Mike Conaway: “I am offering up an amendment that would say straightforwardly that we will not spend money. None of the funds made…”

“I am offering up an amendment that would say straightforwardly that we will not spend money. None of the funds made available under this act for Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program would be spent as long as we keep restrictions into place on drilling in ANWR and our intercontinental shelves. It seems illogical to me to drive the costs of home heating oil and natural gas up by restricting domestic production of those two commodities and, at the same time, try to fill an insatiable demand for LIHEAP funding. We added $400 million in LIHEAP money to the continuing resolution for 2007. This adds another $880 million in LIHEAP spending, again, an insatiable demand for these funds. And, at the same time, we are driving up the cost of that commodity so that the funds that we actually do plow back into LIHEAP don't go as far in terms of buying and giving relief to those folks who qualify for this program. So while I am not so much opposed to LIHEAP, I am opposed to the illogical public policy of limiting domestic production of crude oil and natural gas through artificial restraints on drilling in those places of the United States where we have our own production and thereby increasing the cost to consumers in States that take advantage of these LIHEAP funds.”