Ron Wyden: “I think the Senator has said it very well. In a climate such as this, when prices are high, they get to privatize their…”

“I think the Senator has said it very well. In a climate such as this, when prices are high, they get to privatize their gains and socialize their losses. This makes no sense at all. This is a program designed for a period when production was down and the price of oil was very low. What I have tried to do--because I have spent a lot of hours sitting next to the distinguished chairman of our committee, the Energy Committee, who points out, and correctly so, that energy is a volatile part of our economy--I made an exception so that if the President of the United States says there is going to be a supply disruption or the price of oil falls back down again, bingo, we are back to looking at royalty relief. The Senator from Illinois puts it very well. To drive home the point, I say to the Senate, particularly the Senator from Illinois who did great work on the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, we could have taken care of the needs of the Low- Income Home Energy Assistance Program plus have money left over for deficit reduction if we were to stop this wasteful expenditure of taxpayer funds.”