we can just scrap \3/4\s of American 
     vehicles just like that because no one can invent a better 
     one and no one can afford to buy it if they did.
       Thanks.
     Zack, Burley.
                                  ____

       Well I suppose I am one of those few, but, hopefully, 
     growing renegades who believes that $4 a gallon is one of the 
     best things to happen to the environmental world in recent 
     history.
       Cars and oil-run machines are here and we need them. But 
     this increase in fuel costs has spurred all kinds of new 
     ideas and technologies that need money and research. I hope 
     that some of these new technologies will wean us away from 
     the old fossil fuel standbys, and guide us toward new, 
     sustainable fuel sources.
       I recently heard a few, very promising things about algae 
     farms that produce clean bio-fuels. They would not decimate 
     the food source or encourage more soybean crops in the Amazon 
     rain forest. Wind farms are growing and solar energy is 
     actually being talked about. Here in Idaho, as you know, the 
     wind blows and the sun comes out in late May and does not go 
     back in until mid-September. These alternatives will not 
     supply 100 percent of our power needs but 30 percent? 40 
     percent? I keep hearing all or nothing--we need something 
     that will be omnipresent. But in the summer if we reduced 30 
     percent or 40 percent of our power needs would not that cut 
     our fossil fuel needs too? Solar and wind also work in the 
     winter--and if these industries received some of the huge 
     subsidies that oil companies keep getting, would not they be, 
     perhaps with more research, more sensitive and more 
     productive?
       I have read where most domestic oil drilling would not 
     start producing anything for another ten years. Just imagine 
     what ten years of research and development of alternatives 
     could produce with all the energetic imagination that is 
     going on right now. In ten years we might not even need that 
     oil and those newly drilled areas would all be for not. And I 
     think with all those profits the oil companies seem to be 
     making, they could spare a few bucks of subsidies.
       Locally, I still see all these expensive houses high in the 
     hills of the Treasure Valley baking in the sun with hardly a 
     solar panel to be found. The transportation situation is 
     stagnant with a growing population and no alternatives to 
     avoid vehicles. There is no interstate train service to or 
     from here, and the public transportation in this valley is 
     rather pathetic. The legislature keeps voting down any kind 
     of local option tax and the possibility for any kind of 
     light-rail seems like decades away.
       I ride my bicycle just about everywhere, here in Boise. I 
     see so many more people riding bikes and I think that is so 
     cool. I have also been getting pretty excited by all the 
     innovations I am starting to see out there, glimpses of new 
     and wonderful alternatives to fossil fuels. But I keep 
     hearing the big voice of government saying it will not work, 
     this cannot be done and that cannot be done. But the idealist 
     in me says it can. We are a smart enough country to deal with 
     this in a wise and imaginative way. I know that if we start 
     to let go, a little, of what we have been beholden to for so 
     long, and open our minds to all possibilities then good 
     things will start to happen.
     Jay, Boise.
                                  ____

       Simply put, I believe we should begin additional drilling 
     immediately off our coasts, in the Rocky Mountains and ANWR. 
     I also support flex fuels/bio diesel alternatives. We need to 
     build nuclear power plants right away (I support doing this 
     in Idaho; it would be nice if Idaho was energy independent 
     and exporting power to other nearby states!) Please pass on 
     the urgency of doing this expeditiously as it is essential to 
     our national security.
       Thank you for the ``i-meeting'' town-hall forum as it helps 
     Idahoans save gas and conserve as well as participate in this 
     very important process! As a voting Idahoan, I also believe 
     in conservation, thrift, and responsible stewarding of our 
     beautiful state.
     Teresa.
                                  ____

       We own a small business here in Idaho. We were looking 
     forward to having our SBA loan paid off this year. The SBA 
     payment has been as high as $2,200 per month, which at times 
     has been a struggle, but we have managed to pay it off in the 
     ten-year time frame. We are now fearful that we will be 
     switching from paying an SBA loan payment to just paying for 
     gas to survive. Our gas bill used to be $300 to $500 per 
     month. It has now soared to over $2,000 per month. Tell us 
     how we are going to stay in business? By the way, I have 
     heard that the wind generators by Mountain Home are not 
     working. Is this true and why?
     Stephen and Terry, Mountain Home.
                                  ____

       It is not so much that the prices have risen. I understand 
     the supply/demand concept. But what really irks me is that 
     fact that the big oil companies are recording record profits 
     and using the excuse that this will get them through the hard 
     times or they need it for research to find more efficient 
     fuel sources. I do not believe this. It has been quietly 
     insinuated in the past of oil companies buying out any new 
     fuel idea to keep their monopoly on the industry. They really 
     do have a monopoly on the U.S. economy fuel source, and we 
     have no recourse except to try and minimize our fuel use. We 
     have done this by cancelling vacations and even short trips 
     in the area. We also are going to the store less, planning 
     each trip so that we can accomplish the most in one driving 
     trip. The people with lots of money will feel the effects 
     minimally but the middle to lower class are taking the brunt 
     of this crisis. I do not think those with money (higher 
     elected officials) have any idea the difficulties that we are 
     encountering because they do not live that life. Walk in the 
     shoes of some of us for a month and then see what is 
     important and what is not.
       I really do not see how drilling for more oil (like in 
     Alaska) will make any difference when the oil companies use 
     the excuses listed above. They are still going to get the 
     highest dollar amount they feel they can get away with. The 
     only way the price will change is if demand drops below what 
     is on the market. But then, the oil companies can determine 
     what is on the market (hold back their product) to keep the 
     prices higher. Unless they are regulated in some way, they 
     can do whatever they want.
     Terrie.
                                  ____

