Tim Ryan: “What's funny here, Mr. Speaker, is that this is another pattern, as these issues continue to come up, where the…”

“What's funny here, Mr. Speaker, is that this is another pattern, as these issues continue to come up, where the Republicans continue to offer solutions that have absolutely nothing to do with the problem that we're trying to deal with. You know, they lack ideas. They are a party that's void of ideas. We cannot drill our way out of this problem. That's the issue here. Drilling has increased in the last 7 years by 66 percent, and there has been no decrease in the price of gas, there has been a tremendous increase. And on Friday, there was an increase in the per barrel cost of oil that was larger than a barrel cost 10 years ago. So the increase this year was more than a whole barrel cost 10 years ago. We've been drilling more than we've ever been drilling, 66 percent more in the last 10 years, and it's still not reducing the price. The key here is we need to move off of our dependency on foreign oil. So if you look at what the policies have been up to this point--and everyone says, you know, they come down to the floor, ``if we could only drill in ANWR,'' if you started drilling in ANWR today, you wouldn't get a drop of oil for 10 years. And in 20 years, you would only reduce the cost of a gallon of gas by one penny. That is the energy plan of the Republican minority in Congress and President George Bush: Go drill, and in 20 years we'll save you one penny per gallon of gas.”