Political Quotes

“Let me just pick up on the point of the gentleman from Oregon. All over this country people are driving to work. In the State of Vermont, we are one of the most rural States in the country. People put a lot of miles on their car, and what they are noticing is that the price that they are paying for gas at the pump is zooming upward. What they should also notice is that the profits of the major oil companies have expanded enormously. During the last year, ExxonMobil saw a 102 percent increase in their profits; Chevron, a 150 percent increase in their profits; Texaco, 116 percent increase in their profits; Conoco, a 155 percent increase in their profits; Phillips Petroleum did really good, a 205 percent increase; and on and on it goes. So while working people all over this country are paying more and more at the pump, while people are scared to death about what the heating bills will be in States like Vermont next winter, the oil companies are enjoying huge profits. Some of us think that it might be appropriate, as radical an idea as it might be, for the United States Congress to stand up for the working people, for the middle class, for those people whose heating bills and whose oil bills and gas prices are moving upward, rather than for the oil companies who have contributed so much money to the Republican Party. I know that that is a radical idea, but some of us think maybe it is long overdue that we begin to do that.”