[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19573-19578]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HURRICANE KATRINA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) is 
recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, we have seen unprecedented suffering in this 
Nation in the last weeks. No one in this country has been able to 
comprehend the size and scope of the destruction. To put it into 
perspective, one of my colleagues pointed out that the size of the area 
affected is the size of Wyoming. Another pointed out that the size of 
the area affected was equal to the nation of Great Britain. So as we 
talk about our failures and our successes, I think it is important that 
we really discuss Katrina in an overall view.
  I know that from my perspective there are going to be three major 
challenges. We have to deal with the human suffering that is felt by 
every one of the families who have lost loved ones but also by those 
people who are displaced. So the human suffering in terms of jobs lost 
and regaining jobs of any sort, regaining an income in order to pay for 
current expenses, some way to access the safety nets that this Nation 
is providing, that is one challenge of the problem.
  The second challenge is rebuilding the entire gulf coast region, and 
that is going to be a long and arduous task and one that is going to 
require the dedication and commitment of the entire Nation.
  But the third thing that I think we must be aware of as leaders and 
as the House of Representatives is the effect on our economy.
  So tonight I am joined by the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis). We 
would like to discuss the effects of Katrina that we see and the things 
that we think the Nation should be aware of as we move into the days 
ahead. I would like to discuss some of the responses that we have seen 
and some that we have not seen.
  But at this point, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis) 
to

[[Page 19574]]

talk about his perceptions of the disaster and the destruction that we 
have seen.
  Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding to me.
  This tragedy is of grave proportions, as evidenced by the 
unprecedented meeting of the President's Cabinet here tonight, Mr. 
Speaker, who spent 3 hours with us discussing a wide range of responses 
from government agencies, of agencies of the State as well as the local 
level, but particularly looking at the response that was engendered by 
this.
  I think the one thing that we can clearly say, looking at history, 
looking at this response and looking at others is there is no 
substitute for leadership and initiative, particularly on the front 
lines and in the local level; and there are countless stories of 
individuals and communities who rose to the occasion, ranging from 
mayors of small cities, pastors of churches, small business owners who 
all gave of themselves to make a tremendous difference, as the military 
and national response was able to come into an area that was devastated 
and largely inaccessible. I would point out that the response has been 
actually unprecedented in scale.
  When we think about this, I would like to bring some perspective to 
my colleagues. No disaster, no natural disaster, has struck this Nation 
of the proportions that Hurricane Katrina has in terms of its 
devastation and its impact. Nearly 90,000 square miles were affected by 
this. That is an area approximately the size of Great Britain, 
approximately the size of the State of Wyoming. When we begin to look 
at that, I do not believe that there is any agency that had fully 
prepared or built the infrastructure for that level and certainly the 
city of New Orleans did not have the wherewithal, just the simple 
hydraulics and physics of it.
  But the one thing that I want to point out is that people in 
neighborhoods rose to the occasion, individual citizens rose to the 
occasion. And many of my colleagues have risen to the occasion, 
abandoning the legislative role during that last week of the recess, 
working in everything from relief positions to the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Boustany), one of my colleagues, a physician, who helped 
in the start-up of hospitals, coordinating rescue operations from his 
district in Lafayette. I look at communities in the surrounding States 
and throughout the country who have responded with an incredible amount 
of magnanimity, of charity, of compassion, of love and outreach to see 
these people have a hope and an opportunity and a future.
  In some ways, Mr. Speaker, I have to share candidly, as a former 
military professional, I was somewhat disappointed with some of the 
media coverage. I felt that it neglected many of the great works that 
were being performed by people in hidden places throughout the 
communities that were affected. Just as an aside, the Coast Guard 
rescued more people in the last week than four times what it would do 
in a typical year. That is simply remarkable, the ability to stage 
those resources in there and begin that response. When I look at the 
amount of rescues that have had to be performed for nearly 60,000 
people who were trapped on rooftops and structures, public safety 
professionals, military professionals, National Guard resources from 
all over the United States are pouring in. Even before the storm hit, 
resources were being mustered around the United States, even from our 
own fourth district.
  The day after the storm, I ran into early Tuesday morning a convoy of 
vehicles from our own Owen Electric Cooperative that had been on two 
prior hurricane responses and were on their way to lower Mississippi to 
the central staging area. There was a concerted response of private 
groups, of public groups coming together to deal with the tragedy whose 
magnitude no one could have imagined.
  For a week now, we have watched the heartbreaking scenes of death and 
destruction in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. So many people left 
homeless, left without anything except the clothes they were wearing 
and one or two precious items that they could grab as the flood waters 
deluged their homes. As we grieve over this unimaginable horror, we 
have also watched in unmistakable awe ordinary people who have opened 
their hearts, their homes, their pocketbooks to these storm victims. 
Families who have little to spare themselves are taking in entire 
families of strangers simply because someone else is in need. This is 
the American way of selflessness and generosity. There is no ulterior 
motive, no agenda; and there is nothing but the simple desire to help, 
to lend a hand, to reinforce the dignity of every individual who is 
affected by this great tragedy.
  The city of Houston, Texas, has done something unprecedented. And I 
point out that in the tsunami and in other disasters in other parts of 
the world no country, no people have ever responded with the level of 
outpouring of response of individuals to local, State and Federal 
Government agencies as we have seen in the last 7 days. I think that is 
an important point of perspective that we keep in mind. The level of 
this tragedy was equal in magnitude to any of the countries that were 
hit by the tsunami, and when we look at the response of our people 
here, it has been simply phenomenal from a perspective of 
infrastructure.
  In that outpouring in Houston alone, 225,000 people have been 
received into that city. The people of Texas have set an example of 
compassion and leadership. Other States around the country are 
receiving people, colleges, universities, communities, homeless 
shelters even. And I look at that, and I see in virtually every State, 
all of our States along the Ohio Valley, where I live, are seeing the 
same level of compassion. It has been simply overwhelming. They have 
responded to a grave situation by giving hope, by giving opportunity, 
and helping communities to ultimately reestablish while the water is 
being removed, while an infrastructure that no longer exists is being 
put back in place.
  Things that are important to remember from a standpoint affecting the 
entire country as we are dealing with the human tragedies, we are 
dealing with the health care issues, as we are providing refuge for 
those who are affected by this storm, crews from industry, from the 
private sector, from our national security organizations have 
responded. By the end of this week, our national refineries in the gulf 
will be back at 95 percent of production. That is a tremendous 
statement.

