Jeff Bingaman: “I rise to speak about high gas prices and high natural gas prices and what we could be doing about it and what I would…”

“I rise to speak about high gas prices and high natural gas prices and what we could be doing about it and what I would urge the administration to do about it. I would like to outline 13 concrete steps I believe the President can take to address and to lessen the impact these high prices are having on the U.S. economy and on American families. Several others in the Senate have talked in recent days to suggest that the cure-all for the current high energy prices would be to take up and pass either the Energy bill conference report that was blocked last fall or a new comprehensive Energy bill that is now on the Senate calendar. Clearly there are some specific legislative provisions related to energy that we in the Congress should be passing this year, and I strongly support getting to those. The truth is, though, that neither last year's nor this year's bill does much to address the high prices we now face, either in the area of natural gas or in the area of gasoline one gets at the pump.”