High Gas Prices

HIGH GAS PRICES -- (House of Representatives - June 18, 2008)

Mr. ROGERS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak for all the hardworking people in east Alabama who are getting swamped by high gas prices. Each of us in this Chamber knows that gas is over $5 a gallon in this country and rising. We all know that high gas prices are making everything more expensive, from groceries to clothing.

The question is what is this House going to do about it? For one, we should vote this week to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for energy exploration. We should also open the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico.

Combined, these two locations have the potential of providing our country almost 100 billion barrels of oil. In addition, Congress must get serious about funding alternative energy research. A great example is the work being done at Auburn University in my home State of Alabama. I would like to invite my colleagues to visit the Auburn mobile bioenergy unit here in D.C. this week.

Efforts like these are critical or a critical part of the solution to high gas prices, but so is using the resources we have here at home in an environmentally sensitive way. This is just common sense, and there is nothing that should stop Congress from following this course.

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