‘We simply can’t go through a failed process, claim credit for ‘trying,’ and then pack it up and go home. Let’s get serious.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday regarding the serious national problem of the rising price of gas at the pump and the need for a serious legislative response:
“Right now in Lexington and Las Vegas and in every other city and town across the country, Americans are hurting from high gas prices. Right now there’s a man watching his hard-earned paycheck go into his gas tank instead of his daughter's college fund. And that man doesn't care about cloture petitions or 2nd degree amendments. He just wants Congress to do something. He wants us to act.
“We’ve all heard the frustrations from constituents for months. They’ve made their feelings known. And so we were surprised yesterday to learn about the intentions of our friends across the aisle when it comes to high gas prices. The Majority Leader told reporters that voting on more than one amendment per side — on the number-one domestic issue facing our nation — is unreasonable.
“Let me repeat that: our friends on the other side are saying that having a real debate, that considering good ideas from all sides is just too much for the Senate to handle. They’ve apparently rejected the idea of finding a serious solution to high gas prices. And instead, they want us to take up a proposal that’s designed to fail. They want us to try to fool our constituents into believing that we’re addressing this problem in a serious way, when we’re not.
“It’s no surprise that the Democrat Leadership won’t allow Americans’ top priorities to be heard. It’s the same reason they’ve been cancelling hearings and markups all week: they don’t want to choose between their presidential nominee, whose position on bringing down high gas prices is: ‘No we can’t’, and the demands of the guy at the gas pump who’s watching his daughter’s college fund shrink with every gallon he puts in the tank.
“It’s a sad commentary given the promises they made. Our friends across the aisle promised a year and a half ago in their ‘Six for ‘06’ pledge to ‘lower gas prices’ and ‘free America from dependence on foreign oil.’ But things didn’t turn out as planned. The fact is, a gallon of gas is now more than $1.70 higher than when the Democrats promised to lower it. And now — at a time when Americans are clamoring for them to make good on their pledge, they must muster the political will to do something about it.
“We should not be content to leave town with a couple of failed votes and a speculation proposal that no serious economist in America believes will have a significant impact, by itself, on the price of gas. Let me reiterate, Republicans believe we can strengthen the futures markets. Our bill would do just that. If bad actors are out there, we’d like to find them by putting more cops on the beat and by bringing greater transparency to the market. But we don’t claim that this one provision alone will solve the problem. No serious person would, Mr. President.
“The other side has made the astonishing claim that the speculation provision alone will lower the price of gas by 20-50 percent. Yet I have found no one — not the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, not the 27-nation International Energy Agency, not even the most famous rich Democrat in America, Warren Buffett, to back up this claim.
“Yesterday, our colleague, the Junior Senator from Texas, asked here on the floor for any citation backing up their claim. The Majority Leader came back to the floor to respond. But the only person he could name who had made this claim has been so thoroughly discredited here in the Senate that the Democratic chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a stinging 11-page rebuttal of his recent testimony.
“In testimony before the committee, the Majority Leader’s source — a lawyer, not an economist, by the way — claimed that ‘overnight,’ a speculation bill dealing with energy commodities would ‘bring down the price of crude oil, I believe, by 25 percent.’ The committee’s public response to this notion of an ‘overnight’ reduction of ‘25 percent’ was blunt. Here’s what they said: ‘There is no credible evidence that simply amending the [Commodities Exchange Act] to regulate energy commodities as if they were agricultural commodities will lead to lower energy prices.’
“So, in other words, the one source our friends across the aisle point to when they claim their bill will lower the costs of energy by 20-50 percent is the subject of an 11-page, bipartisan rebuke—which says there is zero credible evidence to support his claim.
“Let me say it again. We, like our friends, support legislation that keeps bad actors from driving up gas prices. We’ve addressed this in our bill. But serious people understand that if this activity is occurring, it’s a small portion of the overall problem.
“And this leads me to a broader point. The price of gas at the pump is a serious national problem that requires a serious legislative response. We cannot solve this problem with timid, half-hearted measures. We need to act boldly. And that means we need to consider good ideas from both sides.
“Now is not the time to be timid or to play political games that are designed to benefit a single party. Our job, it seems to me, is to help the man or woman at the gas pump who is making hard choices in order to keep his gas tank full. And that’s why it’s so irresponsible to shortchange this debate. Until we have acted boldly to cut gas prices and our reliance on Middle East oil, we will be ignoring the demands of the American people.
“It’s time to get serious. No more unsupportable outlandish claims; no more relying on discredited testimony; no more canceling markups simply to avoid taking votes on a serious approach to lowering the price of gas at the pump.
“We need to find more and use less. We need to consider good ideas from all sides. And we need to take seriously that energy is the number-one domestic issue facing our nation. We simply can’t go through a failed process, claim credit for ‘trying,’ and then pack it up and go home. Let’s get serious. Let’s open this debate to more than one good idea — rather than bring it to a premature end. And let’s find a solution that incorporates increased domestic supply and conservation. We need to find more and use less
“Americans are demanding nothing less.”
