America Needs to Develop its Own Natural Resources

Floor Speech

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Thank you, Mr. Shimkus, and thank you for doing this. I am glad to hear all of the discussion today. As Mr. McCotter was just talking about, the Democratic plan, I guess, or their policy, was H.R. 6, which was part of their monument pieces of legislation this was going to change the direction of this country. As we see by your chart, they definitely have changed the direction of gas prices in that they are skyrocketing up. We heard so much before they got in charge about the commonsense plan that they had. So H.R. 6 was their energy bill.

If you look at H.R. 6, and, Mr. Shimkus, I did a little word search and found that crude oil was mentioned five times in that bill, which was well over 300 pages. Gasoline was mentioned about 12 times. Domestic drilling was not mentioned. Drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf was not mentioned. But what was curious was that swimming pool was mentioned 47 times because there was a piece of swimming pool legislation that was added to the bill. So swimming pool was mentioned about seven times more or eight times more than gasoline. Then the other interesting thing is 350 times in that bill was lamp or light bulbs.

So I have a hard time explaining. I just spoke to a group of farmers Saturday morning at a breakfast and they were asking me about fuel prices. As you know, the price of diesel is up well over $4 a gallon. When I tried to explain to them the Democratic solution to our energy problems and our dependency on foreign oil, I don't think that they believed me. I read them the bill, I read them the things that were in the bill, and I am having a hard time convincing them that I am telling the truth.

So I am proud that you're here and that these other members are here so I can have somebody to go back and say, Look, I told you I am telling you the truth. This is their policy. It is a nonpolicy. Their commonsense plan that they had to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and to bring down the rising gas prices has done nothing but cause them to go up almost 50 percent.

So I thank you for doing this, and I hope that by me sitting here listening to some of my other colleagues, I can get some ideas about what to go home and tell the people of the Third Congressional District of Georgia.

What really is their plan? Did they really have one? As it turns, it seems if they had one, it has certainly backfired on them and, shamefully, the American people.

Thank you.

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