Todd Tiahrt: “I am heading up one of four teams of the freshman class which was initiated to carry on the work of many who preceded us…”

“I am heading up one of four teams of the freshman class which was initiated to carry on the work of many who preceded us here in Congress, in an effort to reduce four Government bureaucracies: Department of Education, Department of Commerce, Department of HUD, and Department of Energy. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Energy is a gas guzzler. Back in the early 1970's the Government imposed price controls and allocation controls, and that contributed to developing a crisis, and the beltway solution here was to come with another bureaucracy, the Department of Energy. Since then, the Reagan administration eliminated the price controls and removed the crisis. Now it is time to turn the lights out on the Department of Energy. You can see from the chart I have here that the Department of Energy has reinvented itself so that now 60 percent of it is a bomb factory. Only 20 percent is related to energy. Once started, it is hard to eliminate a bureaucracy, but we are working with former secretary Don Hodele and others in Congress because we have a new Congress now, a new voice from the people that wants to downsize the Government. Our President has talked about downsizing and privatizing, but the Department of Energy has actually increased its budget. Now it is time to tighten the belt and trade in this gas guzzler for a more efficient model.”