Providing for Consideration of H.R. 6899, Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 6899, COMPREHENSIVE AMERICAN ENERGY SECURITY AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT -- (House of Representatives - September 16, 2008)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the Chair. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Rules Committee for bringing this resolution to the floor so we can debate on the energy bill and vote on the energy bill later today. And I rise in very strong support of this comprehensive, forward-looking bill that will provide relief at the pump, create good jobs in America and finally put our Nation on a path toward a clean, more independent and sustainable energy future. Surely that is something that all of us can support.

America understands the problem: Our Nation is addicted to oil. Consumers are paying record prices to heat and cool their homes and drive their cars and their trucks. Global warming is a real, serious and growing problem. Meanwhile oil companies are making more money than ever before.

That is why Democrats made energy a top priority when they took back the House and the Senate last year. We raised the fuel economy standards for the first time in 30 years, overcoming the objections of the auto industry, the oil industry, the Republicans in Congress and the White House. And we passed one bill after another to improve America's energy policy and its energy future, to expand wind, solar and other renewable energy sources, to increase the efficiency and conservation and our use of energy, to curb speculation in the oil markets so consumers would not be ripped off by the oil speculators, to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve so that small businesses, truckers and airlines would not be thrust into economic hardship and to recoup tens of billions of dollars from the oil companies that are unfairly taken from the taxpayers. All of these are thrusting America into the future with respect to its energy resources, its supply and its usage.

But every bill was opposed by a majority of the Republicans in Congress and by President Bush. This is sort of the Goldilocks of the energy debate, too much wind, not enough solar; too much solar, not enough energy; too much going after the speculators, not enough going after the oil companies; too much going after the oil companies, not enough for the energy industry. They could never get it right. And they could never support an energy bill. And they have never been able, in all the time they controlled this Congress, to move America into the future of energy, to move America into renewables, to move America into efficiency. They voted against it all. And they didn't propose it. And at the end of their decade in Congress, gas was $4 a gallon. They controlled the White House, and they controlled the Congress. At the end of their decade, gas was $4 a gallon.

So what are we able to do here today? We're able to help consumers and the taxpayers by ending the subsidies to oil companies, subsidies that President Bush said were obsolete at $50 a barrel. Well they are certainly obsolete today at $100 a barrel or $90 a barrel or $140 a barrel. But the Republicans are going to hold to those subsidies. We are going to end the royalty holiday, a holiday for oil companies where they don't have to pay royalties. Where is the holiday for consumers? Where is the holiday for the person commuting to work? Where is the holiday for the person heating their home? Not from the Republicans. They fought tooth and nail. The President fought tooth and nail to hold on to those royalty holidays.

And finally we are talking about creating jobs for Americans here at home in green industries and the renewable energies of the future, in the efficiencies of the future. That is what the American energy future looks like. And that is what this Congress is going to be able to vote on. And that is what the American people are going to get as a result, a bright, renewable, smart energy future.

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