Political Quotes

“I rise in support of the Strategic Petroleum Fill Suspension and Consumer Protection Act and I am pleased to be a cosponsor of H.R. 6022. As I travel around eastern Connecticut, I am confronted with families, business owners, truckers, farmers and fishermen who are struggling to maintain their lives and livelihoods. Rising oil and gasoline prices are choking our economy. Food and consumer goods are rising as fuel prices rise, bringing additional pain to many people across our country. In my hometown of Vernon, CT, the price of a gallon of gasoline hit $3.99. I am now hearing that some older gasoline pumps throughout the country are not even programmed to go above $3.99. The bill before us today is simple, straightforward and effective. Instead of continuing to add 70,000 barrels of oil per day to fill an already stocked Strategic Petroleum Reserve, SPR, H.R. 6022 would instead, put that oil on the market to ease supply and price. And we should absolutely not increase the fill rate to 76,000 barrels per day like what the Administration has planned for later this summer. Petroleum economists expect that gasoline prices could decline by as much as 24 cents if we stopped filling the SPR now. The SPR is 97 percent full with over 700 million barrels of oil; in March 2003, when we went to war in Iraq, the SPR stood at 599 million barrels. Diverting oil from the SPR is something that the President has done in the past.”