Energy Prices

ENERGY PRICES -- (Senate - May 23, 2007)

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise this morning to talk about the high gas prices we are seeing all over America and certainly on the west coast, where Washington State is paying some of the highest gas prices in the Nation.

My point this morning is that we are approaching the Memorial Day weekend in which Americans will be remembering loved one and wanting to spend time with their families, but this Memorial Day might go on record as having the highest gas prices in our Nation's history. That means we in the Senate need to act on energy legislation that not only diversifies us off fossil fuels into more renewables and alternative fuels, as well as pass energy conservation measures, it also means we need to protect consumers with a strong bill that makes price gouging and market manipulation of energy markets illegal. We need to assure that there are tough Federal penalties on the books so that any kind of market manipulations will be met with fines and penalties.

I know many people think this is all just about supply and demand. It is pretty hard to tell the people of Washington State it is just about supply and demand when we have five refineries in the State of Washington and most of our oil comes from Alaska. And people say we are an isolated market. In fact, there are schools in our State that are feeling the brunt. One of the school districts in the Yakima Valley, where buses travel more than 2,200 miles each day, will have to spend about $125,000 more this year on fuel. That is revenue which could go to books or hiring teachers or other needs for the school. In Spokane, the volunteers for Meals on Wheels, which usually delivers 350 meals a day to homebound elderly and disabled residents, are having to cut back on their routes. Another constituent called the office to say he was having trouble paying for gas he needed to make the 80-mile round trip to the Tri-Cities to get kidney dialysis for his wife. That loving husband said he was either going to have to quit his job or move closer to the facility so they could avoid paying high prices of gasoline. So while the pundits are talking about just supply and demand, my constituents and many constituents across this country are feeling the pain at the pump.

It is time that we act and pass the Cantwell-Smith bill, which we will have a chance to do when we return after the Memorial Day recess. This legislation is based on a New York law that has been held up in the courts and gives the Federal Trade Commission the ability to do the job that is needed to investigate potential market manipulation and price gouging. Many of the statutes that are on our books today are inadequate for looking at markets when there is a tight supply.

I heard a great deal about supply and demand during the Western energy crisis. For probably my entire first year in office, that is all we heard about from various people who wanted to say that the Enron problems were nothing more than supply and demand and the failure to build more capacity. In fact, when it came down to it, there was a lot more to this question than lack of supply in California. It turned out that there were elaborate schemes to manipulate energy markets, with names such as Death Star, Get Shorty, Fat Boy, schemes in which people deliberately took supply off line or manipulated it just to drive up prices by suppressing supply.

My colleagues have worked hard in the last several years to put into statute protections for consumers to make sure electricity and natural gas markets are not manipulated. This law is based on the same protections the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the SEC use to make sure there is not manipulation in those markets. Why not have the same protection for consumers as it relates to oil and gasoline markets?

I hope that when we return, we will give great attention to this issue and not be swayed by those who think this is a simple market-demand issue. If we want to protect the consumers of this country, we will pass a strong law that gives the ability for Federal regulators to do their job. I believe there are real U.S. jobs, pensions, and businesses on the line if we do not act and act aggressively. The American people want to know that the Senate is going to stand up and do something about these record gas prices. They want to know that they are paying a fair and market-based rate for fuel and that they will continue to have the transparency in oil markets to make sure prices are reasonable and affordable, and they want to be sure we are empowering the right people to make sure an investigation takes place.

As I said, there is much that we need to do in the near term and the long term for our energy markets to diversify and to give consumers real choice at the pump, to make sure we are investing in conservation and fuel efficiency. But in the meantime, with tight energy markets, we need to make sure we are giving consumers the protection they need and to pass this legislation when we return after the recess.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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