and we expect that e.p.a. and the department of energy to follow through on the congressional intent that was outlined in the 2005 law and conduct and complete that study as soon as possible which correlates closely with the legislation that we're sponsoring. bear in mind, the measures i've just discussed don't cost anything. they take no funding to work, yet they can help us reduce fuel prices for the american consumer, for our american families. they can make doing business in america more affordable, reduce our trade deficit and help get americans back to work again. we need to increase domestic fuel production and we need to provide regulatory relief in order to do it. because high energy prices, whether it's fuel for our cars or electricity for our homes and businesses, impact virtually every sector of american life. that includes jobs. that includes economic growth. that includes the purchasing power of the american family. ultimately it includes our standard of living and our quality of life. our future

surveillance are really able to do some amazing work you might have seen attacks like this from the e.p.a. we have observed that litter in your vicinity we all need to do our part in the effort to care for our planet please pick up that kansas and. it's we all know what important things the president has on his mind here's one you might be getting from barack obama himself urgence chicago bulls are tied with two minutes left turn on e.s.p.n. . and from your friends at the n.s.a. love the pictures you sent to your boyfriend the other night keep them coming. and also those are some serious text message that we have to look for to put we also came up with some text messages that we'd like to see from government but for which we're not exactly holding our breath here's what we'd like to see from the department of transportation sorry about all those speed traps turns out the highway patrol is more concerned with raising revenue than protecting people so we'll be refunding your tickets accordingly and if only fed chairman ben bernanke was capable of a little humility sorry i wrecked the econom

it's not just nlrb, but it's e.p.a. when they deny air quality permit for a drilling plap platform in the alaska and sea where the closest impacted town is over 70 miles away, 250 people there and i have been out to a deepwater drilling platform. i have been to a production platform. and only air impact that i have seen is the gas, where they fla rmp e and burns off the natural gas activities. using the natural gas and proponents of that side of the debate and say that, too, probably cleaner burning. e.p.a. is denying an air quality permit so we aren't able to meet america's energy needs. we have ngrb suing the state of south carolina, utah, arizona and the state of south dakota. and we have them suing a fine american company named boeing. we have the e.p.a. going after drilling, denying the air quality permits. we have them changing the air quality standards that will affect our economic development in my district around the south carolina. this is a power grab by this administration to keep us from being free people,

not soavment if you remove e.p.a.'s use of murky science surrounding emissions from what is called "indirect land use" dhearntiondz kind of complicated, so i won't go into that -- ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 48% compared to gasoline. now, i've heard senators in the last two months on the floor of the united states senate telling all of us that ethanol was bad for the environment. a recent peer review study published by yale journal of industrial ecology -- now all the ivy league people in the senate ought to have some allegiance done by yale university. this is what that yale journal said, that ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 59% compared to gasoline. mr. pope also asserts that pilgrim pride went bankrupt because of ethanol. pilgrim pride was a food processor. he stated -- quote -- "the largest chicken processor in the united states, pilgrim's pride, filed for bankruptcy. they couldn't raise prices, so their cost of production went up dramatically." end of quote. again, facts are stubb

the e.p.a.'s environmental appeals board to withhold critical error permits. shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion on plans to explore for oil in the beaufort and chukchi seas off alaska. the leases alone cost cost $2.2 billion. the closest village to where shell proposed to drill is catobic, alaska. it is one of the most remote places in the united states. according to the latest census, the population is 245 people, and nearly all of them are alaska natives. the village, which is one square mile, sits right along the shores of the beaufort sea 70 miles away, 70 miles away from the proposed offshore drill site. the e.p.a.'s appeal board ruled that shell had not taken into consideration emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project. at stake is an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil. that's how much the u.s. geological survey believes is in the u.s. portion of the arctic ocean. for perspective, that represents two and a half ti

one example small manufacturors have to spend about $22,000 a year to meet e.p.a. regulatory requirements. this compares to $5,000 that the large manufacturing firms pay per employee. this is a staggering competitive disadvantage that small business have to face. for the past fiscal year advocacy saved over $15 billion in regulatory costs that small businesses would have to pay if we did not get involved. how can we achieve this? we work by listening to and speaking for small businesses on the economic burden that federal regulations will have on their businesses. a recent example is the 1099 form. all of you are aware of that. when the i.r.s. proposed businesses to file 1099 forms with any vendors that they do business with over $600 we heard from the small businesses who told us that this was a bookkeeping nightmare and economic stress on the business. they would have to hire additional bookkeepers just to meet the paperwork and the additional financial cost they would have to occur would not even increase the bottom line in increasing their business. we convene

