Press Conference With House Republican Leaders - Energy Legislation

Press Conference

Participants: Rep. David Dreier; Rep. Charles Boustany; Rep. Michele Bachmann; Rep. Mike Pence; Rep. Jean Schmidt ; Rep. Joe Wilson; Rep. Virginia Foxx; Rep. John Sullivan; Rep. Phil Gingrey; Rep. Trent Franks

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REP. DREIER: Thank you, all, very much for being here.

Let me just say that there are now 112 members who participated over the last two weeks. And it was exactly two weeks ago this afternoon that by a one-vote margin, we saw Speaker Pelosi choose to adjourn the House, denying members the opportunity to have a vote or even speak about the need for us to do everything that we can to reduce energy prices.

Now, I will say that in my position on the House Rules Committee, I had my record under Speaker Hastert maligned quite a bit during the past couple of years. And it's very unfortunate that we have in this Congress, that was promised a new day of openness, more closed rules than any Congress in the history of the republic. In fact, I can tell you that we have had 20 percent more closed rules than we ever had when we were in the majority.

And this issue is very, very important to the American people. Time and time again, they are, by a seven-to-one margin, saying that we should in fact pursue energy here in the United States, and that means drilling, drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, drilling in ANWR and doing everything that we can to ensure that we pursue energy security in the United States.

We also have continued to hear this myth that somehow Republicans are only interested in drilling. And as Mike Pence just said on the House floor, we believe, and John Boehner has said repeatedly, in an all-of-the-above agenda.

I've been looking over the past couple of weeks when I've been in California at a number of facilities that are focusing on wind and solar and electric cars. There are great operations out in California pursuing these. We need to encourage every single one of these, and Republicans stand ready to do that. But we know that as we move to alternative energy sources, we still are going to have some reliance on fossil fuels. So it is totally irresponsible for us as a nation not to do everything that we can to pursue those.

Nancy Pelosi has an unprecedented record of closed rules, preventing us to have the opportunity to pursue the legislation that the American people want. And it has led to something that has never before happened, to my knowledge, in the history of this institution and never before happened certainly in the near-three decades that I've been privileged to serve here, and that is members of Congress taking time from their families and the work that was scheduled because we are so concerned about this issue.

This is a grassroots effort that has been led by Mike Pence, Tom Price, Virginia Foxx and many of my colleagues who are here. And I'm now very pleased to turn it over to our ringleader here, my good friend from Indiana Mr. Pence.

REP. PENCE: Thank you, David.

And I am humbled by the acknowledgment of the role that Congresswoman Foxx and others and I have played. But candidly, it was two weeks ago at this very hour that Republicans, as a conference, decided not to go quietly. House Democrats by a single vote brought this Congress to adjournment without ever giving the American people and up-or-down vote on more access to American oil. And House Republicans en mass said no.

More than 100 Republicans on that day two weeks ago were signed up to give speeches on the House floor, regular so-called special- order speeches objecting to the adjournment without a vote on giving the American people more access to American oil. But House Democrats dropped the gavel and attempted to silence the debate, but it didn't work. Their attempt to silence the debate in regular order created this unprecedented protest that is now two weeks in the making and will go on until this Congress is brought back into session.

We are, all of us, with the leadership of John Boehner and Roy Blunt and David Dreier and all the leadership of the Republican conference, dedicated to holding this Hill until either Speaker Pelosi calls a special session or until Congress returns back in to session.

But we are not for political grandstanding. We're not here for a political stunt. We're here because, as I saw first hand back home in Indiana this week, the American people are hurting, families are hurting, seniors on fixed incomes are hurting under the weight of record gasoline prices. And they want to see this Congress act and act now.

I will say in closing I was heartened when Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on national television this week for the very first time that, quote, "we can have a vote," close quote, on domestic drilling. This was a first! Weeks earlier, Speaker Pelosi told George Stephanopoulos on ABC News that the only way Republicans could get a vote on drilling was if they, quote, "used their imagination."

We see this as progress. But the American people are not interested in just rhetorical progress. They want to see this Congress go to work and pass a comprehensive energy bill that says yes to conservation, yes to new sources of energy, solar, wind, yes to an expansion of nuclear, yes to greater fuel efficiency and, most importantly, yes to giving the American people more access to our own domestic reserves.

House Republicans are determined to hold this Hill until we achieve a victory for American independence for the American people.

REP. BACHMANN: I'm Michelle Bachman from Minnesota's 6th Congressional District.

Like Congressman Mike Pence, I'm here because I'm doing my job. And 112 members of Congress have been here to do their job in the last two weeks. What we don't understand is why the speaker of the House can't be here to do her job. Right now, she's doing a book tour all across America promoting her book that's called "Know Your Power." Well, she has power. We agree she has power. We're asking her to bring her power back to the United States Congress and use it on behalf of the good of the American people.

