Kendrick Meek: “Last night, and Mr. Speaker, I hate to keep referring back to last night for the folks who did not see us here on this…”

“Last night, and Mr. Speaker, I hate to keep referring back to last night for the folks who did not see us here on this floor, the Members who did not see us here on this floor last night, we talked about the chart Ms. Wasserman Schultz broke out with minimum wage at zero, and we talked about the White House meeting in the complex, and I am not going to read The Washington Post article again, but it happened in 2001, Mr. Delahunt. And these are the profits that oil companies earned, record profits. In 2002 it paid off immediately at $34 billion in new profits to oil companies. And in 2003, it went to $53 billion in new profits. This is not something just coincidental. There was a strategy. They wrote the energy bill. They came up with the plan and they had access in the White House and here in this House of Representatives under the K Street Project and got what they wanted. In 2004, $84 billion. In 2005, $113 billion. Now these oil companies, as far as I am concerned, they are just doing what they have access to do. I am more concerned with those of us with voting cards, Members of Congress, those of us who have an A pass over at the White House in the East Wing, that allow oil companies to go in, say what they want and get it on the backs of the American people. Those profits don't just come out of the sky. They come out of the pocketbook and wallets of everyday Americans.…”