Bart Stupak: “in closing, let me just once again reiterate today every Member of the House has a choice. He can side with the big oil…”

“in closing, let me just once again reiterate today every Member of the House has a choice. He can side with the big oil companies and the record profits, or you can side with the American consumer. A vote against my bill is a vote against consumers and a vote for Big Oil. I am pleased so many of my Democratic Members came and joined me. This legislation is necessary. As I said, this is the third time I have had legislation on price gouging. As I pointed out earlier, this winter we experienced price gouging for energy needs, it was a dollar more than the rest of the region in Michigan and the area was being charged. The attorney general in Michigan, because we don't have a price gouging law, had nowhere to go. Here's the bill that the Michigan legislature--House bill 6249--just introduced 2 weeks ago, tried new price gouging because we see it going on and on and on; and it's going to continue as we see these record prices and further chances to manipulate the market and to charge excessive prices to support these excessive profits of the oil companies. Underneath the Democratic House, and I feel I have to say this, we have done a number of things in the last 18 months: Renewable Energy and Jobs Creation Act, which extends tax incentives for renewable energy. We had the Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act, which combats record gas prices. We have the energy price gouging bill we're doing today.”