>> the e.p.a. says no. >> mine is a prediction.there will be a candidate from the right side of the republican party, it maybe sarah palin or somebody else, but they will establish a new litmus test, which is that they do not domain streem media interviews, doing a mainstream media interview is a capitulation that only -- >> if i'm on a g.o.p. bus, that is a depressing prediction. >> the truth is i'm always wrong. >> we haven't talked about jon huntsman. he is making his first trip to new hampshire and came back from china and his aides are saying that he's going to try to take the handshake approach of meeting as many new hampshire residents in the most traditional places as possible to show that even though he is an obama appointee back on the homeland, that he has a common man's touch. that's an approach they're going to at least try. chris: i'm not sure. >> speaking of iowa, they are one election away of losing their first in the nation status. in the last 30 years in contested primaries they've picked one candidate who eventua

i don't know if he wants to say anything about the e.p.a. that he observed. i'll put him on the spot here. can i frame this differently? i appreciate all of that. i think that is great but we still have a lag in our middle schools and it feels like we have -- we have done this and it is great that they are getting the support but i wonder if there are any incentives that we're considering to draw lead sbeers the middle school arena. it is the same school that we have really had some challenges with. in elementary and high school we are seeing some really great leaps and bounds. the ways in which our leadership has changed, middle school, it feels like, it is very different. it hasn't had the same kind of momentum that our elementary and high schools have had. i was surprised even with our high schools the momentum that has kind of picked up on that. i don't know what it is or why it is that that -- middle schools have kind of stayed the same or maybe they haven't and i'm just -- this is my own perception. but i'm wondering how in terms of leadership we're abl

according to a fox news report, the e.p.a.'s refusal to grant production in alaska's outer continental shelf has a limited access to an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil. with alaskan oil production already decreasing by 7% annually, continued delays could force the transalaska pipeline to shut down. what's that going to do to our cost of gasoline, heating oil, natural gas and all of our other energy sources? what's it's going to do to the cost of food? it's all going to skyrocket. more than 40 american energy projects have been stalled by this administration. as the house natural resources committee notes, 10 months after the obama administration's official moratorium on american energy ended, over 40 projects remain stalled and people are left without work. this administration's energy policy is killing jobs in the gulf coast as well as all over this -- on the gulf coast as well as all over this country. we're sending american jobs overseas. 12 rigs have already left the gulf. before we change, let me go to this quote here

forty three members of congress representing the afflicted states thirty eight have voted to block the e.p.a. from enforcing greenhouse gas regulations so how many more homes destroyed and people killed it will take for republicans to accept that we're living in dangerous times with an increasingly volatile climate as a result of our destructive energy policy joining me now to talk about these issues is dr patrick michaels a climatologist and senior fellow and byron nelson he's of the cato institute for america's welcome. nice to see you and i see. the army corps of engineers predicts how often really bad floods happen in up until last fifteen years or so the predictions have been spot on but now and just last twenty years since one thousand nine hundred we've had. one in every five hundred year event one hundred eighty three one two hundred year flood in two thousand and eight one hundred year flood two thousand and one to fifty year floods five twenty five year floods and between ninety seven and two thousand and two just five years we saw for twenty year floods you talk about there's five

