Idahoans Speak Out on High Energy Prices
Floor Speech
IDAHOANS SPEAK OUT ON HIGH ENERGY PRICES -- (Senate - September 23, 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 well over 1,000, are heartbreaking and touching. To respect their efforts, I am submitting every e-mail sent to me through an address set up specifically for this purpose to the Congressional Record. This is not an issue that will be easily resolved, but it is one that deserves immediate and serious attention, and Idahoans deserve to be heard. Their stories not only detail their struggles to meet everyday expenses, but also have suggestions and recommendations as to what Congress can do now to tackle this problem and find solutions that last beyond today. I ask unanimous consent to have today's letters printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Thank you for your vote to stop the cap and trade thing, but it will come back with [a new president. We would be better off to be] drilling the deep reserves of the Williston Basin (more oil than Saudi Arabia in Dakota farmers fields) or the ANWR 5,000 acres or 5 million acres, or off shore where the Chinese will soon have rigs. We would be gearing up like the moon landing to get oil out of our coal whose estimated reserves are five times all the oil ever pulled out of the Middle East. ..... or the even more vast oil shales of Colorado or the tar sands. We would be building nuclear reactors and starting up those on moth balls right now ..... or better building refineries or making the hydrogen car that GM already has. Or how about this: All Of The Above.
But we are stuck [because of money influence] and nothing will change.
DENNIS.
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Will It Ever End?
I have several examples of how the energy cost is driving my life.
1. High propane cost has increased my heating cost to an increase of over $600 more this year. Propane has had a large increase and now is over $3 per gallon. Five years ago it was under .60 cents per gallon. Propane is a by product of gas exploration. I feel this is a very large price for a by-product.
2. The government rating for mileage rate is at 50.5 per mile. Why have they not raised this? Gas prices soar, but the rate stays the same.
3. Thanks for the stimulus check. I just wish I could have used it to buy something extra.
4. Diesel prices are out of control. Why is diesel almost a dollar more a gallon than gas?
5. Just about the time you feel you are getting somewhere, someone takes more of your income. It is no wonder people are losing houses and entering into get rich adventures. (Lottery, gambling)
B.
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This is the third email that I have sent over the past few months on this subject, and my message this time will be short and succinct--reducing speed limits is among the quickest solutions to help us in addressing the current issues with fuel pricing. Highway fuel consumption can be cut considerably (perhaps by as much as 20%--depending on the engine) by lowering speed limits. This is only a part of the solution. We also need to step up efforts on many fronts including utilizing more domestic resources, pushing the development of renewable energy sources and providing incentives to reduce energy consumption (i.e.--building smaller, more energy efficient homes that utilize solar/wind/geothermal energy). It is a complex challenge requiring strong leadership.
This brand of leadership will require some to act without regard for political ramifications (courage)--We are looking to you to provide your share of that leadership.
RICH.
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You and your fellow congressman are a little late to help with this energy problem as we are at peak oil and prices will continue to rise. I am totally amazed at Congress's lack of action on coming forth with a sensible energy program.
JAMES.
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Thank you for this opportunity to discuss my concerns. Higher gas prices have forced my family to reduce times spent together. We have to drive, because of very little public transportation. I would support your efforts for the oil companies to build more refineries. Every time one goes down for ``maintenance,'' we get burned. Let them use their profits to build them. I think we need to force auto companies to build more efficient cars. We need more good choices for higher mpg autos, not just one per auto company. As a side note, we need to start a federal public works program. Get people employed and get our bridges/roads, schools, libraries, etc. rebuilt. This would stimulate our economy more than Bush's tax break plan. We need authority to install toll booths on our interstate highways to help keep them maintained. I think we are ready for nuclear energy at INL. The time is right. We need leaders in Congress, not Republicans or Democrats. Can you be one? Thanks again for this opportunity.
JOHN, Boise.
