Republicans, truckers ask Dems to "stop playing games"

Senate Republicans held a joint press conference with Americans from the trucking industry this afternoon to discuss increased energy costs and its effect on commodity prices. Barbara Windsor, President and CEO of HAHN Transportation said that her trucking company spends $1,400 per vehicle to fill it with Diesel gasoline, and currently spends 58 percent more on fuel than it did a year ago.

Tony Sifford, a professional truck driver said that despite the fuel conservation efforts that he employs, such as slowing down, keeping a constant speed and maintaining a tuned-up vehicle, he still pays over $1,100 more than he did a year ago to drive from Hillsville, Virginia to Dallas, Texas three times per week. Sifford called upon the Democrats to stop playing games and cross party lines to bring an energy solution to America.

Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) said that Americans in the West need a solution, as they tend to drive further distances than others in the nation. As such, he said that he favors searching for oil everywhere we possibly can and not remove options from the table, especially because no renewable energy source exists for truck drivers.

How to drive less: you can't afford the gas

People are driving like a bunch of idiots, and they're driving a million miles an hour. That was the statement of Representative Don Young (R-AK), at the House Subcommittee Transportation and Infrastructure hearing on "Rising Diesel Fuel Costs in the Trucking Industry." His overall sentiment was the United States can never drill the way into total independence, but we can drill our way into more stability. However, Young said, it doesn’t solve the problem. He said that all Congress was doing was sitting around and talking, while we're misusing the fossil fuels we have left. Congress, Young said as he stabbed his finger into the air, needs to stop pandering to the general public because they're not looking at solutions. He said he had a solution to make people change their driving habits: he's going to promote a tax of one dollar on every gallon of gasoline.

The overall message of the hearing is that supplies need to increase, and demands need to change. It’s nice when people are talking about windmills, John Mica (R-FL) said, but we need a long term and short term policy to help this issue. The short term policy: you don’t need to be a Harvard PhD to figure out that we need a short term increase in supply. To do that, we’ll need to tap some of our domestic resources. At some point, Mica said, people are going to say “we’ve got to do something about these costs,” and the only solution is to increase our supply. The people demanding change are going to end up right outside the building, voicing their concerns.

Mr. Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program, said there are some areas that remain immune, such as the financial companies. There are several variables the influence supply and demand, but there is no question that Congress can take steps to provide relief. Everyone talks about oil industry profits, he said, but in addition, by far the oil companies largest expenditure was buying back their own stock. Comparatively low expenditures were on providing consumers with long term relief, such as exploration.

The "Enron loophole," as it is reffered to, was brought up repeatedly and eventually Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) expressed an interest in regulating the market. Can we do away with the Enron loophole, he asked, adding that speculation seemed a likely culprit in the high costs of gas and diesel prices. He suggested taking the excess costs from the CEO's pensions.