[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12091-12092]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          HIGH COST OF ENERGY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, when President Bush took office, one of the 
airplanes flying us to the west coast, or to the Midwest, or to the 
southern part of the States from Washington, DC, the cost of a tank of 
fuel for that airplane was 15 percent of the overall cost of the 
airline. Today, after 7 years and 6 months of President Bush, it now 
costs those airline companies almost 50 percent of the total costs. So 
it has gone from 15 percent to almost 50 percent.
  All over America, airlines are eliminating flights that are full. 
Why? Because those airplanes cost too much to run. Every airplane 
flying across America today is losing money--every commercial airline--
because the cost of fuel is so high. Think about that. Eighty-five 
percent of the cost of an airline could be other things when President 
Bush took office; now it is 50 percent. Airlines are in deep trouble.
  I repeat, airplanes taking off from Washington, DC, or other places 
in America, and are full, with every seat taken, those flights are 
being eliminated because that type of airplane uses too much fuel. They 
are doing everything they can to eliminate the need for extra fuel. 
They are hosing down airplanes to save a quart of fuel here and there.
  Mr. President, it is a desperate situation that the American airline 
industry has. In addition, our airlines are having difficulty competing 
with the European airlines. They pay in euros; we pay in dollars. We 
pay approximately, let's say, $1.40 per gallon--we know that is wrong, 
but the mathematical calculation is the same--and Europe pays about 80 
cents. We cannot compete.
  Mr. President, when President Bush took office, a gallon of gasoline 
in a motor vehicle was less than $1.50. Now, this morning, it is 
announced that the average cost in America is over $4.05 a gallon. That 
is what has happened during the Bush administration.
  The day before yesterday, I met with the National Association of 
Manufacturers. The biggest concern they have is the cost of energy. One 
relatively small American manufacturer who has been quite successful--
totally American--said this year, so far he has to borrow or come up 
with another $6 million--he doesn't know where he is going to get it--
just to take care of the problems attributed to rising energy cost.
  In spite of all this, in spite of the problems we face in America 
today with gasoline, people are trying to take public transportation 
when they can, but in rural America there is very little public 
transportation. Vacations are being stopped. In spite of all this, 
yesterday, the Republicans stopped us from going forward on legislation 
that would ease some of the problems.
  For example, in the matter we are talking about when morning business 
closes, we think it is time to look at the subsidies the oil companies 
get. During the past year, they made about $250 billion in profits--net 
profits. Yet we subsidize these oil companies. We believe that should 
be looked at closely.
  We also believe we should look at a windfall profits tax. We also 
believe--and there is bipartisan support for this; Senator Specter 
talked about this, and Senator Kohl is our major mover on this issue on 
this side--OPEC scholars believe, and members of our Judiciary 
Committee believe they are violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. But 
there is a question as to whether they are subject to that. What these 
Senators and others want to do--and that is part of our legislation--is 
make them subject to the antitrust laws in this country. They make most 
of their money in America. Why shouldn't our laws apply? We were 
stopped from going forward to debate that issue.
  There is a school of thought today that believes the problems with 
the cost of oil are based on speculation--pure speculation. If the 
Presiding Officer wanted to leave and buy a share of General Motors or 
Ford stock--and Kirk Kerkorian is buying about 1 billion dollars' worth 
of Ford stock

[[Page 12092]]

today--if you want to buy stock in Ford or General Motors today, you 
would have to put up 50 cents, which is your margin, for every dollar 
you buy. But not with oil. Some margins with oil are 3 to 5 percent. 
There is a lot of speculation going on.
  We wanted to take a look at that but, no, the Republicans said: We 
are not even going to let you legislate on that matter. It seems to me 
that is what we should do. If they don't like our proposal, let's do 
something they think would be appropriate. Let's legislate.
  Mr. President, I think it is pretty clear we cannot produce our way 
out of the problems we have with energy. Take ANWR and all of the 
offshore, and we in America have about 3 percent of the oil in the 
world. So it is obvious we cannot do that. Can we do a better job in 
production? Of course we can. We do certain things, and we have done 
certain things, such as allowing more offshore drilling off the coast 
of Louisiana.
  The answer to all of this is not drill, drill, drill. The answer is 
to do something to help save our world. Global warming is here because 
we have taken, for well more than a century, carbon out of the Earth 
and put it into the sky. It has caused our Earth to be sick. We have a 
fever. Global warming is here. So we not only have to face this issue 
and recognize we don't need more fossil fuel, we need alternative 
renewable energy. That is what we tried to move to yesterday. The 
Republicans would not let us.
  We have entrepreneurs in America who want to invest money in 
renewable energy--the Sun, the wind, geothermal. They want to invest, 
and we want to be able to give them tax credits as incentives. But, no, 
not with this Republican minority, not with this Republican President. 
The answer is no, no, no to directly affecting energy costs and doing 
something to allow us to move to renewable energy.
  If that weren't enough, yesterday, to show what is going on with the 
Republicans and to indicate to the American people why they keep losing 
these special elections--one in Illinois, one in Louisiana, and one in 
Mississippi--look what they are doing. Yesterday, the Judiciary 
Committee had a hearing on torture to find out why America--the United 
States of America--why we were torturing people who were being picked 
up for being suspected terrorists. All we wanted to do is hold a 
hearing. No. In the Senate, if you don't want a hearing to go forward, 
and we have been in session for more than 2 hours, you can stop it. So 
we had to recess the Senate to go ahead with the hearing anyway.
  They do not even want us to do oversight. So we are going to come 
today and talk about the calamity facing America with the oil prices. 
The Presiding Officer and I just left a meeting of people concerned 
about food--food. Senator Dorgan from North Dakota indicated that the 
cost of fertilizer in the small, sparsely populated State of North 
Dakota, in 1 year, has gone from $400 million to $800 million. Those 
farmers are trying to figure out a way to pay for that. People all 
around that table were people concerned about food. The problem is 
energy costs.
  Yet in the Senate, we are not allowed to debate that because 
Republicans want to maintain the status quo. The status quo will not be 
maintained much longer. We may have to put up with President Bush and 
his policies for 7 months, if he is not willing to work with us. We may 
have to put up with the obstructionism of the Republicans for another 7 
months, but the day is going to change come November when the elections 
are held because we will no longer have the slim majority we have now, 
and we will be able to legislate for the American people.

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