Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008

Floor Speech

HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT OF 2008 -- (Senate - July 25, 2008)

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the Senate took a defining vote this morning.

Americans have been crying out, asking us to act to lower high gas prices. They just heard the official response from the Democratic leadership in Congress: A few new guidelines for the energy futures market is enough. We don't need to do anything other than that. That is it. That is the Senate Democratic position.

The American people have been telling us for months that the house is on fire, and the Democrats just showed up at the scene with a squirt gun--a squirt gun.

The vote we took this morning was their response to $4-a-gallon gasoline. That is what a few of our friends on the other side are doing for all of those people out there who are standing at the gas pump, hopping mad at what it just cost them to fill the tanks of their cars. They have told 49 Republicans and more than a dozen Democrats who are open to increased domestic exploration the same thing: take it or leave it, speculation or nothing.

Americans are insisting that we do a lot more than that. They want us to do something to cut the price of gas and to lessen our dependence on oil in the Middle East. They don't want us to quit working until the job is done, and leaving this issue is what the Democratic leadership just voted to do.

A majority in the Senate wants America to be self-reliant and to find more American energy, but the Democratic leadership says: No, we can't.

To drive down gas prices, we should be opening the Outer Continental Shelf today, but the Democratic leadership says: No, we can't.

To drive down gas prices, we could be lifting the ban on development of the vast oil shale deposits in Western States that sit on three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia. The Democratic leadership says: No, we can't.

To drive down gas prices, we could have approved incentives for battery-powered electric cars and trucks today. The Democratic leadership says: No, we can't.

To drive down gas prices, we could have voted to open up untapped American oil today, but the Democratic leadership says: No, we can't.

To drive down gas prices, we could have voted today for new, clean, nuclear technology, but the Democratic leadership says: No, we can't.

To drive down gas prices, we could have approved new coal-to-liquid technology today, but the Democratic leadership says: No, we can't.

Nearly eight in ten Americans say we should do these things, but the Democratic leadership and their Presidential nominee have the same simple response to every one of them: No, we won't.

A dozen Democrats in the Senate say we should consider these things, but the Democratic leadership had the same answer for them: No, we won't.

The Democratic leadership just voted to give up on finding a solution to high gas prices. They just voted to give up on trying to find more and to use less. They just voted to give up on our effort to consider serious ideas from both sides of the aisle. They want us to tell the American people the Senate's time would be better spent on other things, and that it is time to simply move on.

Well, Republicans have a three-word response for the Democratic leadership: No, we won't.

I just voted to keep the Senate on the most important domestic issue facing our Nation. If there is a more important domestic issue facing the country, let's hear it; otherwise, let's get serious and work toward a big solution to this very big problem.

I mentioned yesterday that I received recently a letter from a dialysis center in Kentucky. They were pleading with the Senate to take action now on the high price of gas at the pump. The letter said that some of the rural patients who have to go to this center for treatment three times a week are now foregoing some of their treatments because they can't afford the gas to get there.

So I ask my friends on the other side the same simple question I asked them yesterday: If you won't act now, with dialysis patients cutting back on treatments because of high gas prices, when will you act? What is it going to take?

I know my colleagues across the aisle are stuck between the ``No, we can't'' position of their Presidential candidate and the Democratic leadership--stuck between them on the one side and the guy at the gas pump with smoke coming out of his ears on the other. For me, though, that decision is an easy one: I am going to be with the guy at the pump.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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