Wednesday afternoon, I joined my Senate colleagues in introducing the Consumer-First Energy Act.  What we did was we brought forward a comprehensive package that says to the American people: what’s going on now is unacceptable.  The price of oil and gas has got to go down.  This is Washington.  But in the real world, representing a cold weather state, a rural state, a working family wrote to me: last year they could not afford to heat their home and their daughter came down with pneumonia.  In the real world, workers making $10 an hour, traveling fifty miles to their jobs and fifty miles back, can’t fill up their gas tanks.  I have received hundreds of these emails and they are heartbreaking.

If we don’t act boldly, the economic situation for millions of middle-class families and working Americans will continue to deteriorate.  Congress and the president can no longer sit idly by while Americans are getting ripped off at the gas pump, the economy deteriorates, and Exxon Mobil, greedy speculators, and OPEC are allowed to make out like bandits pushing oil and gas prices higher and higher.

The American people are looking out and seeing Exxon-Mobil making more profits than any corporation in the history of the world.  They’re looking at hedge fund managers making billions of dollars in personal profits.  The time is now for Congress to begin to respond to the needs of the American people.  This package begins to do that.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Politics, Economy/Budget, Energy/Environment .