[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6286]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY POLICY

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, there is no small amount of irony that 
Republicans are now rushing to investigate high gas prices and 
professing themselves to be on the side of the consumer.
  What is important is not what they have said in the last couple of 
days, but what they have done for the entire time they have been in 
power here in Washington, D.C. It is outrageous that the same people 
who are now decrying high gas prices were lavishing billions of dollars 
in subsidies on the same oil industry a few months ago, despite already 
bloated profits.
  In the 1990s the Republicans even passed legislation that forbade the 
Department of Transportation to even study higher fuel efficiency, 
something that would significantly reduce demand today.
  And they have expressed no outrage that the American taxpayer is 
being cheated out of fair payment for the oil and gas that is being 
taken from public lands by these same large companies.
  There are real solutions. Invest in conservation, the only way to 
reduce immediate dependence on expensive foreign oil now. Shift the 
billions of dollars in oil and gas companies to renewable and 
alternative energy sources, and insist that the American taxpayer be 
given full value for the billions of dollars of oil and gas taken from 
public lands.

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