This weekend, millions of Americans thought twice before loading the family car for Memorial Day vacations. A gallon of regular gasoline now sells for $3.79 at a gas station by my home in Lafayette, Louisiana, a price that squeezes budgets unbearably. Yet, Washington has done little to relieve ever higher prices at the pump.

Increasing American energy production is the single most legitimate solution to our energy crisis. Responsible American energy production leads to more American jobs, more supply to lower cost and reduced dependence on foreign sources like Venezuela and the Middle East. It is a win-win-win solution, but many Washington Democrats continue to oppose any increased American production.

Louisiana is a national leader in energy production. Approximately one-third of all U.S. oil and gas travels through Louisiana, and the state ranks fifth for both crude oil and natural gas production. My constituents understand the benefits of homegrown energy production and the stakes of continued reliance on foreign sources of fuel. Read the rest of this entry »

All over the U.S., rising gasoline prices are hurting families, businesses and consumers. We’re burning up gas on the way to work, paying more for food, and struggling with rising overhead costs. Skyrocketing prices are hitting us where it hurts: our wallets.

With that in mind, I propose taking 5 steps that will help control gas prices and reduce our dependence on foreign oil:

1. Eliminate Barriers to Exploration: Congress has placed an enormous amount of American oil “off limits,” enough to power 60 million American cars for 60 years. Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the Gulf Coast and other federal lands to environmentally responsible exploration and drilling can massively expand the amount of oil and natural gas we produce. The sooner we start drilling, the sooner we can move to a more secure energy future.
2. Build New Refineries and Expand Old Ones: In the 1980’s, the U.S. had 321 operable refineries. Today we have less than half that. Government restrictions on building new refineries delay our ability to turn oil into gasoline and ultimately raise prices. These restrictions should be eliminated.
3. Expanding our base of Alternative Energy: American business is the greatest source of innovation and technological advancement in the world. By supporting private enterprise as it invests in wind and solar energy, nuclear energy and biofuels, we can harness the power of the private sector for the public good. Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping children safe on the Internet must be a multi-layered approach, both on and offline. Parents play a vital role in supervising their children’s use of the Internet, but this bill will help keep America’s children safe and allow them to learn and grow in an ever changing online world. This measure improves safety and addresses parental control without infringing on the First Amendment.

With the start of summer driving season this past weekend, prices at the pump left many Americans fuming. It also is likely to have prompted a few choice questions in the minds of many motorists.

This spring, the Senate Energy Committee held its second hearing of this Congress to examine the role of speculation and non-commercial, institutional investors on the price of oil. The testimony of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — the Federal “cop on the beat” with respect to these markets — raised additional questions about the adequacy of its regulatory oversight. In a letter sent today, I pressed the Commission to dig more deeply into what’s really going on in energy markets, pointing out that the CFTC does not collect data on or analyze the fastest growing segment of energy commodity trading, lumps speculators together with more traditional energy market participants in its analyses, and has much lower transparency requirements for energy compared to agricultural commodities.
Read the rest of this entry »

Raymond Keating is the Chief Economist for the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.

Trade protectionism has never turned out well. Nonetheless, protectionist sentiments have been on the rise in our nation’s political discourse.

For example, in July 2005, the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, barely squeaked by in the U.S. House of Representatives by a 217-215 margin. At the end of June 2007, the trade promotion authority (TPA) - formerly known as fast-track trade authority – granted to the president was allowed to expire by the current Congress.

And in April 2008, President George W. Bush sent the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, which had been negotiated under TPA, to Congress. A vote was supposed to be held within 60 days, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) changed the rules of the game on a party line vote. Now the Colombia trade deal sits in legislative limbo. Read the rest of this entry »

The seven unions and six million members of Change to Win applaud Reps. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.), Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Michael Michaud (D-Maine), and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), for introducing the Employee Misclassification Prevention Act of 2008. This legislation will go a long way in protecting workers from unscrupulous companies that misclassify their employees as independent contractors in order to deny them legal wages and benefits, and will help restore the American Dream for America’s workers.

Workers who are misclassified are cheated out of their basic rights to minimum wage and overtime pay, as well as unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation. Misclassification allows low-road employers to undercut and underbid responsible employers. And every year, all levels of government are cheated out of billions of dollars in revenue, which means law-abiding employers and taxpayers end up paying more than their fair share.

Change to Win and other advocates for workers have long believed that misclassification of workers as independent contractors is already a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Read the rest of this entry »

As a member of the Veteran’s Affairs Committee, I was proud to sponsor a major piece of legislation that will allow America to keep the promises we made to our veterans not only this Memorial Day, but also every other day of the year. The Veterans Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Act of 2008 would increase the rates of disability and survivor benefits for our nation’s veterans and was passed in the House this last week.

Our economy is struggling. As our disabled veterans face what seems like constantly rising prices for gas, food and other everyday items, it is important that we passed a cost of living adjustment that helps with everyday needs. The COLA will help our veterans by providing better compensation for disabled veterans and survivor families when they may need them the most.

The COLA is necessary for thousands of disabled veterans and survivor families, many of who depend on disability and survivor benefits as their only source of income. The adjustment is tied to the Consumer
Price Index (CPI) which is to be determined after the third quarter of the year.

I have listened intently to Barack Obama when he delivers speeches, debates and is interviewed by news analysts.  Frankly I don’t understand Obamania.

Mr. Obama speaks in empty platitudes, his cadence is reminiscent of preachers and his prescriptions can charitably be described as adolescent.  He is remarkably self absorbed and his wife remarkably bitter.  He can be condescending as he was in his description of rural residents and defensive in describing his relationship with the Reverend Wright.

He sat in a Black Liberationist Church for 20 years listening to anti-American rhetoric never once protesting.  In fact, he made a $25,000 contribution to Reverend Wright the same year the church honored Louis Farrakhan.

He is inexperienced.  Six years as a back-bencher in the Illinois legislature and four undistinguished years as a U.S. Senator would in almost every instance disqualify a person for the nation’s highest office.

He is reflexively liberal on every issue having achieved the dubious distinction of having the most liberal voting record in the Congress. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine that your government forced you to have only one child – under penalty of sterilization, beatings, and/or stiff fines. Imagine further that your one child is crushed to death during an earthquake because that same government allowed your child’s school to be built with shoddy building materials and in violation of numerous building codes.

For many grieving mothers and fathers in China, this stark imagining has become the harshest of realities. In fact, the real tragedy of the recent China earthquake is that a significant number of the deaths and injuries were not the result of a merciless Mother Nature but rather a lethal combination of government corruption and entrepreneurial greed.

The quake in question hit Sichuan province on May 12th and registered a highly destructive 7.9 on the Richter scale. While the official death toll has already risen to more than 20,000, when all of the bodies are eventually counted, that toll will likely exceed 50,000. The grim reality is that many of the dead and injured perished in poorly constructed schools and homes and other buildings that had no absolutely chance of withstanding the earthquake’s deadly force. Read the rest of this entry »

I hope that we can get the War funding bill in a position so that the President will sign it, but I’m not sure that will happen. I’m really disturbed about the delay in getting this measure called up. We have had 15 months now. I’m glad though that we are finally getting around to doing something, but I don’t think it’s totally what we should be doing. We’re moving in the right direction, but there’s still a lot of things that have to be done.