settled on among the very first to get it right was alex it should be your new kit with his sunny one e.p.a. helicopter. well it stands out. the first russian helicopter that was able to take off successfully. plus it's basically become the prototype for ninety five percent of the helicopters that have been designed in the world ever since. a single rotor model with a tail rotor. and also it shattered the world out that you recorded one hundred thirty two thousand six hundred five meters. one more than thirty times higher than the previous mark or with. the italian machine before it could barely reach the roof of a five story building she'll move his helicopter flew as high as today's tallest skyscrapers to the secrecy that surrounded his work at the central aero hydrodynamic institute sunday the soviet record went long unrecognized despite increasing agreement on the rotor and fuselage design not all the test flights were soaring success the meteoric rise of airplanes and the interruption of world war two delayed the wider application of pioneering ideas but the foundation of an industry a

you up but critics ask isn't this prostitution this generous entrepreneur has provided us with an e.p.a. for hawkers i think the chances of this girl not actually being a hooker are moving negative five thousand percent this girl is a professional and they don't mean a paralegal or gun repair expert the website mastermind disagrees how is this the same from prostitution it's completely different you're paying for the chance of falling in love you're not paying for sex on the first you're paying for help for the chance that you might so do you attract and potentially have sex on the road as the congress member you can pay me prices for that chance generally range from twenty to one hundred dollars to make finding the one easier personal profiles are available i'm down to earth outgoing very funny i consider myself as being a nice conversation. as well as in a real photos leaving very little to the imagination it's true the girls are scantily clad but there's a reason for that because men are attracted to that if they have value themselves and they value their time they're going to join a

so if you look at just a few examples, the e.p.a. is probably the most notable one, but that's the one i hear the most about. it doesn't matter whether i'm talking to a small business group or whether i'm talking to farmers and ranchers. consistently, they say these regulations coming out of washington, d.c. -- and specifically in this case, most of them are referring to policies that are coming out of the e.p.a. -- are making it very, very difficult for us to create jobs to put people back to work and to invest, reinvest in our businesses. and so you have the types of regulations that are coming out of these agencies. you also have, as i said, runup in costs associated with many of the policies that the congress has enacted, the spending and debt issues that have been created by the stimulus bill, the new health care bill, which when it's fully implemented will cost $2.5 trillion or thereabouts but is going to pass on lots of new costs to businesses across this country, not only in the form of tax increases but also in the form of h

priorities shared by e.p.a. and the other agencies that have a stake in this and then a robust schedule and they go out and actually raise the questions, do the research and come up with a policy decision on how the move forward. >> i would certainly concur. one of the great disappointments following exxon valdez tragedy is a lot of lessons learned there and in fact we really haven't made much progress in term turnovers technology and advancements when it comes to cleanup in water from the time of the exxon valdez 20 years ago to what we saw with macondo. again, it is one these wakeup calls. who was doing the research. we cannot be in a situation where the technology for cleanup has just been at a standstill while the technologies that allow us to produce in different places under different conditions, they are allowing us to leapfrog forward. good for us. what also has to leap fwrog that are the technologies and the advancements that give us that protection. if you will, or that insurance that in the vents of a

the e.p.a. and noah have to clear that they're largely dismantling whatever added monitoring they have put in place they say the food is safe coming from the ocean and i notice that today that the federal government so that we're not going to be testing seafood coming from asia the attitude is like once it goes in the ocean it disappears into nothingness that is not the case these are massive quantities of radioactivity they're completely ignoring this phenomenon called bio accumulation bio magnification but food chain is going to reconnaissance really what they claim is being diluted to harmless levels in the ocean there is no harmless level of radioactivity the food chain will recounts and trade at a much more hazardous levels i've noticed there are geiger counters available for sale and some measure altho some measure of a dose on measure both if somebody wants to get very paranoid get a geiger counter but sit with what should they get well it's not paranoia it's protecting ourselves as the f

