Peter Welch: “my friend from Texas was expressing his concern about the impact on American families with the ever-escalating cost of…”

“my friend from Texas was expressing his concern about the impact on American families with the ever-escalating cost of gasoline, the ever-escalating cost of home heating fuel. Certainly you are no stranger in your job to the impact of that on our budget, trying to find money for the low-income heating assistance program. All of us have constituents that experience the kind of pain the gentleman from Texas is describing. The problem is the policy we have pursued has resulted in endless consumption, endless escalation of prices, and constant dependence on the Persian Gulf folks who are not really our friends. If there is a metaphor for what has been the American energy policy through many administrations, one of dependence, of drilling and drilling, consumption and wastefulness, it was a photograph that appeared in the New York Times in April of 2005. At that time there was an emerging sense that the cost of energy was having an enormously negative impact on our families. The cost of gasoline had risen over $2 a gallon. That price now seems quite wonderful; but in an effort to deal with it, the President of the United States invited the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia to Crawford and invited him there for discussions. And the picture on the front page of the paper was of the President of the United States and the Crown Prince holding hands going into the President's home to discuss energy policy.”