Sam Gejdenson: “Again I would appeal to my colleagues that when we look across the country, we find that in recent months, we have spent…”

“Again I would appeal to my colleagues that when we look across the country, we find that in recent months, we have spent an enormous amount of energy, the Congress, to provide funds to fight fires in the West. We helped provide flood control for regions that are hit with floods. We worked together to relieve disasters of earthquakes. What is clear is that there is a pending disaster in the Northeast and our colleagues in this House together can provide a very small amount of resources to make sure that a crisis does not turn deadly. This is not a complicated situation. Using resources made available by the Federal Government, using existing storage capacity, leasing that storage capacity, keeping number 2 heating oil available so that while the free marketplace may be advantaged by a short supply that in a cold snap drives up prices and profits, Government at that point is responding to a crisis that is much more expensive and that may put human lives in danger. It is a small thing to ask for a region of the country that pays so much in taxes and that has done so much for other regions of the country.”