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I had to take a medical disability from my job of 24 years as my health was getting so bad. My husband is 69 years old and I am 64. We find when we go to the grocery store we have to decide whether we should buy groceries or put gas in our tank so we can get home if we can buy groceries. We cannot afford to sell our house and move into town. We have no public transportation for five miles, I am trying to help my daughter with her children as she had to go back to work and I can get them to the Mall on public transportation but we would have to walk the five or six miles to get the rest of the way to my house. Our utilities are getting out of sight also and just the necessities in food are more than our Social Security and other bills allow. And then they want to give our Social Security to illegal aliens who have never worked and paid into it. My Grandmother had worked for years and when she applied they told her she was a quarter short to collect S.S., but we can give it to people who have never worked or paid into it? What are we supposed to do when we have our hands tied and no one wants to help back there and you are our only hope because you pass the laws and we have to live with them. Please help us as there are so many things they can use as alternative fuel and they seem to drag their feet about it. We have all kinds of weeds we will donate for the purpose of alternative fuel.
NANCY.
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The cost of energy is devastating to seniors on a fixed income such as me.
JERRY, Idaho Falls.
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I want to thank you for the opportunity to address my views on the situation we are in, not only in Idaho, the United States but the entire world. The affects of high energy prices will continue until Wall Street speculators are stopped. The auto manufacturers here in the United States and abroad have been given every opportunity to produce high efficient automobiles for decades. They have failed. Congress has [not acted to create] mass transit high speed transportation from coast to coast. The technology has been here for many decades with nothing being done in Washington D.C.
What are we to do with the waste from nuclear energy plants? I believe that technologies for coal, wind and solar should be explored. We should be exploring technologies of our ocean's salt water as a useful solution to our energy situation. We need qualified people to manage our water and other natural recourses here in Idaho and throughout the world.
If Congress would only work together for the betterment of mankind. These are but a few of our hopes and dreams for the future of our existence.
Thank you, Senator Crapo, for your efforts in Congress and for this consideration.
Greg, Pocatello.
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Sorry Mr. Crapo, but I do not agree with you about your vote against the climate change legislation.
In 2000, I recall paying between $.99 and $1.09 for gas for many months in Boise, occasionally a little more, but in that range. Now, eight years later, we are paying 400% more. The administration has refused during this time to get involved in the Kyoto agreements and only just in the last year or so acknowledged that climate change was even real, but attacked and prevented the science that warned us of it throughout his term. Gasoline prices going up 400% in Boise in the past eight years is painful, but it is caused by many factors, mostly, I believe, due to rich people getting insanely richer at the expense of the rest of the world. Meanwhile, we still do very little to protect against the disastrous consequences of global warming.
So, if we are going to be subjected to 400% increases and do nothing but make the rich richer, how can you be unwilling to vote for a bill that might make us pay 12.5% more, but will take huge strides toward protecting the future of our planet and safeguarding against additional enormous energy costs in the future. Penny wise and pound foolish. What we should do is get to the bottom of exactly why prices have gone up 400% in eight years.
I feel angry that our society is willing to mortgage our future almost completely for slight increases in personal luxury and benefit in the present (consider the gas tax reprieve that [was] proposed this summer as one tiny example). Where are our values for providing for the future of our children and our planet? I believe we need to prioritize much greater efforts on green and renewable resource R&D. I believe that if we put our innovation behind solutions that the entire world needs, we can more than offset the upfront costs. This is the strength of capitalism and I believe we ought to focus on our strengths. I do not want us to emphasize further oil exploration and drilling and opening up of our protected public lands (such as ANWR).
Scot, Boise.
P.S. Please have the courage and honesty to include critical comments like mine as well when you compile comments from the public. Thank you.
