Pete Sessions: “I just have a comment to add to those of Senator Bond about the danger to farmers of making mistakes on energy policy.…”

“I just have a comment to add to those of Senator Bond about the danger to farmers of making mistakes on energy policy. Energy prices are rising significantly. I saw some numbers recently that indicated for an average family, where one person commuted 29 miles to work every day, $3-a-gallon gasoline could mean $60 to $80 a month more than they would pay for gasoline alone. That is after-tax money out of their pockets. That is a real cost. We absolutely need to strengthen the energy portion of this bill. We need to do more to have a domestic supply of energy. But we also need to be sure we are not driving up the cost of energy so it falls hard on people such as farmers who utilize a lot of energy and a lot of gasoline and diesel fuel. It could be a real problem for them. I agree with Senator Bond that we need to be careful about this because we should not have as our goal driving up the cost of energy. A lot of the policies I am hearing about are going to have little impact on the environment but a lot of impact on our wallets.”