in fact, some of the reasons are the actions of the e.p.a. shell oil being talked about here today in another way recently canceled its 2011 exploration plans in the beaufort sea in alaska because e.p.a. wouldn't grant them the necessary clean air permits. now, there was nothing different about how you were going to extract this oil in the beaufort sea now than there was when the drilling -- the exploration permits were issued, and billions of dollars were spent to pursue those -- the oil in the beaufort sea and then suddenly the e.p.a. says oh, no, we're not going to give you the permit it takes to get that oil out of the sea so american customers, american consumers won't benefit from that. both the senate majority as well as the administration haven't been willing to really address this energy crisis in a way that solves the problem. the tax increases won't reduce and will almost certainly increase gasoline prices. if these companies are anywhere nearly as bad as -- as people on this floor say they are, why wouldn't they pass this along? a

e.p.a. for example, air permits are the clearest example. they bill the program from scratch with minimal resources. the bill would also create coordinators in the atlantic and pacific when and if the lease sales happen in these regions. finally, we all recognize these are contentious issues. plenty of fights in our alaska family and outside groups, lots of litigation to date. there will probably be more down the road. litigation, prioritizes and speeds resolution of these differences, but doesn't deny access to courts. the short drilling seasons, complicated logistics, and long lead times easy to see why our seasons slipway. we have watched 2010 season, 2011 season, just do that, disappear from the ability for us to explore. i want to thank the committee for allowing the hearing on the bill and again the goal here is to speed up the process but not deny anyone their rights of litigation and appeals as they see fit but get the process corded -- coordinated and moving. >> thank you both for your excellent testimony and leadership with these p

the administrator of the e.p.a. would then reduce the amount of the national corn ethanol mandate by the percentage amount of gasoline consumed by that state. this option of nonparticipation would only apply to the corn portion of the r.f.s. and would not affect any of the volumetric requirements of advanced biofuels. we're big in advanced biofuels in my state of oklahoma. the various foundations, oklahoma state university, we have switch grass we're working on, and it's something that we're all for. it -- the bill actually redefines cellusic biofuels as next generation biofuel. the previously defined celluosic biofuel carveout is expanded to include algae and other nanette knoll renewable fuels derived from renewable biomass. so this is something that is not going to be incompatible. it's going to be very compatible with -- with our interest here. so anyway, for those people who say well, you know, we demand to have corn-based ethanol, that's fine, you can have it because all this is is choice. if we and the people

e.p.a. unveiled the redesigned fuel economy labels to be displayed on all new cars. it will simplify the environment environmental impact for drivers. transportation reporter heather ishimaru has details. >> reporter: soars gasoline prices provide a perfect backdrop for a first look at the fuel economy and environmental impact label. current california labels show only fuel economy and an environmental rating for the car there they're on. now labels will compare the car against an average new vehicle. it also helps simplify comparisons across many different classes. >> gas hybrid, plug-in hybrid, electric. for instance, this gas-guzzlers label an average of 11 miles per gallon shows you spend $14,400 more in fuel over five years than with an average new vehicle. while this all electric label at 99 miles per gallon equivalent shows a fuel saving of $9,600. the figures are all based on national averages, but are extremely useful for comparison sake. >> it took a lot of discussion. there was people who thought we should have a grade. wouldn't it be great if you knew "a"

we got the e.p.a. that comes in. most of the folks that come into our office, since i've been elected to congress, this last year i say 0% of them come in and -- 90% of them come in and start talking about the regulation of the e.p.a. and the enforcement attitude that the e.p.a. has on our small businesses. how can any small business grow to be a big business if they're going to be continually hampered by our own government? f.d.a., osha mandates -- we are going to be talking about medicare and what is that -- what is that going to look like in the future in taxes? finally, we're talking about taxing here. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about the way the government can grow business. the best way government can grow business is get out of the way. right now america has the highest corporate income tax in the industrialized world. look at other countries, japan, greece, all these other countries are finally figuring out because of just natural economic laws that you can't spend more money than you t

right now, if you just take what the e.p.a. is doing in five -- in fact, ielg just say -- i'll just say three the five major overregulations that we're going over right now. people in this conference here, people in the united states senate know that we have defeated cap and trade here legislatively by massive percentages five times during -- since 2003. so this administration says all right, if we can't have cap and trade, we're going to go ahead and do it, not legislatively, we'll do it through the e.p.a. and that's what's going on now with greenhouse gases. if you add up what the administration is doing in terms of what the cost is to greenhouse gas regulations, that's between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. the ozone, if they do choose -- and they said they're going to choose the 60 parts per billion standard, that would be $67 $676 billion. and the boiler mac would be something in excess of a billion dollars. anyway, you through in utility mac and cement mac, it comes to a trillion dollars. this is what i'm trying to

