Energy Action Team

Floor Speech

Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina for gathering us to talk about American energy.

I want to talk about it from a couple of perspectives. My State of Wyoming had the first national park in the Nation, Yellowstone National Park; the first national forest, the Shoshone National Forest; the first national monument, the Devils Tower. We have an abundance of beautiful scenery and natural resources. We have the smallest population in the Nation. Our State is pristine.

What you may not have known is that Texas' production of energy is here. Wyoming's is here, and the next State catching up on us is far behind those two States. We know how to produce energy responsibly.

Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight because I want to talk about the people that are affected by the price of energy. I want to talk about a woman I met at a gas pump.

She pulled up in a very old car. She had a little baby in her back seat that she was taking to the sitter's before she went to her job, earning minimum wage, at a convenience store. Her husband, a young man, was also working at a very lower middle-income job. They were trying to make ends meet.

She only put $5 worth of gas in her car. I asked her why. She said: well, I can only afford enough gas to get me to work after I drop my child off, and while I am at work, I will get enough money to put a little more gas and pick my child up.

That is how a lot of Americans are living. That is how a lot of our seniors are living. They are living on an amount of money that squeezes them every time the price of gasoline goes up, the price of electricity goes up, the price of heat goes up, the price of air conditioning goes up.

That is the price of energy to the American consumer. Those are the people we need to be looking out for. Those are the people who need abundant, affordable, reliable electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, and other resources like natural gas, so they can be warm and protected from the cold, so they can be cool and protected from the heat, so they can get to work and the grocery store and to their doctors.

This is the American story, and it is American jobs that pay American taxes that can help those people make ends meet, that can help fund our social safety net.

We need Americans to work. We need American energy to put Americans to work. If it wasn't for the energy economy, there would be no economic recovery at all in this country. I know that it is a rather anemic recovery. It would be zero recovery without the energy industry.

The importance cannot be overstated of energy in our economy. The importance of energy in our daily lives cannot be overstated.

I want to thank the gentleman who recognizes that we can have a clean environment and we can have affordable, abundant energy, so our quality of life in America is proudly second to none.

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