Dana Rohrabacher: “first and foremost I want to congratulate the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the chairman of the Committee on…”

“first and foremost I want to congratulate the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, for stepping up to the plate at a time when the American people are being hurt and being hurt badly. The fact is, this administration, the Clinton administration, should have acted a year ago and finally it takes us in Congress and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) and his leadership to step up to try to do something about this actual theft of money from the American people. What is happening? We are talking about hundreds of dollars being taken out of the pockets of each and every American family by an international, a criminal conspiracy, to control the prices on oil and gas. This was not a covert conspiracy. A year ago, OPEC openly worked, blatantly and openly decided that they were going to cut production in order to bring up prices. Where was the Clinton administration? It is supposed to be watching out for the well-being of our people. This is the worst regressive tax we can have. It is hurting the very poorest and middle-class people in America that can be hurt. This is taking the money out of people's salary; it is taking money out of their pockets that they would spend on food, et cetera. Let us make it clear here, what is happening is OPEC has gotten together in a conspiracy to raise prices.”