Political Quotes

“I would like to reflect a little bit on what is happening in our Nation. We got a little snow outside. Snow is not unknown to me or the State I represent. It is part of our livelihood. We live with the cold weather. We know how to handle it. But there is suddenly a great concern among a number of my colleagues and their constituents about the high price of heating and transportation fuels in the country, particularly in the northeastern part of the Nation. This morning in New Hampshire they said it was cold and clear. People were out to vote, but they were worried about the price of heating oil. I would like to discuss for a moment why some of these price increases are occurring, as well as appropriate and perhaps inappropriate ways we could respond. In mid-January, spot prices for heating oil spiked by about 50 cents. At one point, they closed at $1.36 per gallon. Gulf coast prices spiked, but they were pulled up, to a large degree, by the spike in New York State. One of the first places where consumers felt the impact was in home heating oil prices where, on January 21, they were up anywhere from 35 cents to 60 cents per gallon in the Northeast over the prior week. This was also felt in diesel prices, which have also risen dramatically. This is causing our trucking industry to seriously consider steep price increases, or even parking some of their trucks for a while.”