[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18791]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                             ENERGY POLICY

  (Mr. GEJDENSON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend is remarks.)
  Mr. Speaker, the American people are being held hostage by foreign 
oil producers and American energy companies. We are now heading for our 
second cycle where we go from heating oil crisis to gas crisis, and now 
we are heading back for another heating oil crisis. At a time when oil 
companies should have been filling the reserves of Americans to keep 
their homes warm this winter, they were shipping refined No. 2 fuel oil 
overseas.
  We need aggressive action from this administration: the release of 
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We need to have weatherization funds. 
We need real conservation programs that have been blocked for the last 
20 years since the Reagan presidency. We have had no energy policy as 
far as conservation, alternative energy, energy conservation. We need 
to move on these things now or seniors and others will see their lives 
and their life savings threatened this winter for a shortage of oil.
  We have made some progress. We have got millions of barrels in 
reserve, now gallons in reserve in Connecticut; but we need to do a lot 
more. We need the Senate to move the legislation that gives 
authorization for the heating oil reserve.

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