The High Price of Energy

Mr. WALBERG. I thank my friend from Minnesota for yielding a bit of time here this evening for me to talk on this issue. And my good friend from Georgia brought up a point, that we have legislation available that would deal with this issue, that would move us forward; legislation that isn't just talking. It is legislation that will have impact. We have discharge petitions on the floor of the House right now, two, in fact, one that

I put forth last week, that would bring out of committee a bill that says simply, no more excuses. Let's get on with it. Exactly what you were talking about, Mrs. BACHMANN, from doing what we have to do, forgetting the talk and managing what we have.

And Mr. Speaker, I am standing here today to encourage my colleagues to sign that petition. If we won't deal with it in committee, let's bring it forward to say there is oil under the ground in ANWR, off our Outer Continental Shelf, the Bakken Reserve out in North Dakota, Montana, we have shale oil reserves, we have coal, clean coal technology that we can use, we've got nuclear power. We have articles written by the former, not the former, in fact the founder of Greenpeace who says we ought to be using nuclear power. It's clean, it's green, it doesn't add to the greenhouse effect, it's safe. We ought to be using it.

We have the opportunity, if we'll just take it right now, and I'm encouraging people, Mr. Speaker, that are of goodwill of this country, who want to continue on the wonderful situation, the lifestyle we have in this country that has been a blessing not only for us but for the rest of the world, to contact Members and encourage them to sign this petition to move forward, quit talking about it.

Last night I was shocked to get on my Blackberry a contact from my staff noting a point that was per program, Capitol Hill, that House Democrats, responding to President Bush's call for Congress to lift the moratorium on off shore drilling, in fact offered their approach of saying we ought to have nationalized refineries.

Now, this is the same country that runs Social Security, runs the VA hospitals, runs Medicare, and gives awful sorts of problems to the United States taxpayer. Now we're going to take over refineries and run those?

Hasn't that been tried in other countries without effect? Didn't Chavez take over refineries in his country, just by matter of fact say they are no longer use, private sector. They're mine?

That's not the direction we want to go. We need to use the resources we have.

Just this past weekend, I'll tell my colleagues, an interesting story. I have Michigan International Speedway in my district, in fact, 6 miles from my house. Dale Earnhardt, NASCAR race, first of the season at Michigan International Speedway, won the race. But he won the race on fumes. In fact, he ran out of gas going across the finish line. Now, he did that by choice. He used his resources well, to the point that he knew if he stayed on the track he would finish, even though he'd to coast across the line. He won.

Unlike America right now, we have the resources, we have the gas, we have the fuel, but we've chosen to turn it off. We've chosen to stop the race. We've chosen to go to the pit row. We've chosen to have our hot dogs instead of finishing the rays and having victory. We can do it.

On the other side of the ledger, the Governor of the great State of Michigan, and it is a great State, de Tocqueville, it's alleged, called us the wolverines and that's where we got the title because we don't have a wolverine in our State. But we were called the wolverines because anyone who could put up with the mosquitoes in the swamp infested region of Michigan had to be a wolverine of tenacity.

Well, 2 weeks ago the Governor made mention of the fact that she was now riding a bicycle to work from her residence to the Capitol each day, with her security detail following on their bicycles as well.

My wife and I enjoyed a bicycle ride this past weekend on our mountain bikes. We enjoyed it. It's good exercise.

But the Governor of the motor capital of the world riding a bicycle, that's not what we should push our citizens to do.

We have the resources. No more energy, No More Excuses Energy Act would be one of those things.

And Mrs. Bachmann, I ask tonight that we encourage citizens, we encourage our colleagues, we encourage the action to take, to sign that petition, to get that bill that MAC THORNBERRY from Texas has sponsored that says, let's just get it done. Explore here, explore now, pay less. Drill here, drill now, pay less. Use the resources we have, and this country cannot only be great for ourselves, but we can also continue to be the resource for the rest of the world.

I thank you for the time you've given me. I wanted to give that commercial.

And Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity. And I give back my time.

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