Mike Conaway: “I appreciate that high praise indeed. I appreciate members of the Energy and Commerce Committee moving this bill along…”

“I appreciate that high praise indeed. I appreciate members of the Energy and Commerce Committee moving this bill along and moving it to the floor today with bipartisan support. I also want to thank the cosponsors of the bill, Fred Upton, Ralph Hall, Ed Towns and Gene Green, who helped work on this modest attempt to address the usage of gasoline in this country. Several speakers ahead of us this morning during the one minutes spoke very eloquently about the rising cost of gasoline. I think yesterday there was a report that it hit a record $3.02 a gallon on average across the United States. It seems as though we as consumers will begin to make decisions at $3 a gallon that we won't make at $2 a gallon, decisions we ought to make at $2 a gallon, but the concern about the money is not there in our heads to make that happen. This effort of a joint public-private educational effort has shown results in the past, as Mr. Shadegg has already mentioned, in California, the dramatic results they had; people just making informed decisions, decisions that they ought to make day in and day out, but they don't. There is a recent headline in the USA Today which said natural gas prices, not gasoline prices, but natural gas prices went down dramatically. Let me read one sentence out of that. ``Prices have fallen because natural gas supplies are far above normal after a mild winter and lower demand, leading to an inventory surge.'' Here is what we are trying to effect.…”