[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 10124]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      NO INVESTIGATION NECESSARY?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, to depart a little bit from my energy 
outrage day to day, where yesterday I revealed that Duke Power had 
charged $3,800 a megawatt hour last winter in California, 100 times the 
price of 2 years ago, to point to a little growing problem of 
dissension on the majority side of the aisle.
  Republican conference chairman, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. 
Watts), has called on the Committee on Energy and Commerce to schedule 
hearings on the volatile prices facing energy consumers. I quote:

       We need to get answers from energy companies, executives, 
     including producers, suppliers, refiners, transporters, 
     distributors, retailers, with the goals of finding solutions 
     to these price fluctuations and bringing price stability to 
     the public.

  Unfortunately, he is being overruled. The majority leader, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), says he is opposed to committee 
hearings to look at allegations of price gouging, that is a quote, by 
the energy industry. He says it is cheap political demagoguery. That is 
another quote.
  Well, let us look a little bit at the record. Of course the majority 
leader does represent Texas, and ExxonMobil did see their profits up 
102 percent last year. Americans certainly see it at the gas pump every 
single day where they are being price-gouged. They had $15.9 billion, 
``B,'' billion dollars of profit, up 102 percent in one year. But, no, 
there is nothing to investigate. There is no market manipulation going 
on here. An increase of profits of 102 percent a year? Why, that is 
normal.
  Okay, maybe it is. Let us go and look at the natural gas market. El 
Paso Energy, also based in Texas, where the majority leader hales from, 
they had profits of $1.2 billion last year. A relatively small company; 
only $1.2 billion in profits. Of course, their profits were up 381 
percent in 1 year. An awful lot of Americans saw that in their natural 
gas bills this winter when they were trying to heat their homes and a 
lot of them were freezing because they could not afford the bills. 
Nothing to investigate there. There is no market manipulation. It is 
normal for natural gas prices to go up by that much and for profits for 
this company to go up by 381 percent a year, except for recent 
revelations that have shown that El Paso Natural Gas bought pipeline 
capacity and then refused to use it and refused to let any other gas 
company use it so they could artificially restrict supply and drive the 
price up. But there is nothing to investigate there.
  All right, let us turn then to electricity. Duke Power. I spoke 
earlier about their charging as much as $3,800 a megawatt hour, 100 
times the price of 2 years ago. Just multiply your home electric bill 
by 100. That is what Duke was charging folks in California this winter. 
But they only earned $1.8 billion of profits and their profits are only 
up 109 percent in 1 year. Nothing to investigate there. No. Price of 
$3,800 a megawatt hour, only up 100 times what it was just 2 years ago, 
why that is just natural. It is those Californians. They deserve this. 
Nothing to investigate there.
  We need a comprehensive investigation. The Bush administration's own 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has found these prices unjust and 
unreasonable. The staff, unfortunately the chairman is appointed by the 
President, Mr. Hebert of Louisiana, and the chairman says, like our 
majority leader from Texas, there is nothing to investigate here. This 
is just the market at work, and consumers should just lump it.
  Well, the Republicans are going to lump it at the ballot box unless 
they follow the advice of their conference chairman and start doing an 
investigation of what is going on. And if they do not do it here in the 
House, I predict it will happen in the Senate. And they might just have 
a little bit of egg on their face here when more and more of this 
evidence of price gouging and market manipulation comes out. Because 
the American people know what is happening to them. They know it every 
day when they pull up to the gas pump and they know it when they are 
opening their electric bill and when they get their natural gas bill, 
and they are not going to take it for much longer any more.

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