                              {time}  2310

  Our pipelines are going to be open again to make sure that that 
critical infrastructure is working. The on-water transit capability is 
going to be back in operation very shortly, and hopefully, we will see 
that port open up. Why that is so important is restoring normalcy and 
restoring employment, vocation, jobs and restarting that market economy 
and rebuilding the foundations of those communities over time.
  I think it is also important to remember what the national response 
is. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, it took nearly 6 months to stage 
the 250,000 troops into Iraq, including the infrastructure that they 
needed, only crossing one major water obstacle, a river with most of 
the bridges intact. As of tomorrow, there will be nearly 50,000 
soldiers in the disaster area, mobilized in less than 1 week. That, 
again, is a testimony to the resourcefulness of the response and 
capability of our military, of our National Guard, and I think they 
need to be commended for what they are doing. Our first responders have 
done an outstanding job. Many are overwhelmed, out of resources, are 
taking the initiative to do the things that are necessary to make sure 
that lives can be saved, that people can be kept healthy.
  In my district, Kentucky's Fourth, the largest medical center, St. 
Elizabeth's Hospital in Florence, recently sent about 15 medical 
personnel, including a dozen nurses and two pallets of medical supplies 
to a staging center in Louisiana. St. Luke's Hospital, also in 
Florence, also sent medical personnel to the Gulf Coast. And my church, 
Grace Evangelical Free Church, is sending its third truckload of 
supplies to the region this weekend.

