proposal with pennsylvania republican congressman lloyd smucker and wisconsin democratic commerce and mark pocan. join our conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages and tweets. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] president biden yesterday saying americans are feeling the crunch of the war in ukraine. this morning's your chance to tell the president and lawmakers in washington how higher gas prices are impacting your finances. join the conversation by dialing (202) 748-8000 (202) 748-8001 if you are republican, (202) 748-8002 if your democrat and

also text us with your first name city and state. (202) 748-8003. post your story on facebook or send a tweet. president biden announcing yesterday the release of one million barrels of oil per day from the national strategic reserves for the next six months. calling it a wartime bridge until domestic production can ramp up. here the president yesterday. >> today i'm authorizing the release of one million barrels per day for the next six months over a hundred and 80 million barrels for the strategic -- from the strategic petroleum reserve. this is a wartime bridge to increase oil supply and production ramps. it is by far the largest release of our national reserve in our history. it provides a historic amount of

supply for historic time. a six month bridge to the fall. we'll use the revenue from selling the oil now to restock the strategic petroleum reserve when prices are lower. we will be ready for future emergencies. folks, i have coordinated this release with allies and partners around the world. already i have -- we have commitments from other countries. together our combined efforts will supply well over one million barrels of oil a day. nations coming to derek -- coming together to deny putin. families in -- families and democracies around the world. >> president biden on his steps to try to reduce the price of oil and gas. the reaction from republicans, here is the minority leader mitch mcconnell of kentucky yesterday. >> a drop in the bucket. is that what that means?

look, the key here is american energy. in 20 we were an exporter. we had the ability to meet our own energy needs and help europeans to meet theirs. as they try to wean themselves off of russian energy. i think the administration's anti-fossil fuel views are sort of like a religion. they are kind of unconnected with the needs of not only our country but the world. this policy is driven by the hard left which the president almost never crosses. until that policy changes, we are going to have a problem. things like -- being opened up. it is a drop in the bucket.

>> the republican leader of the senate, mitch mcconnell. washington port -- washington post reports the draw down from the spr equals about 1% of world petroleum consumption and about 5% of u.s. petroleum use. the u.s. is not a net importer. withdrawal of crude oil from reserves will flow into the global market and ease prices according to experts. in lawrenceville, georgia. your turn to tell us what it is like at the gas pump where you live and how that is impacting your finances. caller: i always keep my take full so i do not have to put $50 at a time in there. that is one way of helping. i wanted to talk about, i do not like the idea of using our emergency supply of oil in case we are attacked or anything. we need that oil. biden wants to run back down

because he thinks it is going to lower the gas prices but it is not going to lower them much. it is not going to help in the midterms at all. i did notice that none of the democrats ever said, gee i wish we had to dollar gas again. no, not one of them. they just sit back and say oh biden is doing a great job even though he is senile. host: joe, dayton ohio. republican. caller: joe biden is a disaster. joe biden sits back in 2019 and went up to a young lady and said he is going to add fossil fuel. he did a war on fossil fuel and this is what we get. everyone is going to be paying more. it is hurting our family. host: tell us how. caller: my wife and i both work.

our children work. we are paying close to four dollars per gallon in dayton, ohio. my wife just traveled to colorado. airline tickets are going higher because of fuel surcharges. we canceled our cruise for this year because cruise ships are charging additional charges for. people think you get your cruise tickets -- they are adding on soon -- fuel surcharges at the end of your cruise. people do not realize that. it is affecting everyone. it is sad. we used 20 million gallons of oil and day. joe biden is trying to -- they're going to be destroyed in november. it is smoke and mirrors.

host: this is from cbs. that amounts to one million additional barrels per day which the white house as is the biggest oil release in u.s. history. it is the third time president biden has tapped to the reserves. in 2021 he released 50 million barrels. in march the u.s. joined other countries to release 60 million barrels. this is from cbs. they go on to report that the reserves -- can hurt 714 million barrels of crude according to the energy department. the largest of the four is a 500 acre -- hold roughly 200 -- to give you an idea of how large this is. when was it created? december 1975 when then president gerald ford signed the

energy policy and conservation act. introduce the idea of storing reserves in case of an emergency. the idea sat dormant until 1973 when opec -- an oil embargo. policymakers revisited the proposal. this is how it has been used in the past. drawdowns have been relatively rare in its 45 year history. for mr. biden tapped the reserve in 2021 and this year previous president ordered just three emergency drawdowns. 1991, george h bush ordered a drawdown. it was soon after desert storm. 2005 after hurricane katrina. the obama administration released 30 million barrels in 2011 when the war in libya reduced the countries will production.

mike in philadelphia. independent. how is this hurting you? caller: to be -- to meet the oil prices are going to drop anyway. it is spring. people use less fuel oil for that reason. it is ramadan around the world and people have -- are done stocking up for march. joe biden can ask oil producers in america to increase their production load. this crisis happened because russia was under reporting their oil production so that is why we have these high prices now. they never tell us the truth about how much oil they produce so we have to do something and the best thing to do is to just increase our rate count to where it was before. 630 or something like that. doing that will allow more production of oil in america.

host: do you like the president's idea of calling on congress to impose penalties on these domestic production companies if they do not use the permits they have they lose them? caller: yes i do. i like that idea. you need to put pressure on these companies who wish to keep the cost of oil high. you have to get them to drop the price. host: is there much that the u.s. can do when opec is not increasing its production? look at this headline in the washington journal. opec keeps russia back plan. they are saying they are not going to increase production which they say would not lower at prices anyway. they say opec members recalled the oil spike when they added output and it did little to calm the market. they are pointing to then saying that even if they increased it

it would not do much. caller: united states was the number one producer of oil from the obama administration into the early trump administration. we should do that again. we just have to make sure we increase our rate count and have our oil companies taking oil out of the ground. host: let us reap from this piece in the wall street journal. the reporting states that in its second meeting since the kremlin ordered the assault on ukraine a partnership between open and a group of russia led countries dubbed opec plus rick -- instead they agreed to raise their collective output by a modest -- rejecting calls for moral producing countries to do more. the wall street journal editorial board says the reason why they are rejecting this

proposal by america and other countries is because the administration is seeking to re-sanctions on america's enemies in venezuela and iran. neither oil producer can compensate for reduced russian exports. sanctions would merely give their regimes -- the wall street journal writes that mr. biden rapprochement further alienates the saudi's and the united arab emirates which are already upset by the administrations lack of -- white house press were techy -- white house press protect -- saudi arabia should be treated like a paris state. is it any surprise they write that saudi crown prince will not take mr. biden's calls. if it is any consolation to the middle east he is treating the u.s. oil gas accompanies the

same way. democratic caller. what is it like? caller: it is really hard for my granddaughter. she does not make that much money, her rep has gone up and gas for her is outrageous. all those companies that trump gave tax cuts to are now sticking it to us. we really need to tax the price gouging. maybe not sending as much oil to china. we export a lot of oil. that would help a lot. host: tom in ohio. david in texas. republican. caller: yes, i'm glad you read those things about saudi arabia and uae.

