Ralph Hall: “I rise today on this legislation by my good friend from New York (Mr. Gilman)--not to point fingers at anyone for…”

“I rise today on this legislation by my good friend from New York (Mr. Gilman)--not to point fingers at anyone for finding ourselves in the circumstances we find ourselves in today, but simply to make a plea--that we develop and implement a workable national energy policy. Today's legislation does not do that. In fact it deals mostly with symptoms of the problem--not the underlying problem itself. OPEC is only a transitory problem. Oil prices rise and oil prices fall--and it has been that way since oil took its place as the fuel of choice for such basic uses as transportation, hearing and industrial processes. The measures contained in this bill to bring the OPEC cartel to its knees are nothing more than a reiteration of authorities that already exist in law today. One of the real problems is availability of competing fuels in the areas of the country reliant on heating oil. And there are others. Let's look at the northeast. Natural gas provides a clean alternative to heating oil, but they can't burn it in those areas if they can't get it. The federal government can do more to ensure that natural gas is more readily available to industrial New England as well as its residential consumers. I believe fuel competition would do wonders for fuel prices in the Northeast and help clear the air in the process.”