Sam Gejdenson: “in closing, what is clear here is we have had an extended period of time of the most powerful economy in the history of…”

“in closing, what is clear here is we have had an extended period of time of the most powerful economy in the history of this country. We have had a situation where it may be reasonable to assume that both the administration and Congress went to sleep. At least the Republicans refused to move any conservation legislation forward. Today, and for the last several months, we have had the wake-up call. We have had a wake-up call that there is a crisis; 60,000 barrels from Alaska go to Japan. We have a situation today where that oil ought to be coming home here to the United States. We ought to be working on conservation. We ought not wait even for this administration. We ought to be doing more than having a 30-minute discussion about a bill that asks the President to send us a report about a crisis we well understand. We need to move legislation from the House to protect the people we were sent here to represent. Mr. Chairman, I urge Members to press the Speaker and the leadership of this House to move positive legislation.”