[[Page 19575]]

  Last Tuesday morning, as I mentioned, the utilities crews that were 
heading south, not to mention truckloads of equipment that passed 
through my district on I-75 headed toward the disaster areas. We have 
seen vehicles coming from as far away as Canada, but from all over the 
United States, that are converging to provide the resources to help 
stabilize that situation and rebuild it. This is a beacon of 
outstanding response. There is no perfect response to any unpredictable 
situation, but I want to look at and commend the adaptability of our 
people who have responded on the scene and those who have opened their 
pocketbooks, opened their resources and lent their hands from around 
the United States.
  The city of Covington, Kentucky, sent a truck loaded with water, 
sports drinks and other provisions to its unofficial sister city of 
Covington, Louisiana. There was a report of a woman who arrived in 
Covington in a beat-up car and who was described in a newspaper report 
as not looking ``like she had a penny to spend,'' but she brought $100 
worth of supplies because she simply cared. Covington City officials 
were also waiting to learn how many people would be traveling to their 
area of northern Kentucky for temporary housing. Northern Kentucky 
University is reaching out to take in as many students as it possibly 
can. Communities around our district, as with many, many congressional 
districts around this country, are responding with an openness and a 
charity that I think sets an example of brotherly love and compassion 
that honors the spirit of our founders in this country.
  Then, there is Mike Detzel and Dave Yeazell who loaded up a van with 
3,900 bottles of water and drove south from Florence, Kentucky, to 
Slidell, Louisiana. Prior to making this trip, Mr. Yeazell gave money 
to the Red Cross and Mr. Detzel and his wife offered spare rooms in 
their homes to the evacuees. But like so many others, they wanted to do 
more.
  One of the things I have always admired most about our country is our 
willingness to give and to want to help. We respond to international 
tragedies with such an outpouring of generosity that we are left 
breathless by the momentum. And now that we have been hit here at home 
by a tragedy of almost biblical proportions, it seems there are no 
boundaries to the generosity of our people and the response from around 
the United States.
  As difficult as this time is for the storm's victims, we must 
approach this carefully and orderly to be sure that the supplies reach 
the people who need them the most. People in the disaster areas need to 
know they are cared about; there is concern and outpouring from around 
this Nation; and this country will not let up until every person is 
found; and no one will be left behind.
  We also have to give thought to the Housing issues in the long term 
to those who have lost their homes in the wake of this deadly storm. So 
many cities throughout this Nation are taking in evacuees on what is 
being called a temporary basis. Mobile home manufacturers in our area 
are responding with upgraded production and, in many cases, donated 
mobile homes to be sent into the disaster areas, as is happening around 
the country. There is a long-term need for housing, for schools, that 
needs to be addressed, and it will be addressed by this body as well as 
local governments, and it must be addressed sooner rather than later.
  I think those of us who are in a decision-making position who have 
not been directly impacted by this tragedy have overcome our initial 
shock. We are past denying that it is not going to turn out as badly as 
we think. The harsh reality is it turned out much worse than anyone 
could have imagined or frankly could have planned for. Now we need to 
focus on long-term solutions for the evacuees, the survivors and 
rebuilding the region and the economy and the communities that these 
people have spent their lives building prior to this impact.
  I think, in the long term, the ultimate benefit of this is going to 
be a great demonstration of the American spirit, Mr. Speaker, but also 
along those same lines, in this new world that we live in today, the 
silver lining in this is going to be a response to potential great 
disasters that could befall this country. God forbid they ever happen, 
but the lessons that we should learn out of this will provide the 
wisdom, the knowledge, the planning infrastructure to respond to far 
greater threats that may emerge in the future.
  I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to share. I appreciate his 
leadership on this issue and his ability to put this together on such 
short notice.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for his 
comments and for his heartfelt expressions of what this Nation is 
about.
  I wanted to discuss briefly the fact that there is great concern 
about the responses of our Nation, and we were treated tonight to an 
unprecedented, unprecedented in my tenure here in this Congress, 3 
hours from administrative Cabinet-level Secretaries being here to 
address this House of Representatives and answer questions and be 
accountable. The information shared was extremely timely and was 
poignant.
  I would point out that one of the most impressive things to me was 
the responses of our military, and again, as we talk about the numbers 
of military, keep in mind that they may sound like a lot, but spread 
over 90,000 square miles, spread over the entire region of Great 
Britain, then we begin to understand just the proportions of responses 
that were actually required.
  Before the hurricane ever struck, a state of emergency was declared 
by the President. So we had a couple of days of lead time before 
Katrina actually begins to hit and move. This is a time line from 
August 26, 27, 28 and on, so we have Katrina hitting Florida about this 
point. We have already at that point activated troops in both 
Louisiana, listed in blue, and then Mississippi, listed in green. So we 
have activated troops prior to the hurricane actually moving into the 
Gulf.
  As it moved closer and closer into New Orleans and actually strikes 
New Orleans at this point, we can see that the troop level is now at 
5,000, most of those troops in Mississippi; about half in Mississippi 
and about 40 percent in Louisiana. Then, the next day, we have an 
increase then to almost 8,000. Within 24 hours, now we are up to 10,000 
troops, and we can see that the increase of troops has gone to where we 
have now 60,000 troops mobilized and on scene in this 90,000-square-
mile region. Tomorrow, there will be an additional 10,000 troops. We 
will have at that point about 70,000 uniform personnel. About 43,000 of 
those are National Guard members, and about 17,000 of the ones on duty 
today are active duty military.
  But we also have to understand that the Coast Guard was able to be 
activated, and the Coast Guard rescued more people, about three times 
more people in this 1-week period than they normally rescue in about a 
1-year period. About 60 percent of the helicopters available to the 
Coast Guard were actually activated and being used.

