The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“IDAHOANS SPEAK OUT ON HIGH ENERGY PRICES” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S5062-S5063 on May 4, 2009.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
IDAHOANS SPEAK OUT ON HIGH ENERGY PRICES
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 1,200, are heartbreaking and touching. While energy prices have dropped in recent weeks, the concerns expressed remain very relevant. To respect the efforts of those who took the opportunity to share their thoughts, 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:
I appreciate the opportunity to share my feelings on the outlandish energy circumstances of this great country and her citizens. There is no question that increasing prices have caused my family to rethink our spending habits. Though we are able to fuel the vehicles right now, in an attempt to save a little more we are spending substantially less in any other economic environment. We do not go out to eat anymore. Rarely do we seek entertainment the way we have in the past. Though we will still travel, I can only do that because of credit card points from my business. We are also relying on food storage more so we spend a great deal less at the grocery store. All of these combine to make one statement from our household: Current energy prices and future speculation have and will continue to impact our ability to support a once thriving economy.
For my business, I work with truck drivers: owner-operators. I have lost clients as they have shut down because they cannot afford fuel. More are on the way. Everything costs more. I do not need to belabor this point as I know all are feeling this. What I just do not understand is the stubborn bull-headedness in the legislature of those who work to block everything that could ease the pain. It is as if they want to destroy this country and her citizens--even those citizens who elected them. It is as if there is some conspiracy to destroy this country and such actions makes less than no sense to me. I appreciate the few of you who seem to be working to resolve the problem.
Increasing domestic production is the only immediate resolution and future technology is the only long term resolution. I support green-focused energy but not at the immediate and deadly cost to our society, economy and national security--all of which are on the verge of collapse through our reliance on energy purchased from those who would have us destroyed--enemies foreign and domestic.
Again, thank you for this opportunity.Troy.
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Thank you for allowing us to make our voices heard. I am the mother of six wonderful children. My husband and I have been married almost 15 years. We are raising a beautiful family of good, caring, hard working children. The rising cost of fuel has affected us. We do not even have the option of purchasing a hybrid, or smaller car as our family will not even fit. We will be staying closer to home this summer, though we have family out of town we would love to visit. I do not have a heart-wrenching story to give you, but it affects our family every day. Due to the increasing price of food, clothing, and transportation, we have cut back. We will make it, but it takes money away from savings for college, savings for medical expenses, and just general peace of mind savings. I am a stay-at-home mom, who has thought more than once lately of finding a way to enter the workforce without leaving the upbringing of my six children to someone else.
I would very much like us to open up the resources we have in this great country. It seems ludicrous to me that we have the resources right around us, and yet continue to buy foreign fuels . . . The earth was placed here to support us and we can still take care of it even when tapping into those resources that are so abundant around us. Research alternative energy methods, find ways to harness those things around us to power our lives.
Thank you for listening.Shel, Meridian.
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My husband and I are frustrated with having to spend so much on gasoline these days when the oil companies are making so high a profit that each quarter they set a new record. Why are they charging so high prices at the pump when they are continuously setting new records? I work in downtown Boise and live in southeast Boise near Micron where there are no public transportation services available and impossible to ride a bicycle. So I have no choice but to drive a car to work. Carpooling is not feasible due to my schedule after work.
If it were not for our Economic Stimulus Tax Rebate check, we would have to cancel our summer vacation to Oregon to visit family and the Oregon Coast. Due to gas prices we cannot make a trip to Washington this summer to visit our three other children and their families. Our daughter and son-in-law who live near Belfair, Washington, are faced with the difficulty with wondering how they will afford heat this winter because they have oil heat in their house. They cannot afford to purchase a new electric furnace nor can they afford to have their oil tank refilled with the current prices. A few weeks ago when it was still cold, they ran out of oil and had the tank refilled one-quarter. It costs them approximately $450. A tank does not make it through the winter and they can in no way afford to pay current prices.
These prices are causing difficulty for many people and our government needs to take action to have the prices reduced to affordable levels such as more drilling here at home and not relying on foreign resources and other ways to help save energy. Back in the 70s and early 80s when we had the last fuel crisis, the federal government ordered all states to drop the maximum speed limit to 55 mph so to save fuel. My husband and I find that both of our vehicles get more miles on a tank of gas if we drive under 60 mph so we are doing so. Perhaps the federal government could take this action again because driving 20 miles less per hour is not that difficult when you plan and allow the extra time on a long trip.Betty.