The one thing that I've learned as I've been back in Minnesota during these last two weeks, people are absolutely confounded that Congress would leave and do nothing while we're continuing every day to send billions of dollars to nations across the world to pay for high-priced energy when we don't need to.

One thing people in Minnesota understand, they're pretty smart people, and they understand that the problem is not that we lack energy resources in this country. They get it that we have energy in abundance. They understand that it isn't lack of technology. We could get that oil or solar or wind or nuclear any time we wanted to. It isn't technology. What they understand and what they're really disgusted about is the lack of will on the Democrat-controlled Congress to do the right thing and pass a bill so that energy costs can get down.

Yesterday I met with a local volunteer fire department to ask them about the price of energy and the impact on firemen. They're having to cut training just to deal with energy costs. Then I went to one of my local gas stations. And my heart was broken. One mom told me what she's afraid of at this point are the energy bills that are going to come due in October. In Minnesota, you don't have a choice. You turn your furnace on in October. And she's afraid of what she'll face with her energy heating bills.

At this point, I am here to take a stand with my colleagues. And in some sense, you might say this is now the Alamo, and we are here at the Alamo to make a last stand for the American people. And we're saying to our Democrat colleagues, speaker of the House, join us here so we can do what's right for the American people.

REP. BOUSTANY: Hi, folks. I'm Charles Boustany from the 7th District of Louisiana.

And as you've heard, families and farmers and businesses all across this country are struggling from the high cost of gas and diesel. And Americans are tired of just talk about the "audacity of hope." They want the audacity of action, and that's why we're here.

Now, in my home state of Louisiana, we've been doing this for a long time. We understand how important the energy sector is to our economy. And we also understand that it's not just oil and gas. Oil and gas is a way to transition to the next energy economy. But we're not there yet with that technology, so we need to set policies that help us transition and make that transition which is so important. And that's why we're standing here together advocating a comprehensive energy policy that looks at all of it.

Congress shouldn't pick favorites. Congress shouldn't pick winners and losers. We're not smart enough to do that. What we ought to do is set policy that unleashes individual American genius, and that's why I'm here to speak directly to the American people and to speak to you about what is so important, because Americans care about this.

This is the number one issue. You can't separate it from the economy. You can't separate it from our national security. It's critically important, and we're going to keep speaking about it until we see action.

Thank you.

(Scattered applause.)

REP. WILSON: And ladies and gentlemen, I'm Joe Wilson from the second district of South Carolina. I want to thank my Republican colleagues for standing up for the principle of discussing the "all of the above" energy plan and urging Speaker Pelosi to bring Congress back.

Let's vote on the issue. Particularly, this is a big week for many families across America. They are buying school supplies, and as they prepare for school, obviously there is a shortage of funds because of the cost of gasoline. We need to address this. As Congress goes on vacation, families of America are hurting.

Another perspective I have, I'm on the Armed Services Committee. The high cost of energy is affecting our military. In the last 10 years, the cost of fuel has increased from $3 billion to $11.4 billion. This is a 380 percent increase.

At the same time, the consumption has only gone up 26 percent. That means that the cost of fuel is growing at a rate of around 15 times the consumption. This affects salaries; this affects training; this affects the equipment, the technology, to protect the American people.

We need to take a step, and I want to congratulate the Republican colleagues for standing firm for an "all of the above" energy plan.

REP. FOXX: I'm Virginia Foxx from the fifth district of North Carolina.

I just want to emphasize what we say on the floor. And you know, the floor is packed almost all the time that we are in there, so -- and the people are loving the opportunity to be here and hear what we have to say.

But we say over and over again this is not a partisan issue. We welcome our Democratic colleagues to come and join us. We have had none. The score is 112 to zero right now.

We want to bring out the pro-American energy people. You -- we are going to soon, we hope, separate the sheep from the goats here. Are you pro-American energy or are you anti-American energy? All of us are pro-American energy.

As my colleagues have said, and they've been very eloquent, we have the resources in this country to be energy independent. We simply have to tap those resources. We have the technology to do it.

So we call on our Democratic colleagues to join us. We believe they're having the same experiences that we're having. When we're at home, we're hearing it from our constituents. They're hurting; they want us to do something. They can't understand why we aren't taking action.

We call on the speaker to take clean action. We want an up-or- down vote on a clean bill. We don't want a lot of gimmicks, which is what we're hearing we're going to have. We want to either drill or not drill.

That's what the American people want to know -- who's on their side and who is not on their side.

REP. SULLIVAN: I'm John Sullivan from the first congressional district of Oklahoma, and it's an honor to be here with my colleagues who've been here -- I remember that day when we left and we didn't do anything.