                              {time}  2320

  And one of the problems that we faced is that communications 
throughout the region were just almost nonexistent; and especially as 
you went deeper into the highly populated area of New Orleans, the 
flood waters obliterated most of the communications systems. The 
wireless communications were not available. Cell phone communications 
were not available. The regular telephone communications were not 
available. So even if we had people there and on-site, they could not 
necessarily be directed right to the points where the problems were.
  But the responses that many are finding inadequate, and we have to 
admit as a Nation, the President, I think, said it best, that he 
appreciated the strength of responses, but they did not result in the 
kind of results we would have wanted to have.
  But once we get past that, we must evaluate what we should do in the 
future, not just try to point fingers in the current circumstance. I 
would point out that there is still much work to be done. So as we in 
this city begin

[[Page 19576]]

to concentrate on recriminations and asking for resignations, what we 
are actually doing is distracting from those people who are actually 
on-site and trying to go through their jobs.
  There will be plenty of time to give consideration to the problems 
and the flaws that we did face. But at the current point I think that 
our administration is focused correctly on what we should be doing 
currently to ease the suffering of those people who have been 
displaced, to regain the control of the city's infrastructure, to re-
establish the infrastructure in the city and in the rural areas that 
surround New Orleans, but also dealing with the misery of lost lives.
  The one thing that I think is extremely important for us to address 
with respect to New Orleans is the economic impact that we are going to 
face just from the loss of refining capacity.
  I have had good questions that are raised by constituents and friends 
of mine about why the price of gasoline would be jumping as it relates 
to this emergency, and so I would like to go through just a brief 
discussion about the components of production and the price of 
gasoline.
  We, first of all, need to be aware that gasoline is the end product, 
that we actually get it as a refined product of crude oil. To get crude 
oil, the first thing that we must do is to drill wells. And so, as I 
just put up here the basic sequence of getting refined gasoline, the 
first thing that we have to do as a Nation is drill oil wells or gas 
wells. And be aware when we are talking gas we are talking natural gas, 
not gasoline. But we drill. And when we drill successfully, we have oil 
that then must go through pipelines, and so we have got a 
transportation question here.
  Once the pipelines conduct the oil, usually it is carried to 
refineries, and so we have got the refinery then accepts the oil, and 
from the refinery then we get to usually a series of products. But the 
ones that most of us would be familiar with would be that we get either 
gasoline, which we get at the pump, or we get diesel which, again, many 
of our trucks going across the highways would use.
  Finally, then jobbers, these are independent, usually, operators who 
would go to the refinery and pick up gasoline in 10 or 12,000 lots and 
deliver it to service stations. So we then have the trucking from the 
refinery and finally to the service station.
  Now, that entire process is very complex. Just the drilling of the 
oil well might take 30 to 50 days, even for shallow oil wells. For the 
deep ones like you see offshore from New Orleans, we are talking 
billions of dollars and years to literally put these facilities into 
place.
  But then the conducting of the oil through the pipelines. Again, we 
put it in the refinery. It is at that point we begin to extract the oil 
or the gasoline or the diesel from the basic crude oil that comes from 
the oil well, and then the trucking to local service stations; and at 
that point, then you, as consumers, would drive up to the service 
station and access the fuel.
  And what we see over here as a price, generally, the average price 
across the country has dropped a couple of cents in the last couple of 
days. But basically right now the retail price average for the Nation 
is about $3.04.
  If we consider the source of that $3.04, where does that number come 
from, we have got a couple of charts that are extremely instructive. 
And the first one would show that when we have $3.04 of gasoline at the 
pump, that a $1.70 of that is created from the cost of crude oil 
