[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13786]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             AMERICAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS FOR LOWER GAS PRICES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, it's good to be here tonight, and I 
wanted to come and talk about something that's concerning Americans all 
over this country, and that's the price of gas and what we're doing 
about it here in this body, this decisive body that's supposed to be 
decisive, that takes action when we find our country in need.
  I wanted to talk a little bit about something that happened to me 
shortly a couple of weeks ago I guess, and I started having people, Mr. 
Speaker, e-mail me and ask me questions about signing different types 
of petitions on the Internet, drill here, drill now, lower prices, 
several other ones on the Internet, so Americans could let their 
Members of Congress, Mr. Speaker, know how they felt about these 
skyrocketing gas prices that they had been promised by the new majority 
that they would get control of.
  So I was in a service station down home, and there was another 
petition laying on the counter. I'm assuming that the proprietor of 
that service station put that down to give people something to do 
rather than beat him over the head, but it was a petition: Please sign 
here if you want to see Congress lower gas prices.
  So I came up with an idea, Mr. Speaker. I said, you know, the 
American people are letting us know, as their representatives, how they 
feel. We need to let them know how we feel. And so I came up with this 
petition that's pretty simple. What it says is: American energy 
solutions for lower gas prices; bring onshore oil on-line; bring 
deepwater oil on-line; and bring new refineries on-line.
  We have not produced in this country, Mr. Speaker, a refinery since 
the late 1970s. We now import about 7 billion gallons of gas a year. We 
also import about the same amount of diesel. So we don't even have the 
refining capacity to refine what we import.
  So I did this, and I made a little petition. You can see it over 
here. It's got spots for 435 people plus the non-voting Delegates to 
sign. So far I'm pleased to say, Mr. Speaker, we've got 188 people who 
have signed this. We've got three Democrats, three brave Democrats that 
have signed it: Neil Abercrombie, Patrick Murphy, and Mr. Speaker, I 
believe Henry Cuellar was the last one from Texas. And so these are 
brave people that understand that we have got to do something.
  The majority says, well, it will be 10 years before we ever get oil. 
We've got to start today. If President Clinton in 1995 had not vetoed 
the drilling in ANWR, we would be producing 1 million gallons of crude 
oil for this country every day.
  So, Mr. Speaker, what this is about--and by the way, this is very 
simple, because what it says is, I will vote to increase U.S. oil 
production to lower the price of gas for Americans. And Mr. Speaker, if 
anybody wanted to know if their Member was on the petition, they could 
go to house.gov/westmoreland to see if their Member is on there. We've 
had two Members that did not sign originally, and Mr. Speaker, they 
were put on the would-not-sign list. They have heard from their 
constituents and have come back and are now signed onto the petition.
  So, Mr. Speaker, it is very important for people to understand where 
their Members of Congress are at on the energy issue. You're going to 
hear all kinds of excuses. You're going to hear all kinds of different 
regulations they want to put in place, all kinds of different taxes 
they want to put in place. This petition is too simple for most Members 
of this body to understand because it only says, I will vote to 
increase oil production in the United States, our own natural 
resources, to lower gas prices for Americans. That's all it says.
  And if somebody wanted to know, Mr. Speaker, they could go to 
house.gov/westmoreland, and see exactly where their Member of Congress 
was at because, listen, Mr. Speaker, we hear about change from just 
about every candidate running, but we are going to have to be forced to 
change by our constituents. Because as you've seen since the new 
majority came in in January of 2007, there's been nothing done.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I would ask the American people if I could to help 
us bring about change by notifying your Congressman and say get out of 
the fetal position and let's be called to action.

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