‘If there is a more important domestic issue facing the nation, let’s hear it. Otherwise, let’s get serious, and work toward a big solution to this big problem.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor Friday regarding the vote to keep the Senate focused on finding a solution to the high price at the pump:
“The Senate just took a defining vote.
“Americans have been crying out, asking us to act to lower high gas prices. And they just heard the official response from the Democrat Leadership in Congress: a few new guidelines for the energy futures market is enough; we don’t need to do anything other than that. That’s it.
“The American people have been telling us for months that the house is on fire, and the Democrats just showed up at the scene with a squirt gun.
“The vote we just took was their response to $4 a gallon gasoline. That’s what a few of our friends on the other side are doing for all those people out there who are standing at the gas pump, hopping mad at what it just cost them to fill up their tank.
“And they’ve told 49 Republicans and more than a dozen Democrats who are open to increased domestic exploration the same thing: ‘Take it or leave it. Speculators — or nothing.’
“Americans are insisting we do more. They want us to do something to cut the price of gas and lessen our dependence on Middle East oil. They don’t want us to quit working until the job is done. And leaving this issue is what the Democrat leadership just voted to do.
“A majority in the Senate wants America to be self-reliant and to find more American energy. But the Democrat Leadership says, ‘No, we can’t.’
To drive down gas prices, we could be opening up the Outer Continental Shelf today. But the Democrat Leadership says, ‘No, we can’t.’
“To drive down gas prices, we could be lifting the ban on the development of vast oil shale deposits in western states that sit on three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia. The Democrat Leadership says, ‘No, we can’t.’
“To drive down gas prices, we could have approved incentives for battery-powered electric cars and trucks today. The Democrat Leadership says, ‘No, we can’t.’
“To drive down gas prices, we could have voted to open up untapped American oil today. But the Democrat Leadership says, ‘No, we can’t.”
“To drive down gas prices, we could have voted today for new clean nuclear technology. But the Democrat Leadership says, ‘No, we can’t.’
“To drive down gas prices, we could have approved new coal-to-liquid technology today. But the Democrat Leadership says, ‘No, we can’t.’
“Nearly eight in 10 Americans say we should do these things. But the Democrat Leadership and their presidential nominee has the same simple response to every one of them: ‘No, we won’t.’
“A dozen Democrats in the Senate say we should consider these things. But the Democrat Leadership has the same answer for them. ‘No we won’t.’
“The Democrat Leadership just voted to give up on finding a solution to high gas prices. They just voted to give up on trying to find more and use less. They just voted to give up on our effort to consider serious ideas from both sides of the aisle.
“They want us to tell the American people that the Senate’s time would be better spent on other things, that it’s time to move on.
“Well, Republicans have a three-word response for the Democrat Leadership: ‘No. We Won’t.’
“I just voted to keep the Senate on the most important domestic issue facing our nation.
“If there is a more important domestic issue facing the nation, let’s hear it. Otherwise, let’s get serious, and work toward a big solution to this big problem.
“I mentioned yesterday that I recently received a letter from a dialysis center in Kentucky. They were pleading with the Senate to take action now on the high price of gas at the pump. The letter said that some of the rural patients who have to go to this center for treatment three times a week are now foregoing some of their treatments because they can't afford the gas to get there.
“And so I ask my friends on the other side the same simple question I asked them yesterday: If you won’t act now, with dialysis patients cutting back on treatments because of high gas prices, when will you? What is it going to take?
“I know my colleagues across the aisle are stuck between the ‘No, we can’t’ position of their presidential candidate and the Democrat leadership — stuck between them on the one side and the guy at the gas pump with smoke coming out his ears. But for me, that decision’s an easy one: I’m with the guy at the pump.”
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