itself. Refining creates $0.79 of the $3.04, and then the taxes that we 
add on top of that are the equivalent of $0.55.
  Now, you can see that the cost of crude oil is the dominant 
component. About 55 percent of the price that you pay at the pump is 
going to come from the price of oil. So as we talk about the price of 
oil nationwide, it is in the high $60 range, and then has recently 
peaked up almost into the 70 or maybe into the $70 range, and then has 
decreased back down. And you would ask what effect is Katrina going to 
have on the price of gasoline at the pump, and why would it have the 
effect.
  The chart that I have got here shows the track of Katrina coming in. 
It came across Florida, swung down into the gulf. Actually as it 
cleared through Florida, it decreased to about a Category 1 storm, and 
the speculation was early that it would simply bring rain across the 
southern gulf coast. But what it actually did was circulate out south 
into the gulf, pick up energy from the systems that were already in the 
gulf, and then it swung back toward the gulf coast here.
  And what is depicted right here in the dark zones are the oil 
platforms off the coast of southern U.S. there and the Gulf of Mexico. 
Also, we have got refineries that are listed here.
  So two things happened that are going to affect the price of gasoline 
as far as this storm is concerned. One is we lost some production from 
these platforms off in the Gulf of Mexico. But then secondly, we lost 
almost all of the refining capacity here in this region around 
Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Now, that represents about 25 
percent of our Nation's refining capacity.
  We heard testimony tonight from the Secretary of Energy that much of 
that refining capacity is shut down simply temporarily. We have got 
about four of the 13 refineries that are going to suffer long-term 
damage, and it is still unknown. But let us say that we lose about 20 
percent of our refining capacity. Then we can see that what we are 
doing is we are going to limit the amount of gasoline that is produced, 
and it is going to drive the price higher.
  We have got several things that are driving the price of gasoline 
higher right now worldwide. One of the factors that we tend not to 
think of, we understand as a Nation we have increased population and we 
have increased the amount of driving, and so we know that we, as a 
Nation, are demanding more petroleum products, more gasoline.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Westmoreland). The gentleman from New 
Mexico (Mr. Pearce) is recognized for the remaining 30 minutes.
  Mr. PEARCE. The thing that we do not often think about that drives 
this price higher is the fact that the emerging nations, China and 
India and the other emerging nations, are demanding tremendous high 
quantities of fossil fuels because that is the fuel of emerging 
economies. It is the fuel of our economy.

                              {time}  2330

  So worldwide, the demand for oil and gas is spiraling up, and yet we 
have limited supplies. Now, we as a Nation have made decisions that 
limit, first of all, the supplies of gasoline because we have not 
permitted new refineries in the past 30 years. It has been almost 30 
years since we have built a new refinery. And only this year, earlier 
this year, did we even permit a new refinery, and it has not yet been 
built.
  So one of things that is escalating the price of gasoline is that we 
have reached our capacity in refining. Not only is the price of crude 
oil going up, it has gone from $25, 3 or 4 years ago now, to $67, so 
that you can see the dominant cost of a price of gasoline coming from 
crude oil about 55 percent, we would expect that that would drive the 
price of gasoline higher. But then we have arbitrarily as a Nation 
chosen to limit our productive capacities because of the unnecessarily 
complex regulatory procedures that affect the permitting of new 
refineries.
  Now, those are choices that we have made, and we are at the absolute 
capacity of our Nation to produce gasoline so that, for the first time 
in our Nation's history, we began to get gasoline in through imports, 
and that is not a good sign for the future of our economy because our 
economy, again, is built on affordable energy. We, now, then, again 
with Katrina coming in to the Gulf Coast region, we have lost somewhere 
between 5 and 20 percent of our refining capacity. That is going to 
then drive down the supply of gasoline available at the pump which is 
going to drive this price up. Now, the effect on our offshore platforms 
will not be such a large effect.

