[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12553]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            HIGH GAS PRICES

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it has been more than a week since the 
Democratic nominee for President, the junior Senator from Illinois, 
responded to high gas prices by saying it wasn't high gas prices he 
minded but the fact that people didn't have time to get used to them. 
In his words, he would have preferred a ``gradual adjustment'' to a 
sudden jolt.
  As I said last week, I can't imagine this is a view many other people 
share, certainly not the people of Kentucky, who I assure you are not 
at all interested in getting used to $4-a-gallon gas, however gradual 
the adjustment. Our Democratic colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle have had a week to demonstrate they do not embrace the ``gradual 
adjustment'' philosophy of their nominee. We haven't heard a word from 
any of them.
  Maybe they don't have a problem with $4-a-gallon gasoline either. 
Maybe the junior Senator from North Dakota was speaking for all of them 
when he said over the weekend that $4-a-gallon gasoline was finally 
forcing people to conserve. Telling people whose livelihoods depend on 
getting to and from work that they should get used to high gas prices 
is not an energy policy.
  Supporting a gradual adjustment to $4-a-gallon gasoline is not an 
energy policy. Americans need an energy policy befitting America, and 
that means using the natural resources we have here at home to bring 
down prices in the short term, while pursuing a long-term strategy for 
energy independence through clean technologies. We can do both, and we 
should do both.
  We need more American energy now. That is the short-term solution to 
the current crisis. So, again, I call on our friends to consider this 
reasonable two-part solution and to drop their absolutist opposition to 
energy exploration in America.
  I yield the floor.

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