Idahoans Speak Out on High Energy Prices
Floor Speech
IDAHOANS SPEAK OUT ON HIGH ENERGY PRICES -- (Senate - July 10, 2008)
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, in mid-June, I asked Idahoans to share with me how high energy prices are affecting their lives, and they responded by the hundreds. The stories, numbering over 1,000, are heartbreaking and touching. To respect their efforts, I am submitting every e-mail sent to me through energy There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: To whom it concerns: Here's how rising gas and diesel prices are affecting this Idahoan and her family: We are a one-income (plus overtime) middle-income family living in Boise. The huge increase in fuel prices has caused subsequent increases in the price of consumer goods (due to price increases for fuel to manufacture, transport, and deliver consumer goods). Thus, our entire cost of living has increased at a rate higher than that of my husband's annual raise. Our standard of living is dropping, regardless of his continued raises, and we are having to cut corners from our budget, in every direction. Due to our sons' disabilities, it has been imprudent for me to work full time. However, in light of the growing costs of living due to fuel costs skyrocketing, I will most likely need to return to work this year, NOT to purchase hobby equipment or upgrade our vehicle, but to continue to make our mortgage payment and to EAT PROPERLY. To our Congress: PLEASE STOP OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN FUELS. We're lining the pockets of oil-rich nations while stealing the quality of life from our own citizens. Nuclear energy is NOT the way to go, in my opinion. The dangerous waste by-products of nuclear-generated power are not worth the savings in costs of energy to our citizens. There are many other methods to generate energy for homes and businesses (and vehicles) that are cleaner, renewable, and completely non-polluting, such as solar energy; wind energy; hydro-electric energy (why not let all the dams in our state run at full capacity rather than leave one or two turbines unused most of the time, and STORE the excess energy we generate to keep our costs down, or sell it to profit our state's economy); and the transformation of our society's garbage into usable, non-polluting hydrogen fuel for vehicles that run on hydrogen. There are always local (American) solutions to local (American) problems. -- I should think it would be obvious to all sentient beings by now that we are on the wrong trajectory. The notion that we can consume more and more each year without some FUNDAMENTAL changes is wrong. I search your words in vain for ideas about something new. No luck. Same old mindset. What about conservation of finite resources? What about alternative energy resource development? The large and very profitable oil companies benefit enormously from tax breaks. Where is the policy incentive for non-polluting alternate forms of energy? Where are the incentives to promote more efficient use of the old sources? Pull your head from the sand. It is high time you realized a new era is upon us. -- To Whom It May Concern, Fuel costs are killing the average citizen in Idaho. It is bad enough that the price of getting to work is costing more than many can afford, but the prices in the grocery stores are also rising exponentially as the cost of shipping skyrockets and the cost of running farm equipment to produce the food skyrockets. To make things worse, Congress, once again with good intentions but not a clue of the damage they would do, are adding to the situation with the ridiculous bio-fuels subsidies. Bio-fuels are horribly inefficient, but the cost of corn to feed dairy cattle and fatten beef cattle is becoming unaffordable. To make things worse, these terrible incentives to plow up hay fields and raise corn is leaving livestock owners unable to buy hay. Horses are being turned loose or shot by owners who cannot get or afford hay to feed them. Once again the bloated farm bill is putting billions of dollars into the hands of a few farming corporations while small farmers and livestock owners are left to struggle against high fuel and feed costs created by Congress. PLEASE repeal these stupid restrictions on oil exploration and refining, as well as that awful subsidy on bio-fuels. They are counterproductive and just plain stupid. -- Dear Senator Crapo, High gas and energy prices are affecting everyone negatively but I would rather respond to the second part of your email. Americans are not ``too dependent on petroleum,'' as you said; we are just too dependent on foreign petroleum. We can thank Mr. Clinton and subsequent leaders and legislators for the predicament we find ourselves in today. They have caved in to the ``environmentalists'', a very small percentage of Americans, and not allowed us to provide for our own oil needs. These foolish politicians have put us and our economy in a very precarious position. We need to pursue nuclear power and domestic drilling and refining of petroleum and take control of providing for our needs instead of relying on foreign volatile suppliers. If Congress would pass just one piece of legislation to allow us to drill and supply our own oil, our foreign suppliers would drop prices immediately in fear that we will completely cut them out of the loop someday. We do not need to continue any ``food for fuel'' programs as you can see what that has done to our economy and the food shortage in other parts of the world. Finally, please inform others in Congress that our country is a capitalistic society and that oil companies deserve to profit for the risks they take and the product they supply to Americans. If anybody has received a ``windfall'' it is the federal, and to a lesser degree state, government which receives undeserved profits. They receive much more money from the sale of gas in our country than the oil companies and they have not done