Byron Dorgan: “tomorrow I believe Vice President Cheney will be releasing details of an energy plan he has worked on for some long…”

“tomorrow I believe Vice President Cheney will be releasing details of an energy plan he has worked on for some long while. All of us anxiously await release of that plan, so we can begin discussing what kind of an energy policy this country needs. I think it is the case that with respect to both Republican and Democratic administrations, for many years this country has not had a satisfactory energy plan. We have become more and more reliant on foreign sources of energy. We seem not to have a consistent plan that tracks over a long period of time relating to production and conservation and renewables. So I think it is quite clear we need a new plan. We need a new strategy, one that works for this country. We have Americans today who discover, when they drive up to the gasoline pumps, that the price of gas has increased dramatically. In some parts of the country, people are now paying over $2 a gallon for gasoline. In other parts of the country, the price of gasoline, they say, will probably move to $3 a gallon at some point. Lord only knows what the new projections will be. Those who are trying to heat their homes with natural gas, or family farmers who are going into the field with anhydrous ammonia fertilizer, 80 percent of which is natural gas, are discovering the price of natural gas has spiked and skyrocketed. In many parts of the country, the price of natural gas is double what it used to be, and in some cases is much more than that.”