how they will take biden's calls. they are upset about the weapons that are being withheld from them because of their war against yemen. the biggest thing, the main reason i called, a few days ago i watched c-span. the non-birthing person senator from alaska, i'm not sure what his name is. -- on the floor explaining what was going on with regards to the fiction about those 9000 oil -- the administration has withheld -- since the administration came in power. besides stopping production and

the pipeline on day one, i forget whether it is the bureau of land management, department of the interior said a memo out that day which change the way all of the oil producers had to go through getting permits to do anything with their leases. a lot of people called and they talked about 9000 permits. they are 9000 leases. they have to get permits to do anything. they have not had problems with that in the past according to the senator because they worked through several errors of federal lawyers of -- state layer. all of these people are professionals in the field and understand these things. they work well together. there is no problem in the permitting process. the memo that came out stated --

no more permits. they put a moratorium on permits for 90 days. another memo came out and said ok, you can get permits but all of the people you normally get them through -- where they could get them within days changed. now they had to get them all through the central office, whoever this person was. the person issuing this memo who was the head of this department said that all of these memo that have to go through my office. which meant a bottleneck of monumental proportions. they went on to say the classification of certain projects which we get top priority over the permit request coming in -- they were for things like greed and climate related things having to do with oil. it is no wonder they have not

been able to do anything. host: i am going to get to other voices. michael in portland. we are not significantly affected by the gas prices but the increase, theft crimes. siphoning oil does raise our anxiety levels. susan in indiana. how is this impacting you. caller: gas prices have come down pretty nicely in the midwest. i wholeheartedly agree with biden -- flooding the market will affect profits with opec. they need to decide to play ball with the u.s. we do not mess around. we really need to keep the pressure on. host: stephen new york. -- never increase production from covid levels. they are intentionally screwing

the public and biden. hello kevin. caller: i appreciate you taking my call. i have a comment. gas prices go up or down because of features of capitalism. i prepare for this by using fuel-efficient vehicles and i dressed driving habits. it is a myth that the president of the united states has much effect on gas prices. in our system here in the u.s. we have a limited government under the constitution. it is also a myth that gas prices are historically low. all of my life, i am 51 years old. all of my life gas prices have been kind of high. caller: host: cliff in texas. caller: good morning. exxon mobil, let us get the

facts straight. as far as the companies gouging people, people might read that exxon mobil made $78 billion in profit last year. what they forget is they lost about 65 billion the year before. an 8% return over two years with all of the gambling they have to do to get her out of the ground is a reasonable return. let us get that straight right now. i live near midland, texas. we have as much oil as this country needs. it is cleaner oil than the rest of the world. can you believe that we go to venezuela and iran and begged them and saudi arabia will not even take our calls? how can we be energy efficient with clean oil and go to the rest of the world and begged for dirtier oil which is going to

make the environment even worse? one less thing, i hear president biden many times in the last few weeks say, i am doing everything i can to get more oil on the market. no, he is not. is not telling the truth. how can get all of the oil on the market that he has gotten and did get and biden not be able to get it? all of the leases they talk about that are not being used. the leases are not the problem. it is the regulations and the permits and the different coops that the oil companies and the wild captors have to jump through. to even get there -- to even get to drill. people need to know that. host: west virginia, the only

people impacting -- cost of goods affects everyone. at these inflationary policies into the mix equals misery. george democratic caller. caller: i agree mostly with the last two callers and there is a lot that we can do because we are importing a lot of oil from venezuela and also saudi arabia. these people are out of control when they want to over pump and do not want to manufacture any more oil. the concern is that the gas that goes into the convenience stores , they are not dictating the price of the gas. the big oil companies when they

deliver the gas, typically they dictate the price on the gas. we can go back to doing more -- if you work with something who works for the same company you can carpool. do not drive as much. there are number of things we can do to cut down on prices. host: what is the price we live? caller: the price where i am not now for regular gas runs about $4.09 to $4.15. the middle grade runs about $4.49. that is not too bad. you can do other things to burn less gas. keep your cars tuned up. there are things you can do.

host: ronald in philadelphia, independent. caller: in the first place you have to believe the true facts. it is corporation screwing america. why would a pump more if i can rise the price and -- why are we shipping oil out to countries? what is the price of oil in saudi arabia. they take care of their people before they ship it out. will companies here say this is money. host: arkansas. we are asking you the impact of gas prices on your finances. caller: i disagree with the last caller. biden has put too many restrictions and he has got the oil companies confused as to if they should try to produce more oil because he has put too many restrictions.

you do not want to invest in an apple if it is not going to sell. to my main comment is us oil folks and i am pushing 80. my wife and i only have social security and a little bit of money that we have saved our whole life's. food costs is up a few years ago a can of corn was $.35. it is up to around $.80 depending on what brand you buy. president biden has spoke the truth for the first time -- the very first time. he told us less than one week ago, we are going to see price increases on our food and there is going to be a shortage. in closing i got one more thing. who is making a mistake of

taking this cheap oil out of the reserves and when he takes these millions of gallons out it is a political move to get the votes in november. when we have to replace the oil at 4, 5, 7 dollars per gallon who is going to pay for that. are we going to have to pay for that? i think the taxpayers pay for everything and i thank you for taking my call. you are making me wait too long. i had to go 30 days. thank you. host: we ask people to wait 30 days so we can get just as many different voices from across the country. democratic caller north carolina. caller: a couple of quick comments. first of all we live in the united states of amnesia. i want to complement jimmy

carter when he took office he encouraged and wanted to have cars to have at least 30 miles per gallon. we have forgotten about that. on the tv when i watch tv and i watch the dealerships advertise cars while they do is advertise suv's from a pickup trucks. none of these cars are getting better than 2222 miles per gallon. -- i drive a hybrid and i am not seeing any difference. thank god for hybrids. if you look at europe and people who live in the caribbean they are all driving compact cars. i do not want to mention or have this be a pejorative kind of question. i wonder how many of you drive big suvs and you are not driving

a fuel-efficient car. it is the car companies, big companies that are forcing and encouraging people to drive these big suvs. i do want to give a compliment to gm and the ceo of gm who is going to invest in electric vehicles. we forget, from opec to now and if we have listened to president carter we would be in a better state of affairs right now. host: dave in orlando. the higher prices are not bad. when bush was in office it was $4.65. americans are spoiled and wine. babies and hypocrites. pay her taxes and thank god you are in america. john, independent in florida. caller: it is impacting me not

that they because i am married with my wife. if i had kids, i am ok. i look at people who are less fortunate than me. what about the younger people just starting out? you have a kid and a wife. you are getting to work in starting in the workforce. four dollars plus for gas is just crippling. under joe biden $6,000 per year in tax increases just in gas taxes and inflation. this is a disaster. when the leases for the gas came out this administration changed the way they wanted to -- the leases. they insisted they have climate change in them. the gas companies went to court and sued him. the judge agreed that it was not really right to have the climate change.

the administration came back and said that well since you did that we are going to have to head back to the drawing board. now we got all kinds of holdups. we were energy independent under president trump a couple of years ago. we were a major exporter of gas and oil. now look at us. for your high inflation. this guys a disaster. don't think about you, think about the generation that is coming up. they are struggling. this is crippling to young people. host: we want to take a break. would be quebec we will be joined by two lawmakers this morning. we'll talk about the president's actions. lloyd smucker pennsylvania. we'll talk about the president's budget with him. he is a member of the ways and means committee. later mark pocan of wisconsin. he's a senior member of the appropriations committee. we will be right back. ♪

>> monday morning the senate judiciary committee will vote on whether to send judge ketanji brown jackson to the full senate for a vote. if confirmed she would be the first african-american woman to serve on the high court. watch live coverage beginning at 10 eastern on c-span. online at c-span.org or watch on or freddie -- our free video app. >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span two. exploring the people and events that tells the american story. at 12:15 p.m. historian talks -- how to learn from the influenza pandemic. as 22 -- as 2022 america deals.

