Energy Solutions
ENERGY SOLUTIONS -- (House of Representatives - July 16, 2008)
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Mrs. SCHMIDT. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota for providing us this hour for a commonsense view on the energy situation and for my colleague from Iowa for his bird's-eye perspective of what it is actually like in Alaska.
Behind me it says $2 a gallon. I wish I could say that it was a long time ago that we saw $2 a gallon at the pump, but it really wasn't that long ago. And that's unfortunate because Americans are feeling squeezed as they see the price at the pump continue to rise.
You know, since the new Congress took over in January of 2006, we have seen an almost 70 percent increase in the price of gas. So that means every time Americans go to the pump, they're seeing more and more of their precious dollars out of their wallet being used for their transportation costs. And this is making them make some really tough decisions.
Discretionary spending is down, which is, in part, affecting our economy. Americans are feeling squeezed, and some are feeling that squeeze when they try to feed their family at the table.
And you might ask what does food cost have to do with petroleum? Well, it has a lot to do with petroleum. Half of my district is agriculture. And I hear from farmers that the cost of producing their crops, their grain, their cattle is rising exponentially.
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Mrs. SCHMIDT. Exactly. Because everything they do to produce the food at our table has some sort of a petroleum element to it. It's hard to remove the petroleum element from the production of food.
But farmers are not alone in feeling the price at the pump. Governments are also feeling that price, and I think we forget about that. Local governments especially are hard hit with the pain because their ability to garner dollars for their governments are so restricted. When you just think about police departments and how much fuel they use and how much of their budget is now eaten up with the price of fuel, what kind of decisions are they having to make in order to meet their fuel costs?
It's not just the police departments. Think about your road departments. When you put asphalt on the ground, that's petroleum based, and so now you're looking at trying to put new pavement on the ground. You're looking at an exponential rise in the cost of that pavement. What kind of decisions are being made there?
But it's not just that part of local government. Think about our schools and how hard hit our schools are because it's not just in keeping their buses running, which is, again, fuel based, but keeping the lights and heat on in their schools. How much of their budget is being eaten up in operational costs, costs that should be going to educating our children?
But my folks in my district, especially the rural parts of my district, are being especially hard hit, and it's because we don't have the luxury of mass transit when you get to parts of my district like the eastern part of Clermont County and Brown County and Adams County and the rest of the counties out east. So they have to rely on cars to get to their jobs. And when you look at folks in Adams County and Brown County and you look at their average commute to and from work, it's not surprising to see them go over 100 miles a day to and from work just to put the food on their table. And when they see gas prices rising from $2.33, which was the average price of a gallon of gas 2 years ago, to $4.09 a gallon, which is the average price today, you can imagine what kind of a bite that's taken out of many of the folks in my district.
It is our responsibility to address this problem and address this problem now. Our folks are saying they can't afford for us to wait. They can't afford for bickering and partisan politics. They want us to come together and solve this issue. And we can do that. But it requires us to do two things, my good friend from Minnesota. It means increasing the supply and decreasing the demand. And that's what we can do and do now.
When most Americans are asked in poll after poll, they're willing to drill, drill in the Outer Continental Shelf, drill in Alaska. And they understand that we now have technology that is environmentally sensitive to do this.
But it's not just drilling that will solve this issue. We must also decrease demand. And Americans are doing their part. They're driving less. They're conserving their energy. They are doing their part. They are doing what they can because they have got strained wallets. It's up to us to complete the task and do ours. But, unfortunately, this new Congress, with its Democratic leadership, lacks the will to do just that.
It is the middle of July, and we have done nothing to address this situation. Why aren't we looking at drilling and not just drilling but looking at wind, solar, hydrogen, nuclear, all those things that will help us reduce the demand for foreign oil and increase the supply of energy here in the United States?
My dear friend from Minnesota, the American public expects us to act and act now. They are tired of our bickering. They're tired of the partisan politics. I thank you tonight for talking about this critical issue. I am willing to roll up my sleeves. I know you are willing to roll up yours. It is incumbent upon each and every one of us to do our part because we can no longer wait. Thank you.
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