one thing for the money they get for each gallon sold. The latest figures I have read were that oil companies average 4 percent of profit from each gallon sold while taxes account for 16 percent of each gallon sold. Please understand that I am angered by this situation but that anger is in no way directed at you. You have done a fine job representing the views of us conservative Republicans in Idaho. Keep up the good work. Sincerely, -- Dear Senator, I'm a fan of yours, as is my wife. We both have been registered Democrats all our lives, but in the mid-term election of 2006, we both re-registered as Independents so as to distance ourselves from our party, as they seem to have gone off the deep end. I remember when Democrats were proud Americans. And though there are a few of us left, most of the party of Rosie O'Donnell, Michael Moore, Al Franken, and certain Senators and Congressmen (and women) are little more than Socialists. And that is giving them the benefit of the doubt. My wife and I both voted for Reagan, by the way, and we will vote Republican till we see a difference in the far left that has taken over our party. Who knows? We may be registered Republicans before too long. Enough about our distaste for the Democrat Party of today, except to say that it seems voting on issues such as this go down party lines, with even a few Republicans taking the wrong side on issues such as energy, illegal immigration, and homeland security which I consider to be one and the same. We know there are many billions of barrels of crude off our shores, but the Democrats keep us from drilling. There is even more possibly in the Dakotas and Montana, not to mention the shale oil out here in the West and the coal-to-oil or coal-to-gas technology. All we have to do is start drilling and build more refineries and the price of oil from OPEC will drop drastically! I dropped out of college, but I know this, so Washington should too. I do not know what is up with the Democrats, but they want the United States to fail in every way, it seems! Now, a little more about my wife and I. We are both disabled after working hard all our lives and had a good income till our disabilities set in. She went down first, and I followed a few years later. God put us together for a reason, I have to believe. It must be so we could lean on each other. But needless to say we live on a small, fixed income and, eight years ago, my wife's mother had to come and live with us because she has Alzheimer's Disease. We got along OK, I guess, till the gas prices shot up. I remember 1973 and 1981. I know the prices go up and never come back down to the point they were, even long after the ``crisis'' is over. In ten or so years, it is possible we could be self-sufficient as far as petroleum and natural gas go. If we drill everywhere we can, build refineries to process the crude, in 10-12 years, we could have gas prices back to something where we could afford to eat. Because it is not just the gas prices, it is everything that has to be trucked or shipped by air. Airlines are going belly up, we cannot afford to eat food that is good for us so we have to go to a high starch, low protein diet which will kill us quicker. The long term solution is other means and other types of fuel. But in the short term, the NOW term, we need to drill and I'll even say, having lived in Alaska for a few years, if people knew how vast the 49th state is, they would say ``Go right ahead, drill!'' Because it would not hurt any animals, the pipeline could hook right up to the one that already runs from Prudoe Bay to Valdez. It is simple really, but Congress has always found a way to make it hard. Our whole government seems to be ``out of touch'' with its citizens' needs. Did you know that ANWR is 700 miles from the nearest tree? There is nothing there! But oil if we drill it. And we wouldn't have to drill there if we drilled off shore, in the Dakotas and Montana, used coal-to-oil technology. The ocean floor pollutes more in seepage than drilling ever could because we have ``green'' technology, and they do not shoot up toward the skies anymore like the old black and white movies always show it. But these gas prices just kill people like my wife and others in our situation. We get our fair share every month on the third because we both started working when we were teenagers (I was told this helped with the money part), and my wife's mother is 71 and worked her whole life. But we are still a family of three with kids who are grown, and six wonderful grandchildren who we like to make sure their birthdays and Christmases are filled with gifts from us that cost money which we do not have. If I could afford a Prius, I'd buy one! (maybe). But the fact is I have a '96 Plymouth Voyager and that has to last me the rest of my life, hopefully. So I need lower gas prices and, as I ramble on here (you invited me to--LOL), I know the solution and so do most of the Republicans and even some Democrats, except they won't let us drill. It seems that the parties have to follow like lemmings and they just cannot think for themselves. Other countries are drilling OUR oil right off our coasts! They are, and I'll tell you how. They drill down and then make a 60-90 degree turn and go under our waters and even under our land and are going to get our oil while leasing waters from Cuba! This, sir, makes me sick!!! If I were in charge, I'd drill right through a polar bear's skull, if I had to, to get at the oil that we have more of than Saudi Arabia! We do! OK. Not really. But the polar bear was put on the endangered species list, when they have grown sixfold in number (where's the sense in that?). There are five, six times as many polar bears now than there were 255 years ago, and NOW they decide to put them on the endangered species list? And merely to keep us from drilling in Alaska. I'll close by saying this: Please try to persuade all Republicans and any Democrats you know that may