all of which were experienced a century ago. at 2 p.m. eastern on the presidency, first ladies in their own words. we will look at the role of the first lady their time and the white house and issues important to them. this week we will feature hillary clinton. >> i think it is a standard to some extent the demand has changed. i am trying to find my own way through it and try to figure out how best to be true to myself, how to fulfill my responsibilities to my husband, my daughter and the country. >> exploring the american story. watch american history tv saturday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org. >> c-span now is a free mobile

app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on demand. keep up with the days events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all your fingertips. stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span's tv network and c-span radio. c-span now is available at the apple store, google play, downloaded for free today. he's been now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. >> washington journal continues. host: we are joined this morning with congress -- lloyd smucker of pennsylvania. let us begin congressman with the announcement from the white house for the president calling

for one million of oil -- one million bears of oil to be released. also saying to oil companies, you've got to wrap up production. guest: it is porton that -- it is important that oil companies wrap up production. -- they have slow walked permits as well. they have issued no new permits since they have been in office. the policies of this administration have helped lead us to the crisis that we are in now. what he is done on the oil reserves is roughly nine days of oil. the only way we can solve this is to begin to wrap up production. we should have bringing all of the ceos of the will companies together, asking them what we can do to ensure that we can speed up permitting processes. to get them drilling again. this is what should be done immediately. it would have a tremendous

impact on the price of gas and our security around the world. host: we listened yesterday. >> companies made very early $80 billion in profits. this year profits are expected to soar. this is the time -- not the time to sit on record profits. it is time to step up for the good of your country for oil to invest in oil production. to provide some relief for your customers, not investors and executives. i am a capitalist. i have no problem with corporations having profit. -- to the customers, communities in the country. no american companies to -- should take advantage of a pandemic. investing those profits in

production and innovation. that's what they should do. investing your customers. it is not just a sense of patriotic, it is good for business as well. right now oil and gas industry sitting on nearly 9000 and used but approved permits for production on federal lands. more than one million unused acres they have a right to pump on. families cannot afford that companies sit on these with their hands. to help execute this part of my plan i am calling for use it or lose it policy. congress should be companies pay fees on wells on federal leases they have not used in years. acres of public land they are hoarding without production. nobody's that are already preceded from these wells will not be affected. those sitting on unused leases and idle wells will either have to start producing or pay the price for their in action. host: what about the proposal? guest: policies implemented by

the president from his first day in office restricted production of oil here, reversed policies of the previous administration that led to energy independence, led to us being a net it -- exporter of oil. we need to reverse those policies. we need to ensure that we have the pipelines in place to move oil, we need to improve the permitting process to allow for quick permitting of new gas drilling where we can do so. the oil companies already have shown that we can -- they are the largest producer of oil in the world. we just had the rollout of the budget of this administration in the last week. $46 billion of new taxes on the oil companies over the next 10 years.

when we have record high gas prices, in what world does that make sense? new taxes on these companies. host: what about the 9000 permits? guest: having a permit is one thing. having at least is not mean necessarily that that is a place that can be drilled. we need to enjoy that we have permitting where we have great possibility of hitting oil when we drill. there is a lot of land where oil companies want to drill. have been unwilling to provide those pyramid. -- unwilling to provide those permits. caller: i wanted to know where the taxpayers are still giving the oil companies $20 billion a year. in subsidies, why? host: congressman, do you know? guest: i do know, as i've have mentioned, this administration is increasing taxes on the oil

companies by $45 million. that will deter additional development. we should be doing something similar to what the former president did with operational warp speed what we brought private industry and together with all of government to develop a vaccine in record time. we are facing a crisis here where i can talk to my constituents every day. i hear the impact of inflation. you go to the gas pump, grocery store. we are facing a real crisis. i have had constituents tell me they to choose between fuel or food. can they buy gas or put food on the table? we could fix these oil prices. it can take some time but it means we will have to open up and allow that will companies to drill. the policies of this administration are leading to more emissions because we are now begging for oil from venezuela and iran.

when oil is drilled there it is not nearly as clean as when oil is drilled here in the u.s. we will have less emissions if we do the drilling here than in other countries. host: joel in michigan. democratic color. caller: i think the government should go back and start regulating the price of gas. under the reagan administration gas was deregulated. if gas is the only source of oil -- or source of oil -- so as of energy that is not regulated the government should step back in and regulate it. i believe that -- i am not complaining about the price of gas when we are driving $70,000 trucks. you can afford four dollars and gas. guest: i believe the free

market. i think that is created more opportunity than any other system across the world. i think this is simple supply and demand. we need to increase the supply which will bring down the price. policies that are been put in place by this administration have decreased that supply. if we increase supply here the u.s. we will see prices go down over time. host: congressman, you mentioned the president's budget earlier. i am wondering if there is anything in it you can support. guest: sure. we want to ensure that america is safe and secure. one of the primary functions of government is to ensure that we are prepared when you have threats from around the world. there is a lot of spending that i will support. defense spending and other spending.

infrastructure is a core function of government. what i look at a budget overall, i think for myself i want it to accomplish a number of things. one, ensure our safety and security. to, make sure it provides maximum opportunity for families across my district, across the country to live their american dream. i want it to be set -- i wanted to be fiscally responsible so future generations can have the as well. i think this budget fails on all three. this is a budget that continues the policies of this administration that increase spending, massive increases in taxes that will affect, it will grow government and decrease the ability of people to live their american dream. by increasing taxes on gas and makes us less secure around the world. we have seen talk about how

those policies have led in some part at least two what we are seeing -- putin believed he had the leverage of energy over europe and us. he miscalculated how much we would respond and come together. that helped lead our energy policy and lead to where -- what we are seeing now. this budget increases deficits every single year for the next 10 years. they are projecting multi trillion in additional 14 trillion. it does not reduce the deficit in any way. it has continued ramping up of spending and taxing. that is not sustained on the long haul. host: this is abc's long haul. widens budget seeks -- biden intends to propose a minimum tax.

cut deficits. more than $1 trillion of the next decade. is this increase in taxes going to help lower the deficit? guest: in the first fiscal year this budget is about 1.4 trillion dollars rate that rises each year. no one outside the beltway, you take one step outside of the beltway and no one will believe that the deficit decreases under this budget. it is not there. the numbers are not there. but they are looking at is saying if we spend, they have some sort of what they call baseline. it makes no sense. they are saying we will potentially spend this much and cut from that. there is no cut in spending for what we are actually spending today. this is an increase every single year. host: a republican caller. caller: i do not mean to sound disrespectful but everybody realizes that this is all

business and port of your future plan. nothing happens on accident. this is all part of it. i find it amazing that i can sit here and watch a slush bill. more money for afghanistan. infrastructure bill. we are in massive crisis is everywhere and use it up there and passed laws that make no sense. a lynching law. lynching was 60 years ago. this is the stuff that we see. it is incredible how incompetent you are. it deems that it is planned. we pay for everything. you guys want to cry about raising taxes, taken out of your own checkbook. we sit here and watch you guys do this crop. it is up -- it is infuriating to hear republicans say blah blah blah. when you vote for v slush funds, who got the money out of this.

