Ed Markey: “I will yield myself the balance of my time. Let me just say that I know it's not anything that has been observed by the…”

“I will yield myself the balance of my time. Let me just say that I know it's not anything that has been observed by the Republicans. But the price of gasoline has dropped for the last 11 weeks in a row, ever since the President threatened to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, because it was never about supply and demand. It was always about fear and greed. It was what Wall Street was doing and manipulating the price of oil and the commodities futures of the marketplace. It was about the fear that people had about a war in Iran breaking out. But what's the response from the Republicans? Well, they have a brilliant amendment inside of their bill. What they say here is that if, God forbid, the Ayatollah ever attacked the United States, a Middle Eastern war ever broke out, and the President deployed the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 10 million barrels worth of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, you know what their bill says? That we, the Federal Government--if the Republican bill passes today--would then have to sell to ExxonMobil and the other Big Oil companies 200 million acres of Federal lands for ExxonMobil and the other Big Oil companies to drill on. Understand that? That the Ayatollah attacks us, there's a war in the Middle East, and who do we have to pay the ransom to? To the Big Oil companies of the United States, if we deploy the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Now how nonsensical is that?…”