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I need to express my concerns over the cost of energy. It has affected every part of my life. I drive 40 miles one way to work every day. I do this because I live in the country. My costs have tripled in the last seven years. I am now looking for a job that is closer to home. But, this is my problem. I am 55 years old and the sole support for my husband and I. He got laid off from the INL several years ago after a bad car accident and has not been able to find a job that pays more than $8 a hour. As I am also older and I look closer to home, it will also cause me to find a lower-paying job with less benefits. I am currently spending about $500 a month in gas. If I purchase a newer car that gets better gas mileage, I am not gaining anything because I would have to pay a larger car payment and more insurance which would eat up any savings. There is no public transportation in my area that I can use instead of driving. I have tried carpooling, but those who have ridden with me have not paid so, I am hauling people without any help. I am in an endless circle, and I do not appreciate the position it has put me in. I am an older person who sees that I am not going to be able to retire for a very long time.
What do I expect the government to do? I do not expect them to nationalize the oil companies or discourage business. I would like to see more alternative options than just gasoline. There are autos out there in other countries that are running on compressed air. According to the article I read on the internet, we do not accept them in this country because we do not recognize ``air'' as a fuel. Why not? If it works, let us allow it. Why are we behind other countries. I have heard that we do not have the support system for other resources like hydrogen. Why not? We did not have support for the gasoline engines either but we did it. What happened to the good ole American spirit? We have a can-do attitude and I do not think we should be whipped by the oil companies. Let us give them some competition in other alternative fuels. India uses methane gas to cook with. We have a lot of dairies here in Idaho with a lot of cow ``by product'' that is definitely renewable. So, lets encourage the American Can Do attitude and support ideas promoting renewable resources.Elaine.
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Gas prices do not affect us in one single way but in hundreds of ways. They make everything more expensive and work to slow the economy as a whole. People travel less and buy less consumer items because they cost more. Therefore, companies buy less, expand less, and spend less on their facilities. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Please forget about short-term solutions such as the gas tax amnesty. That is a ridiculous idea. Our real solutions are all long-term. Invest now and in ten or twenty years you'll be patting yourself on the back.
Here are my priorities for making the U.S. energy independent:
1. More drilling everywhere, ANWR, the Gulf Coast, etc. Give oil companies more areas to drill.
2. More nuclear production. Please do everything you can to make it easier and cheaper for companies to put in new reactors.
3. More electric and plug-in hybrid cars. Most people do not seem to make the connection that nuclear, coal, wind, etc. produce electricity and without electric and plug-in hybrid cars, gas prices are not going to go down. We have the technology now for both of these types of cars. Let us start producing them! This is probably the quickest and most immediate way to reduce gas prices. We already have all of the infrastructure in place.
4. Clean coal production. Nuclear alone will not cut it. We need to get off of coal but it is going to take several decades.
Low, Low, Priorities:
1. Alternative energy (wind, solar, etc.). It is a ridiculously small percentage of our total power production for several reasons. I know that it is great politically but the technology is generations away. Nuclear is a technology we already have.
2. Hydrogen Vehicles: This technology is a long way off. Also, what about the infrastructure? It would be ridiculously expensive.
I would say this to any politician: Please do what is right for the United States, regardless of what is right for you personally or politically. That is really what we need.Nathan, Idaho Falls.
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You may not like what I have to say. I believe in tough love and tough policies. Current oil prices are causing changes, but they are the types of changes that create a
``correction'' whereby the cost of fuel is real. It is real that foreign oil prices are too high to ignore. Governments getting in the way of a natural rebellion to that real cost does not offer long-term sustainable solutions. Okay, so I become a bit more frugal with the miles I drive; and so I start looking into buying a more fuel-efficient vehicle. These changes cause real and natural consequences like manufacturers dumping more of their money into creating greener options for consumers. Consumers will rebel against costs. Lifestyles will change. Why do not we embrace the positive direction this drives us--away from materialism and consumerism (the hatred of which caused us to be the target of the Taliban in the first place)?
War on terrorism is still war. Showing love to our planet and global community by accepting the consequences of prior mistakes (need I elaborate?) and vowing not to repeat or continue the rape our natural resources: this will heal the hatred. There is something much deeper at stake here than the pocketbooks of the American people. I urge you to dig for that, not for petroleum.
All the issues are as connected as we Americans are to the cultures that span the globe.Susan, Ketchum.
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I am a disabled Vietnam Veteran; my disability benefits are
$914 a month. With the cost of gas now and the rising price of food, I cannot really afford to go anywhere. It takes me three months to save enough extra money to buy a tank of gas to go visit my mother. who is in a home in Jackson, Wyoming. If gas and food prices get any higher, there will be no need for me to even own a car, for I will not be able to afford the insurance and tags.Robert.
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I am less concerned about gasoline price than I am about heating fuel. Being recently (involuntarily) placed in the
``fixed income'' category, I am in a position that I do have a fair amount of discretion regarding the number of miles I drive each year, but as both my wife and myself are advancing in age, thus increasingly more sensitive to hyperthermia, I am much less flexible regarding heating. The projected global cooling for the next decade, with return to harsh Idaho winters, simply exacerbates the situation. A few years ago, the highest monthly home energy bill I faced (fuel oil, electricity, and propane) was on the order of $500. Last winter, that cost rose to $1,500. Looking at projected fuel and electricity costs, within a few years that will increase to $3,000. Should that happen, I am faced with the prospect of having to sell my house in order to afford heating it.
