Tim Walz: “Yesterday I talked to a farmer who told me he just purchased fuel to power his irrigation pumps. The cost for 2 weeks of…”

“Yesterday I talked to a farmer who told me he just purchased fuel to power his irrigation pumps. The cost for 2 weeks of that fuel, $33,000 worth of diesel. This Nation's people and economy are reeling because of high energy costs, and yet some in this House offer nothing but the same old political games, the exact games that put us in this position. Let's be very clear: No one is saying we shouldn't be producing and using domestic supplies. But false solution land grabs and politics aren't going to get us to energy independence. Oil companies today are sitting on 68 million acres of Federal land, your land, Madam Speaker, that could produce up to a decade-and-a-half worth of all the fuel this country needs. Yet they are not drilling. Future generations deserve that we provide real solutions that not only include domestic production, but provide innovations and alternative technologies and crack down on speculation. Yesterday, Madam Speaker, China increased their fuel prices by 17 percent, and the price of oil dropped by $6 a barrel. By anybody's best estimate, that is more than drilling in ANWR would drop the cost. Madam Speaker, we deserve solutions that extend to the next generation, not the next election.”