And when I went home, I've heard all across the first congressional district people are upset. They're upset that Nancy Pelosi would not allow an up-or-down vote on a comprehensive energy plan.

And she single-handedly holds the key to what the federal government has under lock and key -- over a hundred-year reserve of oil and gas that we can get here in our own back yard.

This is not only an economic issue that families are suffering and suffering desperately. Their food prices are going up. People are going to the grocery store, experiencing tremendous food price increase because of this. But also, it's very -- it's killing us in many other ways.

But we have over a hundred-year reserves and we've been getting our oil from national -- or, other countries, over 60 percent. And it's absolutely asinine to get our oil from countries that we've been at war with recently.

You know, we talked about opening the Outer Continental Shelf; we talk about the Lower 48. Well, let's take ANWR, for example, and area that the sun doesn't even shine for 60 days out of the year. It's -- the temperatures are very extreme. We --

Some oil experts say we could produce at least two million barrels a day just out of ANWR. We consume 21 million barrels a day in the United States. That would be significant.

But what's more significant, that's what we did import each day from Iraq and Saddam Hussein before the war. We need to lessen that. We need to get it here in our own back yard. It's very important.

And like Congressman Dreier said, there is a myth that we only want to drill and drill offshore and here. But we want a comprehensive "all of the above" strategy, one that addresses refining capacity, looks alternative energy sources, looks at wind, solar, conservation. Looks at increasing miles-per-gallon standards for vehicles. All of those things are very important and all of those things are what Republicans are talking about.

We need to get Nancy Pelosi off that book tour and back here in the House so we can get a comprehensive energy plan passed. She said she was going to do it. And when she became speaker of the House, gas prices, remember, were only -- about $2 less a gallon. She has done nothing to help the American people in this area.

Thank you.

REP. SULLIVAN: I'd like to introduce Congressman Gingrey from Atlanta.

REP. GINGREY: Congressman Sullivan, thank you. I --

You know, maybe what Ms. Pelosi has in mind for ANWR is rather than drilling, put some solar panels up there. That's -- also would go along with their proposal to put a main sail on a smart car.

We really, I think, ladies and gentlemen, the American Energy Act is exactly what she says she wants in regard to agreement to drilling off of our Outer Continental Shelf. And clearly we need to do that. She does need to come back from that book tour, "Know Your Power." Well, if she truly knows her power, she knows she's got the power, she and she alone, to reconvene this House of Representatives.

Some of you may have been here yesterday and you might have heard me refer to an analogy of this to the No Child Left Behind law. You know, under No Child Left Behind, if your school is not abiding by its own plan in regard to making sure each and every child gets a good education, then they're not making adequate yearly progress.

Well, let me suggest to you that this Congress, for the last two years, has not made adequate yearly progress. And you know, under No Child Left Behind, when they don't do that, what happens? They go on the needs improvement list.

Well, this Congress and this congressional leadership is absolutely under the needs improvement list, and if they don't shape up, the next step, the next hammer that falls is to replace the leadership of the school system under No Child Left Behind. Replace the superintendent, replace the principal, and put in new leadership. And that's exactly what we are going to do.

I think the American people are going to do it for us. If the Democratic majority and those in charge, as Ms. Foxx has said many times -- it's not leadership. They're not showing leadership. They just happen to be in charge.

But they need to come back, Democrats as well as Republicans, and let's do this on a bipartisan way. Clearly, when I was in school, until you did your homework, you didn't get to go on recess. (Laughter.)

Thank you.

REP. FRANKS: I'm Congressman Trent Franks from Arizona, and I have a little unique situation. I have 12-day-old baby twins at home. And I've got to tell you I didn't really want to leave them to come here. But I came here because I believe that so much of their future will be dictated by what we do in the next few months in this country.

The reality is that our challenge to gain energy independence isn't just about economics, even though it is one of the great transfers of wealth to other countries in the history of our nation.

The reality is this has long-term implications on the strength of the United States of America in the world. And I would express to you that I believe that some of our most dangerous enemies are indirectly funded by higher oil and gas prices in the world and that America being so dependent on Middle Eastern oil and other places, is indirectly funding the most dangerous enemies that we have -- those that would kill their children in order to kill ours.

And so for my little twins and for future generations, I'm here because I don't want them to face nuclear jihad in their time. And I believe that as someone said that, you know, every time a baby is born he comes with a message that God has not yet despaired of mankind.

And I believe there's great hope for the future, but right now the people that lead this body should be here doing what they can to make sure that the light of human freedom goes forth in the world and continues to be the greatest force for hope and freedom on Earth.

And thank you.

(Scattered applause.)

REP. DREIER: Questions? Thank you.

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