Byron Dorgan: “I want to explain my concern about what is happening with the price of gasoline and the price of energy in this country.…”

“I want to explain my concern about what is happening with the price of gasoline and the price of energy in this country. I also want to make the point while I do this that those, including perhaps my colleague who was speaking earlier this morning, who have always felt that regulation was a four-letter word, ought to understand that part of what we are experiencing today is regulatory agencies in the Federal Government taking a Rip van Winkle nap while they ought to be regulating, while they ought to be watching on behalf of the public interest what is going on. We have people who came to Government who did not like Government, who aspired not to do anything. A good example of that is the folks who were put in place prior to Enron, running roughshod on wholesale electricity prices--which we later found out was a criminal enterprise. People on the west coast were bilked out of billions and billions of dollars.”