Affordable Energy

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUDSON. Mr. Speaker, I'm Richard Hudson from North Carolina, and I represent a district that's been hit very hard with job losses. People out there are really struggling.

I go home every weekend and I travel my district and I talk to real people every day who are struggling to get by. I talk to folks who have lost their jobs either in the textile industry or in the furniture industry. I talk to folks who are just trying to keep their companies afloat. I talked to a homebuilder the other day who is just trying to keep enough work so he doesn't have to lay off any more of his crew so he can keep a skilled labor force there, so when the economy does pick back up, he'll have the folks that he needs to get the job done.

People are really hurting out there, and there are some signs that the economy is getting better. But, Mr. Speaker, in my district, we're just not feeling it yet. In fact, I was in Richmond County, North Carolina, yesterday, and the folks there tell me that home foreclosures have increased this year over last year. We aren't out of this yet.

On top of this economy, where folks are struggling and just trying to stay afloat, trying to keep food on the table for their families and paying the bills, the President comes out today 4 years to the day from when he introduced his disastrous cap-and-trade ideas and has this new scheme that's going to add cost to our energy, that's going to destroy jobs in this country, and it's just unconscionable.

The people in my district are wondering the same thing they are in other places around the country: why doesn't the President understand what's going on here. So, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to continue to fight for an energy policy that makes sense.

We've got energy off the shore of North Carolina that we ought to be going after. We've got huge reserves of oil and natural gas. We've also got a potential for fracking in North Carolina. I want to get North Carolina in the energy business. I want to create those energy jobs in North Carolina like we see in western Pennsylvania and North Dakota and other places. Now is the time. Now is the time to start getting American energy sources, getting Americans in the energy game, not taxing and regulating our energy industry out of business, which is not only destroying the jobs but is increasing the cost of energy. When the cost of energy goes up, Mr. Speaker, everything gets more expensive, whether it's food or the cost of transportation of goods. It's hitting us really hard.

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Mr. HUDSON. I would love to address this war on coal a little bit more. I just think it's outrageous that the President of the United States' advisors say that the President wants a war on coal. You know, we ought to have a war on gas prices. We ought to have a war on energy prices. We ought to have a war on joblessness. I mean, these are the things that we should be concerned about and angry about and upset about.

You look at the fact that the United States has more coal than any country in the world, and we've got technology to use that coal for energy production in a clean way. Clean coal technology, liquefied coal, there are plenty of ways we can use that energy, Mr. Speaker, here in America, putting Americans to work to reduce our energy costs. That's what we ought to be focusing on. Let's get Americans to work making American energy. Let's bring American energy costs down, and let's stop the war on jobs, which is what we are seeing from this administration.

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