[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13662]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               IT'S TIME TO STOP PRICE GOUGING BY BIG OIL

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, while Memorial Day is the traditional 
beginning of the summer vacation and travel season for all Americans, 
it's going to be a gloomy day across America. No, I'm not a weather 
forecaster. It's going to be a gloomy day because of record 
extortionate and manipulated prices at the pump. Guess what? Crude oil 
prices are down over a year ago, but somehow gas is up 50 cents a 
gallon at the pump. How is that? The refineries are making four times, 
four times their normal margin on refining. Why is that? They said, oh, 
well, gosh, we couldn't have known people were going to start buying 
gas around Memorial Day. We had to close down some of the refineries to 
maintain them and to clean them. Does Exxon translate into Enron? 
Remember when Enron was doing the same thing in California? High 
demand, shut down the generating plants. Exxon, high demand, shut down 
the refineries.
  It's time to stop the price gouging by Big Oil. Break them up. They 
aren't competitive, they're colluding.

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