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Our farm has been severely impacted by high energy prices and the price of corn, which is a by-product of the energy crisis. We have gone from 100 employees down to 34. We are currently liquidating our calves because we can no longer make money raising them. We will soon be down to 12 employees. We could hang on a little longer if Congress would do something about drilling in ANWR and Bakken. We need refineries! We need oil! Oil is 1000% more efficient than these ``alternative'' fuels and drilling and refining our own oil is proven to work, while these other fuels are not. There is too much energy used to make ethanol to make it efficient. I believe that the mere announcement of drilling and building refineries will drastically help our economy. Just think of the excitement of jobs. The excitement of better times to come. Anyone can hang on if they have hope. There are no downsides to drilling in our own country. Drilling is not environmentally hazardous and even if it was, people come first.
Please, please get this message out. Call news conferences with your fellow conservative Senators. Shout it from the housetops. And for the sake of our economy and country's freedom, [support conservative efforts to govern].
ELIZABETH, Kuna.
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You ask how the fuel prices are affecting us personally; it is very simple--in every way.
As fuel prices rise, food costs increase, the cost of every basic need jumps up, the distances to functions become critical, we all have to make choices about what is most important. Unfortunately, for many of us, our lives become a struggle to get the dollar to buy the foods to keep going, pay our property taxes for homes we cannot afford to sell, get the fuel to get us to the place to make that dollar which is worth less every day and employers cannot afford to pay more in wages and the cycle goes on and on.
Everyone says ``Oh, let us just raise the minimum wage. That will fix it.'' Think again. The average small business man is one step away from sinking in this quicksand himself. He cannot afford health or dental insurance or retirement for him or his family, but he cannot have much of a business without employees, either. So he gives a raise to his employees and has to cut somewhere else, quality or quantity of goods sold and then the purchaser suffers. It all affects every one of us.
Transportation, fuel costs, value of the dollar, energy costs, making ends meet becomes increasingly difficult and our situations look increasingly dismal. Our society, like it or not, is tied to the umbilical cord of fuel oil pricing and something needs to be done to remove the grip on that cord that is choking out the life-giving fluids our nation needs to function. We need to control our own supplies of energy, provide for ourselves everything this nation needs to not just survive, but to thrive. We have oil supplies of our own under our own soil and off our own coasts; use them. That is what they are there for. As you use them, develop new sources, require more renewable energy implementation, but use what you've got. Stop letting the nation get the life strangled out of it. Make renewable energy more affordable, for one thing. It was going to cost me over $40,000 to put in a wind generator to power my home. That would never ever pay for itself before it self destructed. It is ridiculous to have solar power and wind power devices so overpriced to make them unattainable. They would help the economy. Subsidize alternative energy and educate people on ways to stretch their dollar before it is too late.
Things are bad everywhere, but if we do not do something very soon, it is going to get much worse. Overcrowded, underfed, unhappy people, unable to care for their loved ones, will turn angry, bitter, and dangerous after years of being taught ``me first philosophy.'' We have created a monster and that monster drinks crude oil. You better keep feeding it.
JANELLE, Hayden.
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Thanks for your interest in doing something about high gas prices. Here in Rexburg, I have found that at age 56, I can still ride a bike to work. I may even start doing groceries and other errands with my bike. I am getting in good shape, although I already was in good shape. My family and I find that we consolidate errands. Instead of going to town for one thing, we make sure it is for three or more things. If it is not, we just wait until we have more to do downtown or elsewhere. I have aging parents who need help, and gas prices have not made getting to their house very easy, but what we can do, we have to go. So we go without a lot of things. We pass by the treats and other not so important purchases (we were doing that before anyway). I think where this really hits us the hardest is in going to see our grandkids far away, or taking a simple trip like to Mt. Rushmore or even Yellowstone Park. The gas prices have eaten those options up pretty fast. It is too bad that we sit around as a nation and let the oil rich countries dictate to us how we can live our lives. We should have started doing something about these fifty years ago, but apparently, nobody had that much far sight into the potential problem. We'll survive and we do not feel bad for ourselves, but it is not easy.
FERRON.
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