“The President’s new energy plan is nothing new.  It is simply filled with ideas that I proposed eight months ago. 

“Last August and September, I called on the President to suspend deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and introduced legislation to direct the Federal Trade Commission to conduct an investigation into price gouging. 

“It has taken the President nearly eight months to recognize we have a major problem at America’s gas pumps and to make an effort to provide much needed relief to America’s working and farm families.  Perhaps if the President had understood the severity of skyrocketing gas prices last September, heeded my call to temporarily suspend deliveries to the SPR, and had his Republican-led Congress allowed a vote on my bill for a FTC investigation into price gouging, we would not be faced with $3 per gallon gasoline today and few farm families would have gone out of business.

“The suspension of deliveries to the SPR will provide an immediate, short term fix for today’s escalating gas prices, which is why I called for the President to do this last August.  We must also develop a long term plan that invests in renewable and alternative energy sources which will ultimately reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  This is why I am co-sponsoring H.R. 1398, legislation that mandates ten percent ethanol in all gas and five percent biodiesel in all diesel by the year 2010.  Increasing the amount of ethanol and biodiesel in our domestic fuel will allow the United States to not only become less dependent on foreign oil, but will also provide a new market for our farm families and reduce the price we pay at the pump by as much as 70 cents a gallon.

“Unfortunately, the President’s push for an investigation into price gouging and the suspension of deliveries to the SPR may be too little, too late.  Farm families throughout America have gone out of business over the last eight months.  Many of Arkansas’s working families commute long distances each day to work and are feeling their wallets tighten as they face record breaking prices at the pump.”

Although the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which Ross helped write as a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to conduct an investigation into price gouging, there is no definitive timeline mandated by the legislation.  Last September, Ross introduced H.R. 3718, which would have established a timeline for the FTC to conduct an investigation to determine if the price of gasoline had been artificially manipulated.  Ross is also a co-sponsor of H. Res. 299, legislation which would require the President to temporarily suspend acquisitions to the SPR. 

In 2000, when President Clinton suspended deliveries to the SPR, it brought down gasoline prices by 14 cents per gallon and crude oil prices by $6 per barrel.  In 1991, when President Bush authorized the release of oil from the SPR, it brought crude oil prices down $11 per barrel.