###
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday regarding the serious national problem of the rising price of gas at the pump and the need for a serious legislative response:
“Right now in Lexington and Las Vegas and in every other city and town across the country, Americans are hurting from high gas prices. Right now there’s a man watching his hard-earned paycheck go into his gas tank instead of his daughter's college fund. And that man doesn't care about cloture petitions or 2nd degree amendments. He just wants Congress to do something. He wants us to act.
“We’ve all heard the frustrations from constituents for months. They’ve made their feelings known. And so we were surprised yesterday to learn about the intentions of our friends across the aisle when it comes to high gas prices. The Majority Leader told reporters that voting on more than one amendment per side — on the number-one domestic issue facing our nation — is unreasonable.
“Let me repeat that: our friends on the other side are saying that having a real debate, that considering good ideas from all sides is just too much for the Senate to handle. They’ve apparently rejected the idea of finding a serious solution to high gas prices. And instead, they want us to take up a proposal that’s designed to fail. They want us to try to fool our constituents into believing that we’re addressing this problem in a serious way, when we’re not.
“It’s no surprise that the Democrat Leadership won’t allow Americans’ top priorities to be heard. It’s the same reason they’ve been cancelling hearings and markups all week: they don’t want to choose between their presidential nominee, whose position on bringing down high gas prices is: ‘No we can’t’, and the demands of the guy at the gas pump who’s watching his daughter’s college fund shrink with every gallon he puts in the tank.
“It’s a sad commentary given the promises they made. Our friends across the aisle promised a year and a half ago in their ‘Six for ‘06’ pledge to ‘lower gas prices’ and ‘free America from dependence on foreign oil.’ But things didn’t turn out as planned. The fact is, a gallon of gas is now more than $1.70 higher than when the Democrats promised to lower it. And now — at a time when Americans are clamoring for them to make good on their pledge, they must muster the political will to do something about it.
“We should not be content to leave town with a couple of failed votes and a speculation proposal that no serious economist in America believes will have a significant impact, by itself, on the price of gas. Let me reiterate, Republicans believe we can strengthen the futures markets. Our bill would do just that. If bad actors are out there, we’d like to find them by putting more cops on the beat and by bringing greater transparency to the market. But we don’t claim that this one provision alone will solve the problem. No serious person would, Mr. President.
“The other side has made the astonishing claim that the speculation provision alone will lower the price of gas by 20-50 percent. Yet I have found no one — not the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, not the 27-nation International Energy Agency, not even the most famous rich Democrat in America, Warren Buffett, to back up this claim.
“Yesterday, our colleague, the Junior Senator from Texas, asked here on the floor for any citation backing up their claim. The Majority Leader came back to the floor to respond. But the only person he could name who had made this claim has been so thoroughly discredited here in the Senate that the Democratic chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a stinging 11-page rebuttal of his recent testimony.
“In testimony before the committee, the Majority Leader’s source — a lawyer, not an economist, by the way — claimed that ‘overnight,’ a speculation bill dealing with energy commodities would ‘bring down the price of crude oil, I believe, by 25 percent.’ The committee’s public response to this notion of an ‘overnight’ reduction of ‘25 percent’ was blunt. Here’s what they said: ‘There is no credible evidence that simply amending the [Commodities Exchange Act] to regulate energy commodities as if they were agricultural commodities will lead to lower energy prices.’
“So, in other words, the one source our friends across the aisle point to when they claim their bill will lower the costs of energy by 20-50 percent is the subject of an 11-page, bipartisan rebuke—which says there is zero credible evidence to support his claim.
“Let me say it again. We, like our friends, support legislation that keeps bad actors from driving up gas prices. We’ve addressed this in our bill. But serious people understand that if this activity is occurring, it’s a small portion of the overall problem.
“And this leads me to a broader point. The price of gas at the pump is a serious national problem that requires a serious legislative response. We cannot solve this problem with timid, half-hearted measures. We need to act boldly. And that means we need to consider good ideas from both sides.
“Now is not the time to be timid or to play political games that are designed to benefit a single party. Our job, it seems to me, is to help the man or woman at the gas pump who is making hard choices in order to keep his gas tank full. And that’s why it’s so irresponsible to shortchange this debate. Until we have acted boldly to cut gas prices and our reliance on Middle East oil, we will be ignoring the demands of the American people.
“It’s time to get serious. No more unsupportable outlandish claims; no more relying on discredited testimony; no more canceling markups simply to avoid taking votes on a serious approach to lowering the price of gas at the pump.
“We need to find more and use less. We need to consider good ideas from all sides. And we need to take seriously that energy is the number-one domestic issue facing our nation. We simply can’t go through a failed process, claim credit for ‘trying,’ and then pack it up and go home. Let’s get serious. Let’s open this debate to more than one good idea — rather than bring it to a premature end. And let’s find a solution that incorporates increased domestic supply and conservation. We need to find more and use less
“Americans are demanding nothing less.”
###