[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18394-18395]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   DRILL, BABY, DRILL, AND MINE COAL

  (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, here's the difference between both sides. 
Following my colleague, who says this administration, this President, 
what he fails to mention is that the Democrat majority in this House 
for the past 2 years is part of the problem. I recognize that.
  Here is the price of a barrel of crude oil when President Bush came 
in: $23 a barrel. Here's the price of a barrel of crude oil when this 
Democrat majority came in: $58 a barrel. Today it's at $103. We can't 
sustain that. We can blame everybody we want, but this is a problem we 
can't sustain.
  Drill, baby, drill. Here's the Outer Continental Shelf. They want to 
only to do 20 percent, maybe. They can't even get an agreement on what 
they want. This whole area should be open for exploration recovery of 
oil and gas in our country to help decrease our reliance on imported 
crude oil and lower prices, and they don't have a clue. They'll 
continue to say ``no'' to oil and gas exploration.
  They won't even address coal as part of the solution. Coal is the 
greatest resource we have in this country.
  I want to drill, baby, drill, and I want to mine coal.

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