Happy Summer

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTEN. Happy summer. It is time to fire up the grill, fire up the air conditioner, and book some road trips, if you can afford to fuel them.

Since Donald Trump's election, gasoline prices have skyrocketed. Household energy bills are up by as much as 18 percent. In response to this, the President said: ``I don't think about Americans' financial situation.''

That is more than just a psychotic lack of empathy because he also said: ``. . . when oil prices go up we make a lot of money.'' Who is ``we'' in this situation? In the words of Chris Rock: ``It ain't us.'' But it is par for the course in a White House that has always put the interests of oil and gas producers ahead of consumers.

So I have got this crazy idea. What if we actually put forth an energy policy that unambiguously put consumers first, that always prioritized the most reliable, lowest cost sources of energy, even if that came at the expense of oil company profits?

That is exactly what Congressman Levin and I have put forward in our Energy Bills Relief Act, which has over 158 cosponsors in the House.

Your bills are too high. Our bills are too high. It is long past time for us to do something about it.

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