[[Page 19577]]

  This Nation uses approximately 21 million barrels a day. The Gulf 
Coast region produces about 1.5 million barrels of crude oil a day, and 
so you can see that less than 5 percent of our productive capacity 
comes from this region. So even though we suffered some damage as a 
percent of our overall supply of crude oil, it is not going to be that 
large of an effect. Again, the largest effect coming from the 
restrictions to our refining capacity that we are going to find.
  Now, as a side note, we as a Nation have chosen to limit the amount 
of crude oil that we produce so that we import more crude oil today 
than ever before in our Nation's history. We import about 13 million 
barrels a day, most of it coming from the Middle East, from Saudi 
Arabia, Kuwait and those nations. We also get oil from Mexico. We also 
get oil from Venezuela.
  Now, another factor that is going to very much affect the price of 
gasoline that we pay at the pump will be that Venezuela is currently 
talking to the nation of China, and China is trying to talk them into a 
100-year contract with all of the production from Venezuela going to 
China for the next 100 years.
  Now, we as a Nation get 15 percent of our imported oil from 
Venezuela. So you can imagine that, if that contract goes through with 
China, taking away the production that we currently get from Venezuela, 
sending it to China, that we are going to see possibly a 10 or 15 
percent jump in prices.
  Now, we have made choices to limit the amount of drilling that we do 
in this Nation so that we will be more immune to price manipulation 
from overseas from those countries that would import or export into us, 
and some of those choices are, for instance, in ANWR. Back in 1995, 
this Congress, both House and Senate, voted to drill in ANWR. That is 
an oil preserve, a wildlife preserve in Alaska. And there was a piece 
set aside strictly to do this drilling which has been stalled out by 
extremists. And so we as a Congress, both House and Senate, passed a 
bill which would allow drilling in ANWR, and President Clinton then 
vetoed that. If we had passed that bill and had it signed at that 
point, we would be experiencing about a million and a half barrels a 
day of production which would come down to this area.
  Now, again, that is about the amount that we have gone in the past, 
and when we would get price spikes, we would go to the Saudi Arabians 
and ask them if they would increase production by a million and a half 
barrels a day to help us lower the price of gasoline at the pump and 
keep our economy on sound footing. But we instead did not pass that 
bill that would allow the drilling in ANWR, and we as a Nation now are 
facing these $3.04 averages. That is an average price. Actually, some 
places are paying a much higher price, but we are experiencing these 
prices of gasoline because of past decisions that we have made to limit 
drilling. This is ourselves. We as a Nation are limiting our drilling, 
but we also have limited our refining capacity.
  Now, the energy bill that we passed recently, people would ask 
exactly what effect is that going to have on the price of gasoline at 
the pump. I would tell you that mostly what we did are things that 
would, long term, begin to limit our need for mostly natural gas. 
Natural gas is used to produce electricity, and we had great 
stimulation in the bill which would affect nuclear. We have also had 
great stimulation for many other renewables, both solar, wind, bio-mass 
and other forms of renewables energy. But those are long term.
  The only thing that really would affect the price of gasoline today 
is to increase the amount of crude oil production; that is drilling for 
more wells or to increase our refining capacity. Either one of those 
could have an effect on the price of gasoline today. But again, we, as 
a Nation, politically have decided in the past not to do that. And 
those are questions that we need to be asking ourselves right now.
  How high is the price of gasoline going to go before we think that we 
as a Nation should permit more refineries to be built? I think that we 
have passed that point.
  Now, my office, I am going to introduce in the coming week, we are 
proposing legislation that would in response to Katrina take the 
Federal excise tax off of gasoline. Currently, again, referring back to 
our chart, the price of gasoline is about $3.04; 55 cents of that $3.04 
is made up of taxes. About 18.4 cents is a Federal tax. And our 
suggestion is that we as a Nation consider limiting that tax for a 
period of 6 months, so that the price of gasoline would fall 
immediately by 18.4 cents. And so you can see that we would be back 
under $2 a gallon for gasoline. But that is merely a short-term 
solution.
  In the long term, if we want to affect the price of gasoline, we must 
increase refining capacity or we must increase drilling. In the past, 
we have implemented different methods of or different measures which 
would restrict our capabilities or voluntarily restrict our use, but 
what we found is, as we got more mileage in cars, then people simply 
drove more because they are going to spend a certain amount of their 
budget for mobility. That is the way we as Americans are. Now we can 
agree or disagree with it, but we found that those measures that were 
designed solely to increase the mileage of our cars in the past 
actually did not lower the demands for gasoline, but simply we drove 
more miles demanding more gasoline.
  Now, one of the effects that I would like to visit about briefly 
before we finish is this trucking. Now, in my chart here, again we have 
got drilling, pipelines, refining, trucking to our local community and 
then the service station. But if we think of trucking in addition to 
not only trucking the gasoline from the refinery to a service station, 
then putting it in tanks at the service station, if we think about the 
trucking of all the goods and services along the highways; when you are 
driving along and you see the motorcades of hundreds of thousands of 18 
wheelers moving along, those are taking goods that have been produced 
across this Nation and delivering them to the points of use or 
marketing and that those truckers are experiencing extremely high cost 
increases because they demand a lot of energy.

