Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, we have seen the price of oil skyrocket, from about $50 a barrel only a year ago, to nearly $128 a barrel as of last week. The retail price of gasoline has likewise jumped and is now in the range of $4 a gallon. Americans are finding it increasingly more difficult to fill up their gas tank in the family car. A number of factors undoubtedly contribute to this dire situation. Some might cite the war in Iraq which the President has waged for 5 years, which has both diverted trillions of dollars from more productive uses in our economy and, at the same time, contributed to the weakening of the dollar against other currencies. Others will say that we should be devoting more resources to alternative fuels. But let's not overlook the elephant in the room. We have a dysfunctional marketplace for oil. We depend on a few large oil refining companies to supply gasoline. They have become even fewer and even larger as a result of a wave of mergers over the last decade or so. What's more, at the center of it all is an international oil cartel, OPEC.”