who is that money going to? it is going to you guys and all of your pet projects. how can we have a government that was -- all of you -- why are you guys so incompetent? host: are you in favor of increasing taxes on the rich? caller: when you say something like that, you know full and well that that is a line of crop and mile-long. i can look at the last 30 decades how each politician has ran their mouth and their script about lowering taxes. no, you are not. it is the stuff that he is seeing in his budget. where is the budget? there is no budget. they cry about that. they can pass a 1.5 trillion dollar bill and they all agree to it. he thinks he is going to do

unrealized gains. since the pandemic this government has been doing things that are completely illegal. host: i have to jump in. guest: sarah, thank you for your call. i hear there were in your voice. i agree with much of what you have said. i have had discussions with my constituents who say government is no longer working for them and believe that politicians are going to washington dc and serving their own interests and not the interests of the people. i am proud of during the first two years of the previous administration when we were in the majority we passed the tax cuts. it lowered taxes for people of all levels and increase the median household income by $6,000. we thought we would maybe get $4000 but by six thousand dollars annually -- i think we

can implement policies that will work for the american people, that will ensure that more people have the opportunity to get ahead, to do, to provide for families great i think we have an example just recently of how that has worked. that is not this budget. this budget is more government tax and spend and less reliance on the ingenuity -- of the american people. i hear the call. budgeting process in washington is broke and we must fix that. i would be happy to talk about that as well. it is unbelievable to me that every year for the last 20 years on average we have passed five crs. that is the continuing revolutions that allow for short-term spending. why? because we aren't able to pass a 12 month budget ever.

it is unbelievable how we run the federal government grade i serve on the budget committee and i hope to be part of putting processes in place that provide for more accountability to ensure that we are much better stewards of the taxpayer dollars than what you're seeing right now. host: how would you fix the budget process? guest: we need to go back to the budget act of 1974 which is the last time that a process was put in place that we looked at the entire process and try to build some more accountability that is when the budget committee was created, members of other committees were assigned to that committee and it was a step of the right direction. it still did not work. you have 12 different appropriations bills that are passed every year with no one accountable for the entire budget. you have to build some more accountability into the process.

i think we should come together, both parties, this is a problem for the future of the country if we are not able to solve this. we should put the right people in the room and have a real discussion about how we can fix the process, how we can build an accountability that is missing today to ensure that we pass an annual budget. there are a lot of things that could be done. it is about putting the right people in the room and then changing the structure to ensure that we do a much better job. host: jackson will florida. -- jacksonville, florida. caller: i am retired military. i have heard people complain about how our gas prices -- i do not hear them complain about how high the real estate has gone up and complaining about -- i hear

about people talking about how they have received social security. -- you are only receiving social security. you work and you put your money -- when it is time to retire you only get social security so you want to complain. if donald trump was in office this would be -- i am glad he is out of office. host: congressman, your response. guest: you mentioned social security. i completely agree with you. we need to ensure that people have paid into the system based on the promise of social security and the promise of a retirement that they are receiving dollars back for their retirement. we need to ensure that promise is kept.

when you look at social security today based on the demographic that have occurred we need to make sure changes to strengthen the program to ensure that the promise can be kept. that should be done now. he mentioned inflation. in my view, it is supply and demand. if you print trillions of dollars, you essentially pass legislation spending trillions of dollars that you do not have. you print the money, you expand the money supply and at the same time you restrict supply. you are increasing demand by putting dollars into the economy and then you are restricting supply by stopping the drilling of oil and production of oil and gas. we did have some supply chain issues as well due to the pandemic. that is what hasn't driven this inflation at every level. these are the policies that we should stop. instead this budget is doing the

same thing. it would spend trillions of dollars more that we do not have. you're going to see, i fear if we implement something like this budget, continued inflation. we are already at 40 year highs. we must implement policies to stop this. it starts with better fiscal responsibility. stop the trillions of dollars in spending. ensure that the supply chain issues are fixed, increased drilling for oil which is a big component here. thank you. host: frank in maryland, a republican. caller: i just like to make a general statement that this government is so full of sneaky snakes. the other day they tell you they are going to cut off russia and they do not want nothing to do with china. the international monetary fund, janet yellen, they told her don't do it. she went behind their backs anyway and gave $90 billion to

russia. -- billion to china. when is this ever going to stop with these people? they keep spending money like there's no tomorrow. guest: thank you. one of the things that frustrated be boast about what we saw happening in ukraine and our response to it was that we were sending russia 75 -- 75 -- per day for oil that was helping to fund the war. we did stop that. the administration was slow in doing that. i also supported the sanctions but they do not apply to energies so there is a lot of money flowing to russia that is helping fund this. these oil policies have brought

us to the place we were are now. bringing got drilling and development of oil back here would help fix a lot of the policy. you mentioned china. we've seen china become more and more aggressive. they are a threat to our future and we are beginning to move supply chains back. we realize that during the pandemic for instance much of our generic medicines are made in china. we even had the chinese threatened to stop production of medicine. it was a wake-up call to many of us that we need to ensure that we produce as much american production of key minerals, medicines and other areas rather than rely on a country that could potentially be our enemy going forward.

through the tax policy that we implemented several years ago we were seeing that happen more and more companies investing back into the united states, developing jobs, creating jobs here rather than overseas. it is a policy that we should continue. host: kyle. caller: i appreciate this conversation. two points i would like to ask the congressman. he placed over the subsidy act before with the oil companies. subsidies that they are getting. it was recorded in multiple news outlets, organizations, president trump negotiated to reduce production. in a phone call he told the crown prince that endless the organization -- started cutting oil production he would be powerless to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw troops from the kingdom.

that is an example of what has caused price increases. i would like to hear how the congressman response to that. guest: under the policies of the previous administration for the first time we became energy independent. we were a debt exporter of oil rather than relying on other countries. that changed in the first year of this administration. it is very important that we get back to that as quickly as we can. host: carrying california. independent. caller: thank you for taking my call. you mentioned the $6,000 increase for household incomes. i am on social security. i never saw any $6,000. guest: social security is tied to what we call cpi social security rates automatically go up based on cpi.

what i am talking about is for instance in my district the average household income is just about $60,000 per year. of that average household income across the country -- had been essentially flat. people going out and earning money, maybe it is two income earners in a household. that had been essentially flat for robles to get -- flat for almost two decades. that increased by about $6,000 per household. people across my district felt that. inflation was under control at the time so these were real wage increases. people were feeling that, certainly in the district i represent. host: lloyd smucker.

thank you for the conversation this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: we will return to the conversation about oil and gas prices and the steps that president biden took yesterday to try to curb those rising gas prices. there are the lines on your screen. you can start dialing in. later on we will be joined by democrat mark pocan of wisconsin's. we will talk about gas prices and the budget. we will be right back. ♪ >> book tv, every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing the latest nonfiction books. in 2003 professor -- was the first author on -- he has written dozens of books. life at 12 noon eastern. join our in-depth conversation as he rejoins us to talk about capitalism and social exchange.

