Harry Reid: “similar to all Senators, with rare exception, I spent last week's recess at home. I traveled Nevada meeting with my…”

“similar to all Senators, with rare exception, I spent last week's recess at home. I traveled Nevada meeting with my constituents. I met with a wide range of people. I had many conversations. But all the conversations came back to the same issues, including rising energy prices. One of the last conversations I had was at my home in Searchlight, where some of our friends who live in Searchlight came to visit with us, Judy and Dick Hill. He works at a powerplant, the Mojave Generating Facility, about 35 miles from Las Vegas. She is the assistant postmistress of Searchlight. They have two boys. One of them is going to school. She is even taking some courses at a community college. They spend about $500 a month on gasoline. Maybe they should get vehicles that do not use as much gas, and I am sure they are considering that, but it would not matter what kind of vehicle they drove; they need lots of gasoline to be able to do what they have to do, such as going back and forth to work, taking the boy to school. People in Nevada are concerned about Iraq, as well they should be. I certainly applaud the people of Iraq. A little more than half of them turned out to vote. That is courageous. They are proud people, and I am glad they have shown their strength by turning out to vote. And it appears the constitution is going to pass. We will know in a few days. We lost five soldiers yesterday in Iraq. We are very quickly approaching 2,000.…”