but we've got this administration who wants the federal government to employ the e.p.a. and send them into pennsylvania and other parts of our country where we're producing domestic nrning which will shut down our energy production and will shut down this prosperity. shut down these jobs that are being create. shut down the movement we're making toward energy security. so we've -- i want to thank my good friend from new mexico for hosting this hour tonight, proud to be part of the western caucus, proud to be with you this evening. thank you. mr. pearce: i thank the gentleman from pennsylvania for his comments and so far the quote of the night is, prosperity is a good thing. yes our government seems to have a war on prosperity. why is our government trying to undermine the economy when we're struggling with high deficits and unemployment. it defies the imagination that that's going on. i'd like to recognize my good friend from georgia, mr. broun, for such time as he may consume. i appreciate you being here. georgia and pennsylvania in the western caucus, that's the way it

it's awfully hard when the regulators, e.p.a. and others, have painted a target on your back to prevent you from producing. you know, we made a phenomenal gas find in this country. we have found, if i had told you this four years ago that we would bust up rocks to find natural gas, you would say i needed to have serious psychiatric examination because it doesn't make sense that you can bust up rocks and make gas. but we have discovered shale gas. and now, we have shale gas in texas and might proud of it, it touches multiple states. it goes right up through the south and midwest and right up into pennsylvania where they have done some serious shale oil work and even -- and i know there is some in yorkt, although they don't seem to be interested in producing it. a belt of product stretches across our country, natural gas. . and yet immediately there's some people who are telling you, i can smell that gas in my water well. well, i got news for you. natural gas doesn't smell. so if you smell that gas in your water well you got a city

that's where the e.p.a. is coming in. i stood here at this podium for nine years talking about the problems that we have with cap-and-trade. the fact that we can't have a cap-and-trade system that is going to have the effect of costing the american people -- the estimates are between between $300 billion and and $400 billion a year. that's supposedly for greenhouse gases. now, they tried -- the kyoto treaty way back in the 1990's and they tried seven different times on the senate floor to pass legislation that would have the same type of cap-and-trade as we would have if we had become a party to and ratified the kyoto treaty. now, the problem with that is even if there are people out there -- and there are. there are a lot of people out there, a very large percentage of people in america, some 40%, believe that somehow the greenhouse gases are causing catastrophic global warming. even if that's -- even if that were true -- which it is not, but if it were true, it doesn't make any difference what we do here in the united s

decisions are made basically with a gun to the head because you have lisa jackson the head of the e.p.a. desperately trying to figure out is their anything we can do? and the government is under criticism for inaction. we are going to dump millions of gallons because we have to show people we are doing everything we possibly can and we will deal with the impact leader because our decisions are being made on a 24/7 news cycle and that is the scary have reality that we live where our policy decisions are being made in very short windows. it used to be people have said the best way to make decisions is to look for seven generations. we've gone from seven generations to 24 hours and that is no way to make decisions. as we've got the disbursement lawsuit, the bp clean water act lawsuit, bp transocean clean water act is we are in the middle of a giant litigation marra s. we just found out today there are 100,000 lawsuits now filed over the bp oil spill and that doesn't include kenneth feinberg's payoff payment scheme. that is a separate deal and a lot of these are, you know, big toxic cases,

