Frank Pallone: “I know we are closing the debate now on the underlying bill, but I will say one more time, we have been at this 2 days…”

“I know we are closing the debate now on the underlying bill, but I will say one more time, we have been at this 2 days now. We have had a lot of amendments. I certainly appreciate the fact that we have had an open rule and that Members on our side of the aisle have had an opportunity to present amendments and speak. A lot of our new Members have had that opportunity. The bottom line, Mr. Chairman, is that this underlying bill makes no sense, and it is strictly a political message. It is going nowhere. The President has already said that he would veto it, and the Senate won't take it up. The bottom line is that as Democrats what we are trying to do is address affordability issues for the American public in the context of gasoline prices. We knew as prices went up that we should use every tool in our arsenal to try to bring them down. That is what President Biden did. He decided to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to provide more supply and bring down prices. It succeeded in doing that. His actions did that. From the price in June at a high, it went down about $1.69 per gallon. Why would the Republicans want to deny the President--not just President Biden, but any President--that opportunity? We are just trying to address the concerns that the American people have. We did it on drug prices by saying we are going to negotiate drug prices. We did it on insulin by saying we wanted to cap it at $35 a month.…”