                              {time}  2340

  They demand a lot of diesel, and the price of diesel is 
extraordinarily high right now.
  So we have tremendous downward pressure on our economy. It is one of 
the reasons that we are suggesting that the Federal taxes could be 
deleted for a period of 6 months to give us a chance to evaluate just 
what the effect of this storm Katrina is going to be, but in addition, 
it allows us to begin to have this debate on how complex do we have to 
make it for ourselves to build new refineries.
  I think we know the elements of refining that would create 
difficulties in our environment. No one is going to watch as our 
environment is spoiled, but right now, we are limiting ourselves 
arbitrarily, even though we know the safety standards that we need to 
implement. I, for one, feel like we can do both. We can have safety and 
create new refineries at the same point. Likewise, we have limited 
drilling for the same purpose. I think that we can drill in an 
environmentally safe manner, and we are going to either have to do that 
or watch as the price of our energy increases. Katrina has simply 
accentuated the pressures that already existed inside our economy, and 
it is time for us, as a Nation, to look at the effects of our decisions 
in the past.
  I would like to conclude my statements this evening by saying that, 
again, our hearts and our prayers go out to the people who have been 
suffering tremendously from this storm. We have seen the hearts of the 
Nation open up and accept these people who have been dislocated and 
have been taken in all across the Nation, into homes and into churches 
and into the Astrodome in Texas. I think that speaks so well of the 
compassion of this Nation and of our willingness to give of ourselves 
at a point where someone else is suffering.
  I think that in the days ahead we are going to see this Nation pool 
its resources, to pool its ingenuity together. We are going to see 
people really begin

[[Page 19578]]

to buckle down to approach the problems that we, as a Nation, are 
facing right now, and in a unified fashion, I think that we will see 
New Orleans cleaned up. I think that we will see a rebuilding effort 
across the entire Gulf Coast region. I think that we will see those 
economies come back into those States and communities that have been 
devastated by these current situations.
  Again, we, as a Nation, owe it to ourselves to understand the full 
ramifications of what we face, and we owe it to ourselves to reinvest 
in those areas that have been so prolific and are so important to this 
Nation's economy. New Orleans not only has the refining capacity, they 
not only have the offshore platforms through Louisiana, offshore from 
Mississippi and Texas, but they process many, many of our grain crops 
on the way outbound as we export them. Many of the imports coming in 
come through New Orleans. It is an extremely vital and important part 
of this Nation, and I join with the rest of my colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle saying that we feel like that the days ahead will see the 
most magnificent responses to some of the most deeply felt problems 
this Nation has ever seen, from either a natural or unnatural disaster.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair for allowing me to address the 
situations that have occurred in the Gulf Coast.

                          ____________________