CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight - Transcript
CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight - Transcript
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PILGRIM: Gasoline prices continue to climb, that's further battering our struggling middle class. AAA reports that Americans are paying $2.83 a gallon, 61 cents higher than a year ago, and also higher in certain places. That's an average. In California, prices are even higher, over $3 a gallon. Prices expected to go even higher with the onset of the summer and peak driving season.
Now, soaring gas prices have prompted two congressmen to call on the White House to convene an emergency energy summit. In a letter to President Bush, Congressmen Bernie Sanders and Pete DeFazio write, "the skyrocketing price of gas poses a crisis not only to commuters going to work, especially in rural areas, but family farmers, small businesses, truckers, airlines, and indeed our entire economy."
Congressman Bernie Sanders and Congressman Pete DeFazio join me now. And thanks very much for being with us, gentlemen.
REP. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Thank you.
REP. PETE DEFAZIO (D), OREGON: Hi, Kitty.
PILGRIM: You know, an emergency energy summit. I think that most Americans would say it's about time. That price at the pump is absolutely punitive right now. What do you hope to accomplish with a summit?
SANDERS: Well, I think if we bring the White House and the oil executive executives and the leaders of Congress and the opposition party together, what I hope will happen is that we can force the president of the United States to look his friends in the oil industry right in the eye and say, "gentleman, stop ripping off the American people. Lower the price of gas."
It is an obscenity, and it is an obscenity that at a time when the profits of the oil industry are at an all-time high, when they're laughing at the American people, when Exxon Mobil gives a $398 million retirement package to their CEO, I think it's time that the president of the United States and the congressional leadership said, enough is enough, lower gas prices!
PILGRIM: Do you think, Congressman DeFazio, that the president can actually beat up the oil industry? Do you think he has the clout to do that or can they just turn their back?
DEFAZIO: I mean, Kitty, here we are, the greatest nation on earth, and we do not have a national energy policy. We need a short- term policy that squeezes out the price gouging. Yeah, he could stand up to them if he wanted to, and given the way his numbers are, maybe he wants to stand up to somebody, and help himself and help his party.
I mean, $100 million a day for Exxon Mobil. Profits in the refining sector are up 255 percent in two years. This industry keeps merging and merging, closing down refineries, and then they say, whoops, we don't have enough refineries, there's a crisis, and they start gouging people at the pump.
I'm on the West Coast. Our gas went over $3 after Katrina. Guess what? We're not even in the same supply chain. It had no impact out here, except for prices.
This is plain and simple price gouging. OPEC is colluding and violating the WTO. The president is a big free trade guy, and he's a big rules-based trade guy. Well, six of those countries are in the WTO. Let's file a trade complaining at the WTO against OPEC for price fixing, and then let's get a long-term strategy to become energy efficient and not be dependent upon imported oil in the future.
PILGRIM: Let's take a glimpse at your letter. It's fairly hard- hitting, and it reads, "there's no good reason for gas prices to be this high, especially when oil companies continue to receive record- breaking profits, OPEC continues to receive increased revenue, oil executives continue to receive obscene levels of compensation."
But let's talk about some of the tax breaks the oil companies get. Should we be addressing this? The...
SANDERS: Of course we should.
(CROSSTALK)
PILGRIM: ... giveaways to oil companies?
SANDERS: Look, you asked Peter the question, can the president do it? Of course he can do it. If he brought these guys into the oil industry and says, guess what? If you do not lower the price of gas, we're going to repeal, which we should in any case, this giveaway that you have, by which you can extract $65 billion worth of oil from public lands without paying any royalty.
We're going to take away all of the corporate welfare that taxpayers give you. We're going to impose on you a windfall profits tax. We're going to have Congress give the president the authority to impose temporary price controls on the price of oil.
Do you think if the president said that, you do not think that the next day gas prices would go down?
These guys are doing it because they can do it. They are getting away with murder, because we're allowing them to get away with murder, and it's high time that the White House stood up for the American people, rather than their buddies in the oil industry.
PILGRIM: Well, you guys are laying it out pretty starkly. Have you received support from your colleagues on this? How are you gathering support on this?
SANDERS: Well, as soon as we get back -- I'm sorry, Peter, go ahead.
DEFAZIO: No, I mean, Kitty, remember, this is the do-nothing Congress, 11 fewer days than Harry Truman's do-nothing Congress in 1948. They're keeping us out of Washington so we can't raise issues like this in the national media. Thank you for giving us an audience. And I think after our colleagues have been home, if they're hearing what I'm hearing, they're going to be very eager to sign onto our letter and to do something for the people.
PILGRIM: Congressman Sanders, last word, and you know it has to be pretty tough going in the home front these days with the consumers being so hurt in the pocketbook.
SANDERS: Absolutely. This is part of the destruction of the middle class. Money is coming right out of the pockets of working people. I think when Peter and I get back on Tuesday, you're going to find not only many Democrats but a lot of Republicans saying, hey, we have got to do something. There's an election coming in six and a half months, and a lot of these guys want to get reelected.
PILGRIM: Well, a subject close to our hearts. Thank you very much for bringing it up with us, and we appreciate your efforts. Congressman Bernie Sanders and Congressman Pete DeFazio, thank you, gentlemen, for being with us tonight.
SANDERS: Thank you.
DEFAZIO: Thanks, Kitty.
PILGRIM: Now, with longer commutes and increasing sprawl, Americans are spending more time in the car. They're doing more than driving when they're behind the wheel. Kathleen Koch reports.
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