Home > News > 2005 News

America Should Start on the Road
to Energy Independence Now
For Immediate Release - July 28, 2005

McDermott released the following statement commenting on Congress's consideration of the Energy Conference Report legislation.

A grave threat to America today is our addiction to oil, and voting for the Energy Bill is like franchising drug abuse.

Republicans have written a bill that favors corporate America over Main Street America. This bill does not, and will not, address any of the critical energy issues that threaten our environment, our economy and our middle class. Sixty dollars for a barrel oil that breaks the backs and the budgets of Mainstream Americans is a scandal. And this legislation serves as a full, free and absolute pardon to those who failed to put America's interests ahead of special interests.

Oil company profits have been driven obscenely high on the backs of American consumers, and this legislation paves an express lane for Big Oil to drive the American consumer into the ground. At a time when America needs energy vision, Republicans have given us their philosophy: leave no special interest behind.

Big Oil--step right up and fill the tank with the hard earned money of America's middle class. Big Coal--step right up and pardon that coughing in the background; it's only Americans choking from new pollution spewing into the atmosphere.

This legislation does not address the economic peril Americans face every time they fill up at the pump, but it will give over $14 billions in tax breaks and subsidies to big Republican donors. It represents thinking as old as the dinosaurs, and just as extinct. America needs an energy vision and a commitment to the rapid development of sustainable, renewable, energy resources.

The opportunities and technologies exist today to start us on a road to energy freedom and independence. But we are not going to get there with a bill that encourages predatory dinosaurs like Big Oil to roam the earth and destroy everything and everyone in their path.

I urge my colleagues to vote against an energy legislation that was written as if we lived in 2005--B.C.