Fox News Channel "Your World" - Transcript
Interview
MS. CASONE: You might not be able to take a vacation this 4th of July because of sky-high gas prices but Congress is, and folks are fuming! A new survey finds that 77 percent blame lawmakers for four bucks for a gallon of gas. Lawmakers today blaming anybody but themselves.
With us now, Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
Congressman, welcome to you, sir.
REP. VAN HOLLEN: It's good to be with you, Cheryl.
MS. CASONE: I was looking at a poll from Rasmussen. This came out last week. Seventy-six percent of likely voters say we should be drilling here in this country. They're dealing with high energy prices. They're upset. They want to go into ANWR. They want to go to the Outer Continental Shelf. Why should we not be doing that right now?
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well in fact, the House of Representatives took up legislation just yesterday that says to the oil and gas companies, use it or lose it. Use the 80 million acres of federal land that have already been leased to the oil and gas companies, and for goodness sakes start drilling on that.
What you've got is a bunch of folks that are very happy with the status quo. They like the way the price is. They're saying, give us more areas to drill on, when they're not drilling in all the areas that are open to them to begin today. So we proposed legislation that says, use it or lose it. If you're not going to go in and drill there, let somebody else do. Unfortunately, we did not get the super majority of votes to get that done. It was blocked by our Republican colleagues in the House.
And let me mention one other important thing we did, which would do something in the short term because some of this is short term, some is long term.
MS. CASONE: All right.
REP. VAN HOLLEN: In the House, by a big vote, we passed legislation directing the CFTC, the regulatory body that oversees the energy futures market, to use its emergency authority to bring down and squeeze speculation out. Unfortunately, just hours ago in the Senate, Republican senators blocked it when we tried to send that bill to the White House.
MS. CASONE: Well --
REP. VAN HOLLEN: No, no, it's important for the American people to take a look at the facts, look at the substance of the issues and make a judgment.
MS. CASONE: Congressman, I'm sorry. I've got to -- look, I talked to Bart Chilton last night, from the CFTC, the commissioner over there. He said, look, if there's manipulators out there, there's speculation going on that's illegal and impropriety in the market, whatever, we'll find it. But he didn't really seem to give me the impression that they found that yet. I mean, how can you say that there's speculation that's going on that's illegal, immoral, whatever you want to call it, when there's no proof yet? This is business. This is oil trading. Folks gotta make money. This is pension funds, hedge funds, investors. This is your constituents.
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Because of the Enron loophole, tradings in the energy futures market for oil and gas is beyond the jurisdiction of the CFTC. What we've asked them to do is to use their emergency powers so that they can regulate a market that right now is called a dark market. They need to go look under the hood. They're not doing that right now. So we passed legislation, the House, again, by a strong bipartisan margin, over 400 votes, to direct them to do that. And just today, when they tried to take it up in the Senate, the Republican leadership said no, they're not going to send to the House.
MS. CASONE: Congressman, but here's the thing. Seventy-seven percent of Americans blame you, they blame the federal government. They don't blame market manipulators. They're not looking at -- they blame the federal government for not getting oil prices under control and for gasoline that, in some areas, is at five bucks. We're hearing predictions now, $7 for a gallon of gas in two years, like two summers from now. What do you say to that?
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, what I've seen is that the American people are smart enough to understand that the oil and gas companies are feeling just great when you go out and buy gas at over $4 a gallon. They're making record profits. They like things the way they are. They're sitting on millions of acres of federal lands.
MS. CASONE: R&D, they spend millions in R&D, and they pay a lot of money in taxes, sir.
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Yeah, but they're also getting huge taxpayer subsidies. They've gotten big breaks. We have said, let's use that money, invest it instead in incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency. Look, we right now have about two percent, in fact less than two percent, of the world's known oil supplies. We consume 20 percent of the world's oil. We're going to have to turn to renewable energy sources at the same time we continue to drill.
MS. CASONE: That's a long way away, sir. That's a long way away.
REP. VAN HOLLEN: We're drilling every day in this country. And right now, the oil and gas companies have leases where they could be putting drillings in the ground today where they're not doing it.
MS. CASONE: All right.
REP. VAN HOLLEN: In addition to the fact, we can close the Enron loophole. The legislation we passed out of the House would direct the CFTC to begin to take that action.
MS. CASONE: Well --
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, it would.
MS. CASONE: Enron was a couple of guys. I gotcha. We're going to have to leave it there.
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Let me ask you. Do you think speculation is part of the cost people are paying at the pump?
MS. CASONE: No, I do not! No. In my opinion, no.
REP. VAN HOLLEN: There's been ample testimony from experts in the House and the Senate that that's a component. That's not the whole thing, of course. But it's a component.
MS. CASONE: Yeah, 40 hearings in six months, I know. All right, Congressman Van Hollen, we're going to have to leave it there. But we do appreciate you being with us this afternoon, sir.
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Good to be with you.
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