[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11200]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     WHY ISN'T AMERICA DOING MORE?

  (Mr. BRADY of Texas asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. Madam Speaker, back home in Texas I visited with 
families whose cost is so high that one woman in Bridge City told me 
she doesn't even go to Wednesday night church. She can't afford to 
drive to it. Just on Sunday. I talked to small businesses that now 
work, painters and plumbers and others, who now basically work for free 
because gas prices have eaten up all their profits. I visited this last 
week with our law enforcement agencies, who are no longer able to be 
proactive in the community. They are just responding to calls because 
they burned through much of their fuel budget for the year already.
  In each case, every one of them asked me, Why isn't America doing 
more? Why isn't America taking more responsibility for our own energy 
needs? We import two-thirds of all we use. We are capable of doing 
more. In each case, they said, Look, take a message back to Congress. 
No more gimmicks. No more gimmicks. We need more American-made energy 
here in the United States to get our fuel prices down, to be less 
dependent on Middle East fuel, to have some say over the prices that 
our families and small businesses pay.

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