Ron Lewis: “Here are the people who are being hurt by these high energy prices. The gentleman just mentioned the dairy farmers in…”

“Here are the people who are being hurt by these high energy prices. The gentleman just mentioned the dairy farmers in California having to pour the milk out because they cannot run their operation, keep the milk without the electricity. But farmers are doing their spring planning, an expense that they have to bear for diesel fuel and for gasoline. Those costs are really cutting into, really, a very much shrinking margin that they have to deal with anyway. In fact, most of our farmers today, with the prices of grain, are fighting a losing battle. Then when you add these fuel prices on top of that, it is just a disaster for them. The gentleman mentioned the low-income people. They cannot possibly afford these high energy costs, yet back when this started to happen in the winter, when the costs of heating oil and the costs of natural gas to heat their homes, some people were getting these enormous bills, they could not even afford to make their house payments because of the fuel bills that they were having to come up with. Of course, we all know about the $2-per-gallon gasoline. That is projected to get worse through the summer. This just is not fair. It is not right because of a small group that have had their way for the last 30 years. Now they have put us in a situation where our people, the citizens of this country, are not being able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.”