Pete Sessions: “I believe I had asked for 15 minutes. I will try to do it in 10. I ask that I be notified at the end of 10 minutes. Mr.…”

“I believe I had asked for 15 minutes. I will try to do it in 10. I ask that I be notified at the end of 10 minutes. Mr. President, I travel my State, and I know that Senator Shelby, who spoke earlier, travels Alabama, also. We meet with people and talk with people. I see people back in my hometown in church and in other places, and I get asked about energy prices all the time. People are concerned about it. I have studied some of the economic numbers in this country, and I am a bit troubled. I think it is a valid concern for our Nation that, while the country is doing well economically and unemployment is down, middle and lower income workers' salaries have not increased as much as we would like them to. In fact, the higher income salaried workers, wage and hour workers, are doing better percentage-wise than the lower income workers. That means the cost of energy impacts them significantly. They ask me to do something about it. I talk about what I have been trying to do since I came to the Senate 10 years ago, which includes voting and working to try to open up the ANWR region, where large reserves exist, and to support nuclear power and clean coal. I have been a supporter of ethanol, and I am hopeful that we will see ethanol, biodiesel and matters of that kind really advance as an option for America. I have to tell you that the most certain and direct thing we can do is to increase domestic production of oil and gas in this country.…”