[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13226]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              FINDING REAL SOLUTIONS TO MEET ENERGY NEEDS

  (Mr. WALZ of Minnesota asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Madam Speaker, yesterday I talked to a farmer 
who told me he just purchased fuel to power his irrigation pumps. The 
cost for 2 weeks of that fuel, $33,000 worth of diesel. This Nation's 
people and economy are reeling because of high energy costs, and yet 
some in this House offer nothing but the same old political games, the 
exact games that put us in this position.
  Let's be very clear: No one is saying we shouldn't be producing and 
using domestic supplies. But false solution land grabs and politics 
aren't going to get us to energy independence. Oil companies today are 
sitting on 68 million acres of Federal land, your land, Madam Speaker, 
that could produce up to a decade-and-a-half worth of all the fuel this 
country needs. Yet they are not drilling. Future generations deserve 
that we provide real solutions that not only include domestic 
production, but provide innovations and alternative technologies and 
crack down on speculation.
  Yesterday, Madam Speaker, China increased their fuel prices by 17 
percent, and the price of oil dropped by $6 a barrel. By anybody's best 
estimate, that is more than drilling in ANWR would drop the cost.
  Madam Speaker, we deserve solutions that extend to the next 
generation, not the next election.

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