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democratic caller. caller: i worked for a refinery being built in louisiana in the 1980's and i was a welder and we had a man walk through the for finery -- the refinery and he was called the answer man and i asked him a question. what percentage of a barrel of oil goes to gasoline and diesel? he told me 40% went for gas and diesel in 60% went for plastic and all the other byproducts for the barrel of oil. europe should already be paying 40% of the price of the barrel of oil and that is all i have to say and no one has ever said that. host: john in california, republican. caller: thank you. if president biden had just left the energy sector alone when he got elected, when he took office

, we would be down in the twos and threes for a gallon of gas. he shut down the pipeline. he declared war on the oil industry. we are probably 40 or 50 years away from being able to service all of the electric cars that have to be built and all of the infrastructure that would be needed to switch to all electric. we got way out over our skis when it came to the screen new deal over what i believe is actually a scam. i think climate change is scam. i think a lot of people are making a lot of money by building these solar panels and batteries for electric cars. solar panels life expectancy is 70 years. we have probably 10,000 acres of them in california. host: listen to the president

yesterday because he wants to speed this up by using the defense production act for more clean energy. [video clip] pres. biden: i mentioned the directive to strengthen our clean energy economy. i will use the defense production act to secure america's supply chains for the critical materials that go into batteries for electric vehicles and the storage of renewable energy, lithium, graphite, nickel, and so much more. we need to end our reliance on china and other countries. i will use every tool i have to make that happen. yes, building a clean energy future will safeguard our national security. yes, it will tackle climate change. yes, it will ensure that america has millions of paying jobs for years to come. most important thing my plan will do right away is save your family money. here is what i mean. under my plan, which is before congress now, we can take a

vantage of the next generation of electric vehicles and the typical driver will save 80 -- $80 a month. when your home is powered by safer, cheaper, cleaner electricity, you could save $500 a month on average. [end video clip] host: president biden from yesterday. mickey in new jersey, independent. we are getting your reaction to what the president said he wanted to do to ease the price of oil and gas. good morning. caller: good morning. me and my wife are on social security and if this is it only knew -- and if this president only knew the cost of social security, he would back up. nobody talked about the social security. it is really a disgrace. i want to know why. host: joseph, alabama, democratic caller. caller: how are you all doing this morning? host: good morning.

caller: i worked on the strategic oil reserve back in the 1980's. i also worked the job that the other man was talking about. we need -- we were pumping oil and we did not even know how much oil was in the ground. it was ridiculous. what happened in 2020 when they had all of that crude oil stored. how come we were not buying it all? a lot of the oil in the reserve, they bought that oil for $10 per barrel. i would be selling it at $100 per barrel now. we need the money. have a good income america. host: module, pennsylvania, republican, -- rodger, pennsylvania, republican. good morning.

caller: i worked for four years for major oil companies. -- i worked for 40 years for major oil companies. exxon tells me what i can retail it for. that is just about right. you look at the price at the pump on the street, that is governed by the marketplace in which that station is located. when you look at the price of crude oil when it comes out of the refinery, that is based on the world market price of crude. we were an importer of brick root from the north sea -- brent crude from the north sea through british petroleum. blame the oil companies. they just want to make money. if they charge too much, the demand goes down. it is a game of trying to balance income and outcome just

like the family budget. as far as electric cars -- host: i want to share with you and others that congress is going to hear from six oil company executives. they will testify before the house energy and congress committee about business practices and the industry. you can watch that live on wednesday at 10:30 a.m. on c-span3, online, or watch full on our c-span now, our free video app you can download. rodger, your next thought. caller: electric cars, the electricity comes from somewhere. it either comes from coal power plants, gas power plants, it could be hydroelectric, it could be nuclear. but that electricity is not

clean energy. some of it is, but most of it is not. until we get the electricity to come from clean energy, we will not solve the problem. the president declared war on the oil industry because that was part of the green new deal program and he did that to satisfy his global constituents. what joe biden knows about how oil gets from the pump -- from the well to the pump, he has no idea and most the people who work for him have no idea either. i love the idea that the oil executives are telling congress how it works because congress has no idea either. host: david, michigan, democratic caller. share your reaction to the president's announcement yesterday. caller: hi, greta and thank you very much for taking my call. happy april 1. it used to be my late mother's favorite day. she would always pull something on us kids.

to get back to the point, i remember paying over four dollars per gallon under george w. bush and other republicans would say, the president does not have anything to do with the price of gas. i remember when obama got the $4.50 per gallon and got it down to $1.70 per gallon. no, you can give him any credit. the president does not have anything to do. when trump left office, it was $3.40 per gallon. you cannot blame the president. how come all of these republican women the president now? at least see is trying to do something to lower the price of gas -- at least he is trying to do something to lower the price of gas. at least the guy is trying to do something. all of these hypocritical republicans, the last caller i definitely agree with, that the

president does not have anything to do with the price of gas. this president is at least trying to do something about the price of gas. thank you very much for taking my call. host: we will go to jones out of california, independent. caller: i am calling about the gas. first of all, can you hear me? host: we can. caller: i think this whole thing is a set up by putin and the gas companies to get rich because putin invaded the other countries and he thought he could get rich. he is already the richest man on the planet by stealing all the money in russia. now i causing this war and gas crisis -- now by causing this war and gas crisis, he is getting richer. we should set up an investigation on this son of a

bitch. host: tony in wisconsin, republican. are you with us? caller: yes. host: go ahead. caller: i have a couple of comments on the gas. 100 million barrels that biden wants to release. we already paid for. who gets the 100 million barrels he wants to release? who is getting the money because the government is basically selling it to the oil companies at $100 per barrel. that is $100 billion per day. who gets that money? host: michael in ohio, democratic caller. caller: it is me, michael.

when i drive and stuff, i want the gas to be low. right now, i think joe biden is doing a great job and stuff. host: michael, this is joseph on twitter who writes to say, electricity in california is not cheap and varies from $.24 to $.60 and charging a tesla cost between $24 and $60 depending on the time of day. john in california, republican. what do think about president biden tapping the oil reserve yesterday? caller: what i think is the president needs to educate the american people on a few things. did you know the government

makes more money off of a gallon of gasoline at the pump than exxon does? did you know that the state of california makes more money off of a gallon of gas at the pump than exxon does? host: because of taxes? caller: yes, taxes is the money that we pay every time you fill up your car, $.60, $.70 for the government. $.50 for the state of california. exxon makes maybe a nickel. why aren't you telling people that they ought to be thinking why it gallon of milk costs less than a gallon of gas when a whole got more resources and energy and regulations and every single into the gallon of milk than into the gallon of gasoline? we are being ripped off here. also, biden does not want lower gasoline prices. he went to london and demanded

that electricity bsg best gasoline. -- be as cheap as gasoline. how do you do that? you raise the price of gasoline. that is why he shut down the pipeline. he wants the price of gasoline to go up but it went up too much. then he went, i'm going to pretend to lower gasoline by releasing. what is it going to go down, nickel? come on, you suckers. you have to figure this out. we are being ripped off at the pump. he is giving gas companies like this the couch as. -- license to gouge us. host: greg abbott, the governor of texas tweeting, biden does not get it. stop blaming oil companies. texas will make american oil independent again. kevin mccarthy from california,

the strategic petroleum reserve is already a 20 year low. president biden's shortsighted stunt will cripple our future readiness and will not deliver relief from soaring prices. americans deserve solutions to lower gas prices, not biden's dateless political stint. jacky rosen, from nevada, it gouge his working family that the pump. i will continue to lower prices for nevadans. i am glad we are getting relief by leveraging our strategic reserve. also, a democrat of new mexico, "we need to cut our reliance on 34 and oil and get americans out from under the desk cut -- cut our reliance on foreign oil." david in illinois, democratic caller. caller: good morning.

