Douglas Alexander: “2 years ago, the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Johnson, and I introduced a bill we called the Natural Gas Price…”

“2 years ago, the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Johnson, and I introduced a bill we called the Natural Gas Price Reduction Act. We did that to give focus to the energy debate. We were hearing a lot about the price of gasoline. Gasoline prices were high and remain high because of the huge supply and demand around the world. We know that. We know that is going to continue for a while, most likely. We know that China is growing. We know that India is growing. We know that the United States and our huge economy uses 25 percent of all the oil in the world. And so the supply and the demand are going to require that the price of oil, therefore gasoline, is going to be high for a while. We wanted to shift the focus to natural gas, which we didn't hear about as much at that time, because natural gas prices in this country had gone from the lowest in the world to the highest in the world. This was a huge problem for our country. High gasoline prices are a big problem every day. Natural gas prices are a bigger problem every day. They are a bigger problem for farmers who have seen their fertilizer costs go up. They are a bigger problem for homeowners as they pay to heat and cool their homes, and they see their bills go up. They are a bigger problem for blue collar workers in this country, such as the 1 million blue collar and white collar men and women--Americans in good-paying jobs--who work in the chemical industry.…”