       I just got back from a vacation in Yellowstone National 
     Park, and the traffic was the worst I have ever seen in about 
     50 trips to the park. It was probably more due to timing than 
     anything, but it still indicates that gas prices are 
     relatively low for the middle class. I am more concerned 
     about the affect of energy prices on lower income 
     individuals.
       In the long run, we need to focus on other issues, and 
     improved energy costs will probably be an important side 
     effect. The issues I would focus on are:
       1. Too much traffic on our highways and city streets.
       2. Too much crime in our cities.

[[Page S4803]]

       3. Too much environmental impact from mining, drilling for 
     oil and gas, and wind farms.
       4. Too many farms being subdivided to build houses.
       5. The ``nuclear waste problem'' and ``nuclear 
     proliferation problem'' are not being addressed 
     realistically.
       If we take the obvious actions to solve these problems, 
     there will be less pressure on energy prices:
       1. Invest in public transportation. The federal government 
     has spared no expense in improving highways over the past 50 
     years. Imagine the effect of an equal investment in train and 
     bus service. I have ridden on buses all of my life, and it 
     can be a nice way to travel or commute. The few trains I have 
     ridden were also very comfortable and convenient. This has 
     much more potential to save energy than hybrid cars or 
     hydrogen powered fuel cells. A small van has the potential to 
     provide hundreds of passenger miles per gallon of gas. 
     Buses and trains should do even better.
       2. Invest in ride sharing and car pooling.
       3. Invest in nice cities. People should be able to live 
     comfortably, with no fear of crime, within walking distance 
     to work.
       4. Invest in maintaining farm land as farm land instead of 
     using it to create sprawling suburbs full of oversized 
     houses.
       5. Put a limit on the tax break for a first home. Eliminate 
     the tax break for a second home. For one thing, I am sick and 
     tired of hearing how rich celebrities are so ``green'' and 
     have such a small ``carbon footprint'' when I know most of 
     them own multiple, grossly oversized, tax-subsidized homes.
       6. Invest in nuclear power. The public should be demanding 
     better performance from the nuclear industry just like they 
     do from the airline industry. We want airlines to operate on 
     schedule, cost effectively, and operate safely, even with the 
     security concerns raised by 9/11. We should be demanding 
     similar performance from the nuclear industry and stop 
     fretting about perceived problems.
       With respect to the ``nuclear waste problem'', there is no 
     reason to relate performance requirements to the half-life of 
     long lived radionuclides. There is no reason to treat 
     plutonium contamination as fundamentally different from other 
     toxic metals such as lead, which have infinite half-life. In 
     reality the biggest nuclear waste problem is probably our 
     700,000 metric tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride 
     currently stored in corroding carbon steel cylinders. This 
     volatile ``waste'' material is a serious environmental 
     hazard, but should be managed as a major resource. It could 
     be transmuted into plutonium in nuclear reactors and used to 
     produce all the energy we need for the next 500 years. No 
     mining, drilling, or refining would be needed. This would 
     help eliminate the fantasy that we need to cover our 
     landscape with windmills that do not even work most of the 
     time.
       With respect to nuclear proliferation, the only way to go 
     is forward. The USA needs to lead the way in developing cost 
     effective nuclear energy technology, so that less stable 
     countries have no reason to develop their own technology. 
     Then we will not need to worry about whether they are 
     producing weapons grade materials. Improved technology should 
     include reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. We should reprocess 
     it instead of trying to bury it. Currently, it is self-
     protecting due to high radioactivity, but it will not be in 
     about 200 years. We should not leave this hazard for future 
     generations.
       The public needs to be educated about energy. The general 
     public has virtually no understanding of nuclear power, and 
     they seem to be generally illiterate with regard to energy 
     issues. Hydrogen-powered vehicles are unrealistic and do not 
     make thermodynamic or economic sense. Windmills and solar 
     panels have limited potential to reduce energy costs and 
     major environmental impact if we try to push them beyond 
     their potential. The idea that the world can just keep 
     building more efficient cars and more roads is short-sighted 
     and unrealistic. The idea that you can be ``green'' when your 
     house in the suburbs is four times bigger than you need is 
     ridiculous. Carbon credits are ridiculous. Turning food into 
     alcohol for fuel is ridiculous.
     Dan, Pocatello.

                          ____________________