In the 1970s, the citizens of this country accepted energy conservation as a stopgap measure to allow the federal government time to devise a self-sufficient and affordable energy infrastructure for the country. The federal government has not only squandered the three decades of grace given it, but has actively blocked all measures attempted by private enterprise to develop a workable domestic energy supply. The only measures that have been taken by the federal government
(such as ethanol) have made the situation worse by skyrocketing food costs, which we are only seeing the leading edge of. I raise poultry. A 50-pound bag of turkey finisher
(of which corn is a major component) cost $8 in 2004. In February of this year, it was $15, Last month, that same sack of turkey finisher was $30. A 50-pound bag of scratch grain rose from $5 to $15 during that same time frame. Chicken feed ain't chicken feed any more, and although transportation costs have contributed to feed cost, it certainly is not the major contributor. Whatever were you people thinking of when you decided to subsidize competition of this country's energy supply with its food supply?
As far as what I want to see our federal government do, first, dissolve the Department of Energy and replace it with a commission drawn from private enterprise, then task them to correct the total failure of the DOE to devise an effective short-term and long-term energy policy for the USA. Second, remove the hobbles the government has placed on the oil companies for using currently known petroleum reserves, including off-shore and, especially, ANWR. Third, roll back the excessive and crippling regulations the federal government has placed on this country. Quit the insane policy of requiring our dwindling number of refineries to produce dozens of different gasoline and diesel blends. Return to a licensing process that allows a nuclear plant, coal-fired plant, or refinery to be on line within five years of license application. Fourth, immediately start rebuilding our nuclear infrastructure. Even if you take the first three steps I propose, we no longer have the internal capability to build and operate nuclear plants at the scale needed for significant contribution to the energy future of the country. Without the government immediately commencing the domestic equivalent of the Manhattan Project, we will find ourselves contracting with France, Japan, and probably even Iran to build and staff our new reactors.Darwin, Idaho Falls.
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I support the development and utilization of our natural resources including drilling on the north slope and extracting shale oil in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Why would we endanger our sovereignty by relying so heavily on foreign oil anyway? We should be producing our own oil like we did in the 80s when the U.S. reacted to the oil embargo of 1973. OPEC realized that we were capable of being self-sufficient so they lowered the price of their oil. The way to contain energy costs is to keep reminding them that if they are going to take advantage of a free world economy then, they will also have to deal with the natural results of competition. Our founding fathers understood the concept--have we forgotten it? I do not support increased taxes for oil companies or the consumer. Let the oil guys make some money and remove the fetters of exploration, refinement, and drilling. Let us take care of America for a change. Every American should be able to afford to drive--it is part of being free.Don.
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Fewer trips, less fishing, flying when I used to drive--all because the [partisan behavior of politicians]. Most lack plain old `common sense', lack any business or military horse sense. I believe price of fuel will continue upward until we fix [partisan posturing].Bob.
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I just wanted to take a moment to write to you to let you know how the price of gasoline has affected me and my family and the recent past. I am a student working on my doctorate in Political Science at ISU. This last semester I had to drive down from Rigby to Pocatello five days a week. As you may be aware, that is a one-way distance of about 70 miles. The cost last semester for transportation to and from campus almost broke me. With the prices as they are presently I am lucky that I am only going to have to go to the Pocatello campus one day a week in the fall semester or I would have to drop out because I would not be able to afford the transportation costs simply to get from home to campus and back home again.
My wife works for janitorial service and Idaho Falls as a night supervisor, and part of her job requires her to drive from site to site, delivering supplies, checking on the janitors, and making sure that they have done their job. This means that she spends a good part of her job every night in the car, putting miles on driving from spot to spot. Her job does not pay her for mileage nor for gas used, and does not pay enough for her to be able to deduct her mileage off of her taxes. Since her employer cannot afford to give her a raise and we have no way of being able to recoup the increased costs of her doing her job, we have, in effect, had a cut in income from her. I do not know what can be done and I do not know what should be done, but something needs to change because I know in our case we are falling farther and farther behind simply because of the increased price in gasoline.
There is no doubt in my mind that we cannot drill our way out of this problem. But there is also no doubt that ignoring the option of drilling will make matters that much worse. I believe we need to have a comprehensive energy policy that includes drilling for more oil resources, increased use of natural gas, a reduction in the policies that prohibit the building of nuclear power facilities, and coal liquefaction programs.
Thanks for reading my comments,Jay, Rigby.
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