Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I wanted to speak on the McConnell amendment that Senator Inhofe has worked so hard to bring up, and also Lisa Murkowski…”

“I wanted to speak on the McConnell amendment that Senator Inhofe has worked so hard to bring up, and also Lisa Murkowski from Alaska. We all know what is happening to gasoline prices in the United States right now. They have gone up now and the average is about $3.60 a gallon. What we are looking at are more increases in those gasoline prices if the EPA is allowed to take an authority it does not have and regulate greenhouse gasses. Some of the other amendments offered on this subject are well intentioned, but they do fall short of actually making a difference. The amendment before us repeals EPA's effort. It is very simple and very clean. Small businesses are struggling to survive, struggling to keep workers, and trying to make it in very small margins in this economic time. Families are facing higher energy costs. We are all suffering. I have a pickup truck which I love to drive. I filled it up a couple of weekends ago. It was about $60. That is a pickup truck. That is a basic form of transportation for many Americans. Farmers depend on affordable energy prices. They must put gasoline in their trucks, diesel in their harvesters, use energy-intensive fertilizer. Higher costs for farmers means higher costs for food. You are talking about now an inflation we cannot afford in this kind of economic environment. During all of this, the EPA now wants to impose a new gas tax on America in the form of greenhouse gas regulation.…”