Americans are hurting today as they strive to fill up their cars with gasoline. Energy costs are increasingly prohibitive for families. When President Bush took office, a gallon of regular gas cost $1.46; today it’s at an all-time high of $4.02 per gallon of regular and $4.77 per gallon of diesel. A new poll indicates that 60 percent of Americans are cutting spending because of rising gas prices. Quite frankly, I think the Administration is doing virtually nothing to help those who are struggling to pay their electricity bills or pay for gasoline.

The “Consumer-First Energy Act” (S. 3044) would have addressed the root causes of high gas prices by holding the big oil companies, speculators, and OPEC accountable. Oil prices are approaching $140 per barrel – almost twice the price from last year. OPEC officials, whose nations collude to restrain supply, have said prices could reach $200 this year. Meanwhile, in the last year, the big oil companies pocketed $124 billion in profits. They have more than quadrupled their profits since 2002 – all subsidized by American taxpayers. In 2004 and 2005, the big oil companies received tax breaks worth over $17 billion over the next decade. This bill would have repealed the unnecessary tax breaks and used the money to improve consumer price protection, renewable-energy development, and energy-efficiency technology through a designated Energy Independence and Security Trust Fund.

My fellow Democrats and I don’t begrudge oil companies from earning a profit or working in the interest of their shareholders, but few of these profits are being reinvested in renewable fuels, improving infrastructure or increasing refining capacity to ease rising prices. It would have given the President authority to declare an energy emergency, making “an unconscionably excessive price” for fuel products illegal and punishable with fines of up to $5 million. It would have created a permanent tax on “windfall profits” of the major oil companies, but – because we ultimately want to encourage innovation and American ingenuity – the tax would not apply if the oil companies invest profits in clean, affordable and domestically produced renewable fuels or use renewable forms of electricity for their operations. The “Consumer-First Energy Act” also puts speculators on notice that they can no longer manipulate the supply-and-demand forces of the market. For too long, unchecked speculation by oil traders has created extreme volatility in energy markets and pushed oil and gas prices upward.

We need immediate action to help the middle-income families in America and the small businesses that are literally being strangled by the high cost of gasoline and the high cost of energy. The “Consumer-First Energy Act” is long overdue. We must come together for the sake of our Nation, for the sake of our national security, for the sake of our environment, for the sake of our economy, and move America closer to energy security and energy independent so that we control our own destiny and leave the environment and our nation in better condition for our children and grandchildren.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Politics, Energy/Environment .