Bob Filner: “The GOP majority, GOP, gas oil and pollution, is going to make sure that when we leave for our recess we have passed a…”

“The GOP majority, GOP, gas oil and pollution, is going to make sure that when we leave for our recess we have passed a tax bill 40 to 45 percent of which goes to the wealthiest 1 percent of our population. The people who live in my district in San Diego, California, will get very little out of this tax bill; and whatever they get, as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) said, is going to go directly to Exxon or to Enron or to any one of those energy companies that is bleeding California dry. We are going to leave town with that tax bill, but we are going to leave town without doing anything for the people in San Diego or the rest of California or the rest of the West. The chairman of the committee is from California. He knows we are being bled dry. He knows we are paying $70 billion this year for electricity, whereas 2 years ago we paid $7 billion. The demand has not increased significantly. The costs have not increased significantly. Where is that 10-fold increase going? It is going into the 800 percent, 900 percent, 1,000 percent increase in profits by the major oil companies and the major electricity generators of this country, and yet this Congress is not going to act on the issues confronting California. The people of California ought to be telling the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, solve our crisis. Stop the bleeding in California.”