host: good morning. caller: in the previous section, question was asked about subsidies for oil companies. i would like to know what that is and i would also like to know what subsidies are for green energy. thank you. host: we will try to find it. ken in cincinnati, ohio, independent. caller: hello. one of the solutions is to return to trump's level of energy production. we have to do that. that will lower the price. the other thing with electric cars that they are overlooking, the time they will take to recharge a battery at a recharge station if you have two cars in front of you. even if it takes 20 minutes to recharge a battery, you could spend 40 minutes just sitting there waiting for other people to recharge. also, they are overlooking the

cost it takes to replace a lithium battery, which is into the thousands of dollars. once again, people are getting hoodwinked thinking that it is something for nothing, that all of a sudden if we go to electric cars, you do not have to pay the high price of gas. but the hidden costs are much higher. we need to look at all of this. to the biden voters, trump told you about this. host: from brookings.edu, "the environmental study institute reported that subsidies to the fossil fuel industry totaled $20 billion per year with 80% toward oil and gas. in addition from 2019 to 2023, tax subsidies will reduce federal revenue by $11.5 billion considering that production subsidies grew 28% from 2017 to 2019, the united states will be

under scrutiny from other countries wanting to see evidence of reform before making their own commitments." talking about reforms to greener energy. genie in livingston, louisiana, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am fine. how are you? caller: trying to wake up. host: what you think about what the president did yesterday? caller: i do not think much of what he has done since he has been in office. we in livingston, our gas was 1.79 per gallon when trump left office. biden got in. it is two dollars per gallon more. his policies have done this. he is so busy trying to please the left. he is not moderate. he is throwing the american people under the bus. it is just a shame.

we go out there and we work and we cannot pay our bills. my utility bill was doubled over a month ago because of his policies and the cost. it is ridiculous. when we had trump, at least we had some money. i got my first tax return because of his tax cuts. but they were trying to tell us they were horrible. biden has done nothing. democrats have done nothing but ruin this country between inflation and everything else and he wants to blame everybody else but if trump was in there, it would be his fault. that is how they are. i am getting really tired of this. the people down here are tired. we make $40,000 per year. do you know how this hits us? and they don't care. do you know why they don't care? because they have it nice fat bank account -- because they have a nice fat bank account and they are flying home every weekend. host: this is from wikipedia.

the international renewable energy agency tract 634 billion energy subsidies and found 70% were fossil fuel subsidies. 20% went to renewable power generation. 6% to biofuels. just over 3% to nuclear. michael, marilyn, democratic caller. your opinion on this? caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: three superquick points. can you imagine the arguments when we were going from horse and buggy to cars and lessons these people -- and listen to these people talk going from the combustible engine to electric, can you imagine? and the number of power plants, because they bring up this think

about how they are fueled with fossil fuels, the number of power plants is far less then the number of cars -- less than the number of cars and tractor-trailers on the roads. to put fossil fuels into power plants, sooner or later, that will solve itself. we can have -- can you imagine if we had all electric cars? normally, everybody drives to church, to the supermarket, to the gas station, or whatever. that is it. or to work. that is $300 or less. the last point, the teenagers, your children, your grandchildren are the ones that will be saying what happens if,

and then they will be the ones coming up with the new batteries, the new technology and the advances that are going to improve that 300 miles per charge and the weight -- wait at the charging station. host: james in michigan, republican, your turn. caller: the clip you play from biden, the last thing he said was heating my home, i will save $500 per month? i do not spend $500 per month to heat my house. host: thomas does it cost -- how much does it cost? caller: i am paying $140 for electric. how my supposed to save $500 if i am not putting it out? host: jessica, new jersey, independent. good morning. caller: good morning.

if you really want to know why the prices are high, watch the quarterly report. march 31 into the first quarter this year -- march 31 ended the first quarter this year. you will see astronomical increases in their money that they have made. they are the ones making the money, if you have not realized it. they did it in 1973 and 1974 and we were really hard up and we waited on line for two days. just watch that report. it will come out in two days and you will say, oh my god. they made that kind of money? yeah, they are making money on us. thank you. host: kenny, north carolina, democratic caller. caller: yes. i want to say that the gas prices, i agree with the lady. every time we talk about inflation, we should talk about

their increase profit margins. this is nothing but price gouging. the other biggest thing that nobody talks about is not only we have a right wing that believes the law and -- believes the lie and if you do not go along with the lie, you are censured and kicked out of the party. putin and trump instead of the united states and we wonder why we cannot get anything done. when the insurrectionists go all the way to the supreme court and nobody is held accountable, we have already been overthrown. we are a fascist country now. mussolini said if you cannot slide cigarette paper between the government and the

corporations, then you are fascist. but do not call it fascism. call it corporatism because the corporations own the government. did we fight world war ii for nothing? i am sorry. host: deborah in maryland, democratic caller. caller: hello. i just wanted to say, somebody said we have to go back to producing the oil we were producing under trump. "politico" said oil production in the u.s. in 2021 was on par with 2020 production and exceeded 2017 to 2018. the only year under trump and wish production was higher was 2019. i wish you would get somebody on there who is not a political show live from the energy information industry that has

been keeping track of all the stuff for over 30 years and have them explain exactly what is being produced, what is not being produced, and why and compare over the decades instead of having these, like that republican who was lying through his teeth. host: recently, we had an oil and gas analyst on the journal. i am blanking on her name right now but she went over what was happening during the trump administration, what happened during the pandemic, and what has happened right now during the biden administration. go to our website, c-span.org. go to the top of the website. you can search in the video library for the washington journal in this series and you should be able to find it there, the information you're looking for. we can certainly do it again so i appreciate the suggestion. host: when we come back,

democratic congressman mark pocan joins us from wisconsin. we will talk about gas prices and the impact on the midterm election. we will be right back. >> monday morning, the senate judiciary committee will vote on whether to send supreme court nominee judge ketanji brown jackson to the senate for a vote. if confirmed, she would be the first african-american woman to serve on the hike. -- to serve on the high court. watch live coverage online or on our free video app c-span now. >> something that i do because i find it intellectually challenging and exciting and demanding and it is something that i do because i feel it has to be done. >> in 2003, the first author on

book tv's "in depth." he has written dozens of books. sunday, join our conversation as he rejoins us to talk about capitalism, u.s. foreign policy, and social exchange. some of his most recent books, consequences of capitalism, and notes on resistance. join the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, text, and tweets on c-span2. ♪ >> first ladies in their own words, our series looking at the role of the first lady, their time in the white house, and the issues important to them. >> it was a great advantage to know what it was like to work in a school because education is such an important issue both for a governor, but also for a president.

that was also very helpful to me. >> using materials from c-span's award winning biography series "first ladies." >> i am very much the kind of person who believes that you should say what you mean and mean what you say and take the consequences. >> and c-span's online video library. we will feature first ladies lady bird johnson, betty ford, nancy reagan, hillary clinton, michelle obama, and melania trump. watch "first ladies" saturday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2 or listen to the podcast on the c-span now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us for our last half-hour this morning is congressman mark pocan who

serves on the appropriations committee, education and labor committee as well. let's begin with oil and gas prices. the move by president biden yesterday, your reaction. guest: it is a good move. i think we should be more aggressive with some of the oil company executives. gas prices started going up last march when in texas their energy grid was not properly supported for the weather. they had some outages that affected the processing and the next thing you know, gas prices shot up and never went down and we have recordings from oil executives where they said they increased production in order to return more for shareholders. they did not give a damn about consumers. that has had prices up. ukraine is having additional facts. the president is doing the right thing. this is glad -- this is one thing where i am glad the oil companies are coming for a hearing because there is more to

the story that involves price gouging. host: a poll found that four in 10 americans blamed the biden administration prices for gas prices -- blame the biden administration policies for gas prices. are you concerned about this? guest: we should be talking about the reality of this which is price gouging by oil companies for over a year. we should put pressure on them. the president said he would release more oil and the price per barrel went down. that shows you the artificially high price that has been out there and that is the right thing the president is doing by going after those companies and congress having hearings on that. we have to get the really out there. otherwise, republicans will rally around joe biden money to rise gas prices, as ridiculous as that is. a number of people start believing it. we will get the truth out there and eventually these oil companies will realize in addition to getting unnecessary

subsidies and other things, they will start really upsetting congress quite a bit if they keep gouging our constituents. host: the house energy and commerce committee will hear testimony from the oil company executives about their business practices and the industry wednesday, next week at 10:30 a.m. eastern. watch on c-span3, c-span.org, or the free video app. what would you ask of the oil executives? guest: i am not on the committee but what i would ask is, refer to some of the tapes we have where they have literally said they are getting increased year ago because they will make sure they secure their shareholders. they have thousands of unused ability in federal property and other areas do additional supply and demand and not taking vantage it. they want to preserve these. at some point, the federal government has to quit taking it too easy on them.

