Bart Stupak: “I have over 1,600 miles of shoreline on the Great Lakes. It is critically important that we pass this Coast Guard bill.…”

“I have over 1,600 miles of shoreline on the Great Lakes. It is critically important that we pass this Coast Guard bill. But on this point, my colleagues on the other side use a very important bill like the Coast Guard bill to talk about energy, that somehow Democrats are not doing enough and somehow the Speaker is responsible for high oil prices. If you take a look, the Republicans have been in charge, until last year, for the last 12 years. What was their policy? Their policy has been no policy, do nothing, let the oil companies get away with it, record profits, record pensions to their CEO. Remember the $400 million pension for ExxonMobil? I guess I agree with Mr. Peterson, the last speaker, maybe we ought to lock them up. We ought to lock them up when you see oil prices, when President Bush comes in, at $27 a barrel, we're up to $119. And where is it going to stop? Why do you see this rapid increase? Well, an ill-advised war where everybody said when you get involved in a war in the Middle East, the longer you're there, the prices are going to go up. When you have no policy, sure oil prices are going to go up.”