Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act of 2007
Floor Speech
CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - June 21, 2007)
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, when oil was $55 a barrel, President Bush said oil companies don't need taxpayer subsidies to drill. Oil is now just under $70 a barrel, and certainly oil companies truly don't need taxpayer subsidies to drill for oil.
The Finance Committee amendment begins to reverse decades of policies that equated what was good for the major oil companies was good for America, and that oil companies would get us cheap and plentiful energy supplies here in America. The reality is, if you go to the gas pump today, you see gas is not cheap. If you look at the impact of a refinery fire or a pipeline problem or a cold snap and the impact on heating oil prices, you see energy is not plentiful. If you look at the growing level of oil imports from countries around the world that don't have our best interests at heart, you will see that what has been good for the major oil companies has not been good for the well-being of the citizens of America.
The Kyl amendment is just the latest in a long line of arguments that has been advanced on the theory that we ought to keep subsidizing the oil industry or energy prices will go up, oil imports will go up, and America will be less secure.
The fact is our people and our country have now experienced the results of past policies based on the idea that we ought to send billions and billions of dollars of subsidies to the major companies. It is time to end those subsidies. It is time to stop the major oil companies from fleecing taxpayers when they drill for oil on public lands, and it is time to embrace the very different vision of a more positive energy future, largely constructed by the chairman of the Finance Committee and the chairman of the Energy Committee.
I urge my colleagues to vote against the Kyl amendment and to support the work of the Finance Committee.
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