when it comes to certain things that benefit their company's, they should be just as concerned about the consumers especially at a time of war. the fact that they are not shows lack of a patriotic nature in their companies. we should treat them different when it comes to subsidies. host: losing onto the president's budget. you said -- moving on to the president's budget. what did you mean? guest: the last two years, if you ask people with the biggest national security threat this country has had, it clearly was covid-19 and yet we cannot use defense dollars for covid-19. there are a number of national security threats from the pandemic to cyberattack to climate change that we should be putting more dollars in because they are national security threats. the way to do the defense budget , most of the money goes to defense contractors who often

make vehicles that sink. the most recent class of aircraft carrier gets a toilet clogged and it costs $400,000 worth of chemicals to unclog them. you are literally flushing money down the drain. there are 800 efficiencies and in one year, they fixed two of them. they are really treating us like pawns in many ways. too many lawmakers look at the defense program -- the defense budget as a jobs program rather than a defense program that it should be. a modern definition of defense would include pandemics and climate change and cyberattack and other things. if we did that, that is a different debate. it is about making sure the defense contractors continue to have very robust bank account. that does not provide for the national defense. host: from the president's budget proposal, this is from the white house and the crv gear

$5.8 trillion in spending including $318 billion for defense. 1.4 trillion dollars in deficit spending. deficits would total $4.4 trillion in four years. the national debt would grow to more than $39 trillion by 2032. congressman, how do you justify that deficit? guest: the president is bringing much of it down as he is trying to do many other things. we are going through a once in a century pandemic. we have made major investments. the real story is that we spent $1.9 trillion on the american rescue plan putting money in people's pockets, jobs, putting kids back into school, getting people into jobs. then we passed $1.2 trillion in infrastructure bill. we talked about that for decades and we finally got it done under joe biden and the democrats last year.

those are two major bills that will have a huge impact on american families and will help with wages and other things combating the inflation that has been driven by covid. i think we are coming out of a pandemic. this is another good budget by the president. i would argue we need a different definition of defense so we spend our dollars wisely. spending in healthcare, education, and other things, they are proper investments and we will get people out of covid, back to normalcy in a quicker way. host: it sounds like you are a guest on the budget despite the defense spending -- it sounds like you are a yes on the budget despite the defense spending. guest: there is a company in my district that makes a part that goes on the ships and every year they asked me to buy more ships than the department of defense asks for because they make a part. you extrapolate that by

congressional districts and you can tell why we did not audit the pentagon like we do every other agency. that is a problem. it is not a jobs program. it is an issue of national defense and national defense should be about national security threats which includes things like pandemics and the budget does not. when it comes to the budget, the president did right on absolutely everything with the exception that we need is congress to have a big debate about what defense is and i think with just a few word changes, we could invest in these other areas. host: let's invite viewers to join the conversation. phone numbers on your screen. you can talk with congressman mark pocan about the rising oil and gas prices, about the budget proposed by the president, or the latest economic numbers. let me share with you, these are just out. the u.s. economy added 431,000 jobs in march. this is from "the washington post."

the u.s. has averaged 541,000 job gains for year -- job gains per year. 93% of jobs lost in the pandemic are now back, congressman. guest: these are great numbers. you would think if it was not for the last four years of the trump presidency where the republican party became a cult, that you would have a president who has dropped unemployment like that, who has invested in infrastructure, who has done as much for the economy as he's done despite the inflation caused by coming out of covid. not the president's fault, but he once in a century pandemic. this number should be at 70% but because of the political rhetoric we have been swimming in during the trump administration, it is harder. those are solid numbers and joe biden does deserve credit. host: dave, armstrong creek, wisconsin, democratic caller. caller: i wish you were

representing me instead of who i have. i want to point out that blaming the president for the price of gas at the pump is ridiculous. it has never been that way. one of the previous callers pointed that out from president to president. during the pandemic, they could not sell a barrel of oil. the price was down, it cost them more to drill than to sell. they are trying to make back the profits that they lost. i know republicans always bring up, he shut down the keystone pipeline. it was never going in the first place. it was never built and it was going to pump oil from canada down to louisiana to be refined and that was going to go on the global market. the price of oil does not have

anything to do. we do not make the price of oil. that is market-controlled. those were the points i wanted to make. guest: the caller is right. thanks for calling from my home state. it is exactly what we have said. we have recordings of these executives who have said that they were going to go back into production. this is going back a year ago when there was less usage because of covid. instead, they wanted to return more for their shareholders. out of corporate greed, prices went up for everyone. now there is a real reason with the war that there is fluctuation and the president is addressing it. but a president does not set oil prices but oil executives can rip off consumers. host: edward in colorado, republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to ask you a question.

do you know anything about nasa catalytic converter that was invented back in 2002? it reduces car pollution and basically is 100% efficient. existing catalytic converters are only 70%. they do not work when you first start your car up. we are all after clean-air. we are all after electric cars to purify the air and make everything less dependent on falsely fueled. this type of converter can be used. i am looking at the article right now. it is cheaper to put on cars. we can make a transfer in clean-air. do you know anything about that? i have asked this question several times to different people that are interested in

less use of gasoline. it can be used on industrial engines. host: congressman? guest: not offhand but one of the products -- points you brought up is important. it is not just about the environment by converting to clean energy. it is about having to rely on certain regions of the world that are more volatile that sometimes we put a lot of money into the pentagon in order to make sure that we are able to maintain that flow of oil. there are a lot of reasons why we should be more concerned about converting to clean energy. i have a .5 kilowatts of solar at my home. when i get the bill for $13, that is the all-time time low i get with the year. there is nothing like paying $13 for your utility bill. when we do that, we are not having to rely on other countries and other things that cost us money, including in the pentagon budget. host: don, ohio, independent.

caller: hi. first, i would like to see the government roll back the subsidies for the oil companies. i think they should exist on their own profit margin. as far as the supplies, capping strategic supplies, -- tapping strategic supplies, i think it is wrong to tap those strategic supplies because they will have to be replaced and it cost more to replace that oil than to put it there in the first place. guest: i completely agree with you. it is absolutely ridiculous that we are supplying any kind of subsidy to seriously profitable industries who clearly did not care about consumers. unfortunately, some of the regional politics where the jobs are interferes with that. what the president is doing is trying to address the high gas prices and this is one of the few things he can do.