come over to the common sense side of it all and allow us to drill! That is the only way we will be energy self-sufficient in the next ten years, unless Al Gore is going to buy me an electric minivan. And just a quick note: I do not know if I believe global warming exists, but even more, I am pretty sure that, if it does indeed exist, man is not responsible for it. I have personally talked to scientists and saw an interview on the ``Glenn Beck'' program with the founder of ``The Weather Channel'' and he said that global warming or climate change is the biggest hoax ever pulled on the American people and the world! It is merely a cycle the earth goes through and if you look back to about 60-70 years ago, you'd see the same cycles and temperatures and storms, etc. OK, Senator, I'm done. I hope you find time to personally read this, because you are one of the good ones who seems to be in touch with the people's needs, along with the country's needs. You have always done a good job and, for the most part, I like the way you vote. Thank you, -- Now you are talking, Senator. ..... If more Senators and Congress Representatives started asking the people to share their thoughts, ideas, and struggles that we are all being put through with this energy crisis, we could believe that government really had our interest at heart, instead of just their own. I have done a lot of research in past months, and find it hard to understand with all the oil we have here in our own country, and we know we have it. Why do we go elsewhere for it and, literally, held ransom while someone else profits? And on another issue of being held hostage for energy, are all these utility companies. We always hear on the news, how much profit they made, and then how much more it is going to cost us, ``We the People,'' for its use, and then they have the gall to announce their big corporate raises. If we have to suffer the higher costs, then they should also, by waiving their raises until things are under control again. That is my thought on this, as well as many others. We are a family of four seniors on fixed incomes, all with health issues. My mom is 85, bedridden. And my brother-in-law is a three-time cancer survivor, a shell of a man. He served two terms in Vietnam in the midst of Agent Orange and cannot even get any veteran's compensation. His wife is his caregiver, and she suffers horribly from fibromyalgia. I'm a widow and a caregiver for my mom, who is also now a widow. We have had to come together in order to survive. So we have to watch carefully every penny we spend. We live 15 miles out of town, and have to watch how many trips we take into town so as not to waste gas. We have cut back to using one car, and try to correlate our doctor visits and trips to the pharmacy. And it still costs as much or more than it did using two cars before the price gouging. I am a lot more in tune to what is going on in this country and how we are being treated by our own government. It is really criminal to say the least. We, who have worked our whole life paying into our system and serving our country in loyalty, and with our lives, we deserve to be treated with far more respect than we get. Senator, we know that this system is working hard to take our sovereignty from us. We are not stupid people; we see and read beyond what the system wants us to know. Please be one of those who are on the side of people, for our freedom of Constitutional rights. Long live the United States of America, where our flag flies with pride, and blood has been shed in her honor. Respectfully, -- Senator Crapo, I manage an insurance agency with twenty independent salespeople at Farm Bureau Insurance. I could give you quite a few stories, but the one I am most familiar with is my son that works for us. He is 35 years old and has triplets that are two-and-one-half years old. He also has an eleven-year-old and a nine-year-old, so he has a full house. His wife is obviously now a stay-at-home mom, but the energy crunch along with grocery inflation is absolutely devastating. He coaches his Little League baseball traveling team and so between his sales career, baseball, and running kids all over, his gas bill alone is between $600 and $700 per month. With the triplet children, the vehicle has to be a large, used SUV. Couple that with his pick-up, and the gas mileage is not the greatest! The larger vehicles, however, are a necessity. This is just the icing on the cake when you also consider the larger house that they now live in with increased utility costs plus the inflated cost of groceries, especially milk. It is time that we start drilling and looking for an effective domestic energy policy and quit outsourcing on energy to foreign soil. We sincerely hope that Congress does something and soon, and that they develop a long term comprehensive policy to prevent future similar crises. -- To the powers that be: I am a handicapped woman existing on my Social Security and let me tell you, it only goes so far. I live outside of town about six miles and granted, that is not a great distance, but it adds up very fast. As you know, Social Security really is not enough to live on, and now I am having to add in outrageously high fuel prices for my furnace and car. We live in the greatest nation, the richest nation and still we are dependent on foreign fuel to meet our needs. Why is that? We have the capacity to be so much more independent and yet, the consumer, me, pays out and pays out until there is nothing left. Will I be able to save any money to pay for my burial? No, not at the rate things are going. It is a sad commentary on the government when those who have not have to take care of those that have. ..... sad, indeed. It is time for government to be ``of the people'' once again, and not out for their own individual gain.
TERESA, Boise.
CRISTINA.
PAT, Priest River.
ROBYN.
RICHARD and KELLEY.
ANDREA.
RON.
CINDY.
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