[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11167]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     PRICE CAPS ARE NOT THE ANSWER

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, until recently, I thought everyone understood 
the law of supply and demand, but that was before some in this town 
started crying for price caps on energy.
  The ins and outs of energy policy may be complicated, but the law of 
supply and demand is very simple. President Bush has a sensible, 
balanced, and comprehensive plan to increase supply through new and 
better energy sources and to address demand through better efficiency 
and modernization. We should not let anyone tell us that price controls 
are the answer to the energy crunch we are in.
  The Soviet Union tried running things that way for 70 years, and 
bread lines only got longer. We need to increase supply. Price controls 
will not produce one drop of oil or one watt of electricity. They only 
reduce the pain temporarily, but compound the problem actually.
  Mr. Speaker, we need a long-term solution, not a short-term fix.

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