but in the long-term, if this does not give us one more reminder why electric vehicles make a lot of sense and why we need to invest in them, which the president did. half a million charging stations in the infrastructure bill across the country. the quicker we convert over and the auto manufacturers have been working with congress to do this, the better off we will be so we do not need to have these at the debate. host: shay in missouri. caller: i would like to point out these people that are blaming biden for the gas prices and the inflation, they are going up in the other countries too and i wanted to point that out and see what he says about that. guest: that is a great point. how is joe biden affecting inflation in europe? the rhetoric in washington is always really deep. i have to go home and shower at

the end of the day, there is so much of it. i have been a small business owner. i was 23 when i opened a small business. i have had all kinds of price increases. it is economics 101 or maybe even economics 99. when there are supply and demand issues, you will have an increase. because everything opened up at once last year and there were a worldwide increase for goods and we do not make enough things in the united states and we are relying on overseas production, there is a scarcity because everyone wants everything at once. scarcity drives prices up which is inflation. it is really very basic what happened. clearly, joe biden did not do that. a once in a century pandemic dad. -- a once in a century pandemic did. we are coming out of the. -- we are coming out of it. that is just the reality. people who try to take advantage of this by blaming the president , i hope people can see through it and i hope people take them

as credible. host: dennis, texas, independent. caller: good morning. i would like to ask the congressman how much oil was put in the reserves under the trump administration when the oil was so cheap that they were trying to get gasoline away? if i'm not mistaken, i think it was during the trump administration. host: the first year of the pandemic, is that right congressman? guest: i am not sure if i call the full question. host: he was wondering when there was no demand or the demand was low for gas during the pandemic and the market was flush with oil and gas, then how much did the former president put into the strategic reserve? guest: i want to stress, this is a solution right now the president is doing because it is something he could do to affect oil prices but there is not much

he can do here in that is the problem. what i do not want to do is have people get lost on the strategic reserves. more importantly, i would hope that this drives home the point that we need electric vehicles and we need to come up with other renewable and clean energy sources so we do not have to rely on these repeated it, whether -- rely on these repeated events in the ab worldwide events. -- repeated events, whether it be worldwide events. the president did that in the infrastructure bill. we need to do more of it as congress. i hope that the public because the pressure on members of congress. eventually the leaders will follow. i am a big believer in that. people need to call congress and demand us to do more and eventually it will happen. host: cornelius, a republican

out of indiana. good morning. caller: good morning. i do not know if you know julia ludlow, she serves the fifth congressional district here and her husband died of covid-19 and my dad did too. i have comorbidities and stuff like that. i believe you need to look at fauci and find out how these chinese communist designed it. my dad thought the communist chinese, he was a korean war vet . we look at dr. fauci -- will you look at dr. fauci to see how this stuff was found out? guest: sorry to hear about your family and my mom also passed away about a month ago.

i am mad about that but at the same time, i was following the science and so far there is nothing that points to the theory that is out there. there are a lot of republicans around here love to want to fight with china at all levels. this is a good way to keep those contractors wealthy. but i do not believe it is real. there has been lots of information that we looked at and it is still not coming up. you always want a reason why. i completely understand. especially when it affects your family like it affected my family. i have nothing to point to that as being the reason why we have covid. host: richard is in kenya -- richard is in virginia. caller: i would just like to say with the gas prices, why not bring up a bill for the american people, send stimulus gas checks

out and put the republicans on notice and let them vote against the american people. at least the democrats will show that they tried to help the people of the united states with the gas prices. host: let's take that idea. guest: i apologize. i missed what he said. host: he said why not give americans ate stimulus check to help with rising gas prices. guest: what we are doing next week on wednesday, bringing in oil executives to answer for themselves for holding americans hostage, gas prices is one of those things we can do. we have done stimulus checks. they were important for people to get by. i want to make sure we did not get into a repeated pattern of having oil companies not only rip off taxpayers by giving subsidies, but rip off consumers by exhorting prophets.

we have to expose that and the democrats are doing the right thing by having that hearing next week. host: theresa in florida, independent. caller: good morning. i have a brief comment. i watched "washington journal" in the morning. i would like to settle the division in our country. that is why i'm an independent. i do not think it helps when politicians call other parties cults and i would like the politicians to try and bring us together more. guest: i totally understand. i hear that a lot back home. i have been doing this for almost 30 years. i have never seen it this bad. the rhetoric under donald trump. now you have republican members of congress. you do not get in trouble for going to a white nationalist conference.

that is ridiculous. we are not getting upset because he called zelensky a thug but we are upset because he is exposing something that is happening. that is what we have become because the republican party has become a cult of a personality. i wish more republican leaders would be like liz cheney and defend the republican party. we could have differences. liz cheney and i disagree greatly on the pentagon budget but i respect the fact that she is willing to fight for the country over her political party. until we get more people in this modern party to do that, that is the reality. infrastructure, the fact that that was not a unanimous vote after we all talked about it for years, they did not want to give joe biden the victory. joe biden got a big victory and he got something done for the american people. that's it have been -- that should have been celebrated by

everyone. host: a republican. caller: i was wondering on strategic oil, when you pull that out, how much was it when you put it in and how much is it going to cost when you put it back? isn't that just kicking the ball down the road? as far as stimulus checks go, he is one of the largest state tax on gasoline. he wants to take your gas tax and have somebody process it and give it back to him and write checks and give it back to the people. how much sense does that make? host: congressman? guest: you are right. donald trump did try to get infrastructure done and failed. he could not get it to the floor when republicans were in charge. that is why joe biden deserves credit for it. $1.2 trillion last year we

passed. stimulus checks, that may not be the best answer. that got mentioned before. i would rather make sure the oil companies are not ripping off consumers. on the middle country -- on the middle question, on the reserves, i do not think anyone wants gas prices to stay high. the president is doing the little that he can and this is one thing he can do to reduce gas prices. let's at least let him try to lower the price for consumers. host: what about this latest round of relief for covid-19 aid? where does it stand right now with negotiations in the senate, with senator mitt romney? what do you know about what this package may look like and what will it do? guest: we think this and it will send a bill to the house. it will be around $10 billion.

the white house asked for $22 billion, much of it for domestic reasons. some of it for international vaccines because if we do not do that, we will have the variant and it is not in our best interest to have more variants. this is central funding. have you ever sarah was before the appropriations commission yesterday explaining that they are running out of money in areas to help. we have to get ahead of the pandemic, not just responding to the pandemic and part of this is responding. part of it is trying to get us ahead. i am glad they are working in a bipartisan way and when we get it next week in the house, i think it will happen and we will get the president to sign it and that will be helpful. host: what will be in there for the individual american? guest: there is money around testing, there are about dollars -- there are a lot of dollars for therapy and testing.

these are dollars that we have to budget for that we have doing for quite a while and because covid still exists, we need additional dollars. i think in this case from what i understand, $1 billion. we need more for international vaccines. i would hope that we can figure out some ways to do emergency funding to help on that. the problem we have is the republicans said dollars came from unused existing dollars. they are not that many unused existing dollars in covid. let's be smart about the pandemic. let's get ahead of the next pandemic and ends is what the biden administration is trying to do. host: you said this and it will send you the bill to our what is the timeline for getting it passed? guest: i never predict descendant although i am hoping it will happen next week -- i never predict descendant -- the

senate, although i am hoping it will happen next week. host: what happens next in the legislative calendar? guest: then we are off. we are in districts for the next couple of weeks. even though we just finished a couple weeks ago, the fiscal year ends with the arm of his bill. we just got the appropriations budget and we are getting the secretaries to go over the budget. there is a breathing period. we had less this year but we will get the process going and hopefully get everything done by the september 30 fiscal year. host: congressman mark pocan, thank you for the conversation. guest: appreciate it. host: the house is coming in one hour early. they will begin their legislative session in just a minute. live coverage here on c-span. thank you all for watching today. [captioning performed by the

national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. april 1, 2022. i hereby appoint the honorable ed perlmutter to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: today's prayer will be offered by our