Denny Rehberg: “one of the things I have noted since coming to Congress is that we have a tendency to boil these arguments down to…”

“one of the things I have noted since coming to Congress is that we have a tendency to boil these arguments down to money. How much money one has got in their portfolio, what their dividends look like at any given time. Sometimes we lose track of the fact that what really makes this country great is how we treat our most vulnerable, our children and our seniors. This is one of those issues, how we are treating people that do not have the ability to pay their heating bills. I find it interesting that there would be an argument against something like this. I say to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), trust me, you will feel the heat if we authorize this money, but we do not appropriate this money. If that money is sitting there, it will be spent on heating assistance. The difficulty is, in this country, that we do not have the ability to pay as many people as we want to. This is a great amendment because it takes an energy bill that is necessary, that should have been passed many years ago, and applies some of the revenue to a need that exists in this country, and that is to help those less fortunate than others to pay their heating assistance. And I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) and the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart) for putting this amendment before us, and I hope that we can support it.”