Byron Dorgan: “we have come from a Commerce-Energy Committee joint hearing with the CEOs of the major energy companies. They came to…”

“we have come from a Commerce-Energy Committee joint hearing with the CEOs of the major energy companies. They came to talk to us about the price of energy. I made the point this morning--I know the Presiding Officer was also there and made the points she wished to make--as we go into the winter season, those who are trying to figure out how they afford home heating fuel, natural gas, propane, and so on, take a look at the newspapers and see the highest profits in history for the oil companies. They are the ones, the consumers, who will have to bear the pain. Heat your home in the winter or try to figure out how you are going to pay the fuel bill in the spring if you are a farmer or a rancher. These prices are going to eat away all the profit that existed, and then some, with respect to family farmers in my State. That is according to estimates that come from the farm organization and from economists who have looked at it. The question for family farmers who are being ripped by these energy prices or people who drive to the gas pumps or people who are figuring out how to heat their homes is, Is anybody going to do anything about it? You have all the gain on this side and all the pain on this side. All the gain with the big energy companies, the big oil companies, the major integrated oil companies, bigger, stronger, with more raw muscle power in the marketplace because of block buster mergers, and all the pain on the other side, the consumers.…”