Energy
Floor Speech
ENERGY
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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I thank my colleague from New York, the esteemed Congressman ED TOWNS. I appreciate very much you speaking on this very important issue. It is an issue that has been creeping like a thief in the night into the pocketbooks and into the pockets of Americans, everyday working Americans.
We have seen the price of gas escalating quietly but steadily ever since 2001, I say to Congresswoman SHEILA JACKSON-LEE from Houston, Texas, whom I am proud to serve with. And I see my other colleague, BARBARA LEE from California. So we have got all parts of the Nation covered here.
But ever since 2001, when the price of gas was at $1.50, it has steadily gone up. And that is kind of ironic, given the fact that we elected an oilman to be our President and an oilman to be our Vice President. You would have thought that America would be taken care of by our President and our Vice President. But what we have seen since that administration came to power is prices going through the roof. And, like a thief in the night, people have now awakened to see that they have been gouged and stolen from by the oil industry, and it has all been while we were enjoying a deregulated and unregulated market and we were allowing the speculators, instead of the producers, to get a stranglehold on the American economy. So these speculators are driving up the price of gas, driving up the price of oil. It has become the number one issue in this country.
Mr. Speaker, while it is easy to peddle quick fixes, the hard truth is that there is no quick fix. It is kind of like the war in Iraq. We got in a little easier than it is going to take us to get out. By the way, ironically, some people believe that it was for the 35 billion barrels of oil beneath al-Anbar Province in Iraq that we went to war for. Some people believe that.
So oil has driven much of the policies of this administration. And quick fixes will not do at this point. We are rapidly reaching the point of peak oil, peak oil being the moment, Mr. Speaker, after which global oil supplies will forever decrease. That moment is approaching. Meanwhile, global demand for oil is ever increasing. So we are reaching a point where we have dwindling supply and skyrocketing demand, and that means one thing, among others, but the biggest thing is that gas prices, high gas prices, are here to stay.
Now, the President came up with an energy plan, it was done in secrecy back in 2001, if you will remember. It seems to me that it was Vice President Cheney who convened a group of people, whom we still have not found out who those people were, in a task force to formulate this country's energy policy. Someone went to court to have the names and identities of those task force members revealed, and I don't think that lawsuit was successful. But I can only speculate on who was in that room setting the oil policy.
That policy went into effect back in August of 2005. When President Bush signed energy legislation into law, gas at the pump was selling for about $2.85 a gallon. Then, just 1 year later, in 2006, July 26, Energy Secretary Bodman celebrated the 1-year anniversary of energy legislation, kind of like ``mission accomplished.'' And that didn't pan out either. At that point, 1 year after the anniversary of the signing of the Bush administration energy policy, 1 year later gas had gone up to $3 a gallon. And, of course, back in May it went up, it continued to go up, to $3.81 in May. But now we are in June heading towards July, and folks are speculating that we will hit $5 a gallon by the end of the summer, and Americans are hurting.
So it comes as no surprise that the big oil President and the big oil Vice President propose more drilling, instead of suggesting real, lasting solutions to our energy problem.
The most effective way to address this problem is to start conserving. There is so much we can do to conserve energy. It means so much for our environment. We need to clean this environment up.
I returned from a trip just 1 month ago to the North Pole, Mr. Speaker. The folks up there are talking about what is going to happen as the ice melts and it will open up the shipping lanes, so there will be more traffic, more opportunity to traverse that area, and more opportunity to get at that oil that is up in the North Pole. And I suppose we will run all of the polar bears out trying to get to that oil, trying to sip every last drop of oil that this Earth has to offer, while at the same time creating environmental havoc.
So I would be happy to continue to have dialogue on this issue, but I know that there are other colleagues here who want to address this issue, so I would yield back at this point.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Thank you, Congressman Towns.
Just listening to the comments of my colleagues, I am intrigued with so many things. My colleague from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is pretty much saying we have to have dialogue with our partners around the world, be they friends or foe. Because the bottom line, people talk about the global economy. It is true, we have a global economy. It doesn't always work as fairly as it should, but the bottom line is that we have a global economy. And some folks are making out like bandits, and others are sinking. And so it is time that we have equity in this world.
I know Congresswoman Lee, you have been a woman who has throughout your career insisted on taking care of the have-nots while the haves can continue to be prosperous as well. And so dialogue with our oil-producing nations is so important.
Because by the way, Congresswoman SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, drilling is one of the tools that we need in our tool basket to address this issue. We must take advantage of the leases that have already been granted by this government to the oil companies, that they have been sitting on for years waiting for the price to go up so they can start drilling.
And Congresswoman BARBARA LEE, you talked about the children, and the children are so important. I am looking at an article in today's Washington Post. It says ``Fuel Costs May Force Some Kids to Walk.'' It means that our local boards of education have to pay for the price of diesel fuel which is going through the roof. And to get our children to school costs a whole lot more money than it did last year. And so that means less money for teachers and less money for school infrastructure, the buildings, less money for books.
This oil crisis is wreaking havoc on us, and our children are looking to us to make the right decision. They are counting on us to make the tough choices for the future. They are counting on this Congress to understand that the most effective way to adapt to this changing reality or this new reality, which is dwindling supply with increased skyrocketing demand, we must as a tool in our toolbox insist upon conservation while we also extend tax incentives to companies to develop solar energy. I mean, we have a vast desert where I think it was 107 degrees out there, or more, sun brightly shining down. Do you mean to tell me that we can't put some solar panels out there and start capturing that sunlight and changing it to electricity, to help take some of the demand away from fossil fuels. It is much cleaner, but I think the oil companies would have a hard time trying to get their fingers and their hands around the sun. So we haven't seen a lot of solar energy.
We are getting more wind coming through because of the global-warming phenomenon, the disruption of our climate. We are getting the wind, but we are not using that wind to help us with our energy needs. We need to do that.
Biofuels. And all of these new things are on the table, but instead what we get is a new plan announced by the President which is more drilling, and drilling in our sensitive areas in our environment.
Ms. LEE. If the gentleman would yield, what you are talking about, which is so important, is a comprehensive energy independence plan. We need a national plan for energy independence that provides for this toolbox, as you describe it, that allows for all of the alternatives.
I read in the newspaper that rural communities, because people have to drive so far to jobs, people are having to make decisions whether or not they can afford to go to work because the cost of gasoline is higher than the cost of their wages. Rural communities throughout our country are being devastated by the price of gasoline. This is an emergency.
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. The price of food is going up. So we have food going up. We have energy costs going up. And the American people feel squeezed. They are counting on us to do something to address this issue.
Congressman Towns, I just appreciate so much your emphasis on this dilemma that we face. We are, I think, proving that all Americans are concerned about the future of this country insofar as energy is concerned.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Thank you, Congressman Towns.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out the fact that in the short time that the Democrats have been in leadership in Congress, we've passed no less than eight bills, passed them on to the President, the President has either threatened to veto them or vetoed them; and now the President proposes a plan that will have little or no impact on gas prices. It will take years to implement, it will threaten the environment and does nothing to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. And this is a plan that JOHN MCCAIN opposed as recently as last week when he made his announcement that he's now in support of this failed policy. So we look like we're headed for Bush-McCain a third term.
And instead of pandering to the oil industry, the President should work with this Congress to come up with a plan to address our long-term energy challenges. And I want to thank you, Congressman Towns, for leading up this effort. I'm proud to be among my members of my fellow colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus because we're showing that we are broad based. We understand what is happening down home with the average Americans. And we stand with average Americans, regardless of what color, regardless of what shape or size or even sexual inclination. We stand with you because we're all in the same boat together.
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