Douglas Alexander: “I take a few minutes to speak about natural gas prices, the prices at the pump, blue-collar workers, farmers, and…”

“I take a few minutes to speak about natural gas prices, the prices at the pump, blue-collar workers, farmers, and homeowners. The reason I do that is because the Senate Energy Committee earlier today did a good piece of work that I hope the American people understand. By a virtually unanimous vote, 21 to 1, the committee, after 5 months of work, reported to this body what I hope will be called the Clean Energy Act of 2005. I suppose people outside of the Senate get tired of hearing Senators compliment one another, but I do that today because this would not have happened had it not been for the leadership of Chairman Pete Domenici, the Republican chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the ranking Democrat, Jeff Bingaman. We tried to do this in the last session of Congress in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. We were not able to pass an energy bill to give this country a comprehensive energy policy. Senator Domenici deliberately set out to do things different in this session of Congress. He sat down with Senator Bingaman and the Democratic staff and pledged to work with them, to share everything with them. Senator Domenici visited every member of the committee, Republican and Democrat. We worked together on a variety of major hearings and roundtables. The coal roundtable lasted 3 or 4 hours; one on natural gas lasted 3 or 4 hours. He encouraged a variety of committee members to become involved.…”