Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this winter we had severe price disruptions in the Northeast that would be almost unbelievable if we had not experienced them. In a period of 60 days, home heating oil, which all the old people depend on in the Northeast, we do not have any gas mains and home heating oil is the heating source of choice, went from 80 cents a gallon to $1.80 a gallon. People could not fund that in their budgets. Diesel fuel for trucks and tractors and farm equipment and snowmobiles and school buses went from $1.30 to $2.60 per gallon. Now, there is no real understandable reason for a price spike of this magnitude. What happened, we had a little shortage and then because there was a shortage, they got speculating on the New York Merc and this price was run up to double its historic record and double what we were expecting for the winter. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of my amendment is to put some things in place that will help this from happening again. If we could keep these stripper wells in production during low-price periods, we will have that much more domestic production. If we can have the Northeast Heating Reserve, that will be some hedge against this happening again. These are things that we need to do. We need to become more self-sufficient.”