[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17365]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  LOWER THE PRICE OF GASOLINE AND OIL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Well, it's 9 o'clock, it's a Wednesday night, 
and 2 days from now we will all be home for 5 weeks and Congress will 
not have acted on many pieces of legislation that deal with the energy 
crisis. While we are home talking to our constituents and doing things 
that we have to do back in our districts, the people of the United 
States of America will continue to pay $4, $5 a gallon for gasoline. 
They will have to take money away from other important areas of their 
homes; food, clothing, whatever it might be, so they can put enough 
gasoline in the car to get to and from work or to take the kids to 
school. I think that is tragic, Madam Speaker.
  This Congress should be doing something immediately to lower the 
price of gasoline and oil. A few days ago, I think last week, the 
President of the United States removed the executive moratorium on 
drilling offshore. As soon as he did that, the price of oil per barrel 
dropped. Likewise, just in the last couple of days, the price of 
gasoline dropped. If the Congress of the United States were to act 
likewise to remove the moratorium on drilling offshore on the 
Continental Shelf, the price of gasoline would drop I believe 
dramatically in a very short period of time.
  But we are not going to do that. We are going to leave here in the 
next 2 days without doing a darn thing. The American people sit at 
home, 70, 75 percent of them saying, Why in the world don't you drill? 
Why don't you drill here in America. Why are you sending all that money 
overseas, $700 billion a year to the Saudis and to others who aren't 
really our best friends? Why not keep that money at home; why not drill 
here; why not become energy independent so we don't have to worry about 
the rest of the world and what they are doing. But we are not going to 
do that.

                              {time}  2100

  We are going to leave here without doing a darn thing. Now, there are 
a number of bills pending before the Congress that have been introduced 
that would solve the problem, but none of them have seen the light of 
day and none are going to see the light of day between now and when we 
leave.
  Today, a bipartisan group headed by Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii and 
John Peterson of Pennsylvania, about 15 or 20 Members, bipartisan, 
introduced a bill that had a lot of compromises in it that would have 
dealt with this problem of energy independence and would have helped 
lower the price of energy and gasoline.
  It was a multifaceted bill. It dealt with solar energy. It dealt with 
wind energy. It dealt with cars that use all kinds of fuel, the hybrid 
cars, the hydrogen powered cars. It gave tax credits to encourage the 
people around this country and the industries around this country to 
move on wind-driven energy and solar energy and other forms of energy 
that we are not dealing with right now.
  In particular, it dealt with the drilling off the continental shelf. 
It did not talk about ANWR, because that was one of the areas where 
there was some disagreement. So in order to go ahead and move forward 
with an energy bill, this bipartisan group decided they wouldn't put 
the ANWR issue in there, but they would go ahead with the continental 
shelf exploration. They said that 25 miles off the continental shelf 
from the shore would not be explored, and 25 to 50 miles offshore the 
States would have the right to decline to drill should they want to do 
that.
  But it was a giant step forward, and they moved this bill today to 
the committees of jurisdiction and we should be acting on that. If we 
don't act on it between now and when we leave on Friday, we should 
certainly be acting on it in September.
  Now, today we had a vote up or down on whether or not we should 
adjourn for 5 weeks starting this Friday until September. The vote 
passed by one vote. Democrats, many Democrats, and almost all the 
Republicans voted not to leave this body until we dealt with the energy 
crisis, and it failed by one vote. So the people of this country saw 
today that a large number of the people in this body that represent 
them in the Congress want to deal with the energy crisis, but the 
majority, the Speaker of the House, once again blocked this effort, and 
I think that is very unfortunate.
  It is extremely important that we move on this before we leave in 
September. The people in this country are going to suffer for another 2 
months, and we really need to do something about that before we adjourn 
for the rest of the year at the end of September, as has been told to 
us is going to be the case.
  We have enough energy in this country to be energy independent. We 
have enough oil to be energy independent. We have enough gas to be 
energy independent. We have enough coal shale to be energy independent. 
We are not doing anything to deal with the problem, and the American 
people know it.
  So I would just like to say tonight, Madam Speaker, before we leave, 
that this is intolerable, what we are doing. The American people want 
action. They want the gas prices down, they want the energy prices 
down, and it is within our power to get the job done, but we are not 
doing it.
  So I would like to urge the leadership in this House, the majority in 
this House, as well as the minority in this House, to move rapidly; to 
move rapidly on an energy bill between now and when we leave on 
September 30th. This is one of the most important issues, it is the 
most important issue that we are dealing with this session. Madam 
Speaker, I think it is unconscionable that we have not yet dealt with 
it.

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