at the offices of the environmental protection agency right now as we speak, it turns out that the e.p.afy rob and michael's stomach as federally protected wetlands. so we're very honored by that. [applause] i hope my mom's not watching. that is really wrong. [laughter] now, in all candor, rob is back at the hotel this evening. he is afraid to turn off his tv. if he does, msnbc's audience will drop by 25%. that is just wrong and unfortunate. rob and michael are in a really big fight right now. they are usually good friends, but they are fighting it out. the mascot for save the whales is up right now. the two of them are going at it hammer and tong over it. it has been a while since he had a hit movie. he has been struggling. he misses the publiced alation. tonight's award i think will help rob with that. he did what he often does when he is depressed. went out to a public location and hoped that people would recognize him. he went to a senior citizen home in san francisco just last week. he was walking around the room going hi, do you know who i am? do you know who i am? finally an elder

government by alaskan oil companies to overturn critical habitat restricks by oil companies against the e.p.a. for ethanol standards and numerous suits against the department of the interior by industry over the temporary ban following the b.p. disaster. let's remember the point of judicial review is to ensure that the law is followed and to provide a check and balance when it is not. the underlying bill is in effect saying that following the law no longer matters. it doesn't matter if justice is served and it only matters if it appears that way. the east front of the supreme court building contains the following inscription -- justice the guardian of lickerity. should any company have the right to pursue profits? of course. but even our founders recognized that this should be done within the confines of the law, justice, meaning impartial courts and stringent checks and balances are the guardians of our liberty and freedom as americans. instead of promoting a rush to judgment and a blind rubber stamp within the courts, we should instead promote integrity and a system of rigorous checks and b

even get started before dumping a couple of billion dollars into that production field out there, the e.p.a. came in with more and more stops and other things and said, we are going someplace else. we aren't drilling in american waters anymore, it's not worth it. right now, where we know we have production for oil and gas, we have an administration that is fighting that production tooth and nail. this has cost jobs in the industry as we pointed out and made our dependence on foreign oil bigger. here's the price of the obama administration since he has been in office. here, this is another chart that shows you the offshore production of crude oil in barrels per day. and that's where the production was 250,000 barrels up to 400,000 barrels, down again -- i guess that was in 1999, clinton administration, was down. back up in the bush administration, into the bush administration, boom, down to 100,000 barrels of offshore production a day from 400,000 to 100,000 since the obama administration. nobody can argue that the obama administration is anything but violently opposed to the oil and gas ind

if you look at the e.p.a., at f.d.a., mlrb, you'll see that the regulations coming out of those agencies is really interfering with what's happening with small businesses. so i would start by having public hearings, look at those regulations see where we can start pearing those backs and -- paring those back and that will make a big difference. we can't raise taxes on small businesses. what we need to do is go back to the tax codes, simplify it so it makes sense to people, so it makes sense to small businesses so they understand what they're up against and address that issue. >> ms. hochul? >> our universities are great catalysts for jobs. i was at the university of rochester a few days ago taking a tour of the optics facility and i was so impressed to learn that because of a system they -- because of assistance they received from washington that unfortunately the ryan budget decimates, i'm talking about research and development tax incentives, they're able to be the incubator that creates jobs, 21 new businesses started as a result of initiatives at the university of rochester. if the r

but we get shut down by bureaucracy, moratoriums, permatorium, rules, regulations, e.p.a., refuges. we can't even get free to produce the energy that we can produce for this country. and then you've got all these middle states that, you know, do a fairly good job of balance. but i tell you, if we passed a law in here that said every state in america had to produce the energy that it needed, we'd have an energy policy all right. senator begich knows, i don't know what it would be, but it would be an interesting rule. just like in the old days, if you wanted food, you produced it. it would be a great law. every state in america, all 50, if you consume energy, you need to produce something. you can produce it by wind. you can produce it by hydro. you can produce it by nuclear. you can stop driving all your automobiles and everybody walk. you can give everybody a bicycle. we don't care. just eliminate the energy deficit. that would be a very interesting discussion to have. and i might even file a bill like that, because this one is so ridiculous, people might actually read the one i wou

week of advanced legislation to stop the e.p.a. from unilaterally imposing job-destroying energy caps on american businesses. week of advanced legislation, the dodd-frank law intensifies the problem with too big to fail by giving large, interconnected firms advantages that small firms do not enjoy today. but most important we've proposed to repeal the new health care law in its burdensome maze of new regulations. it's bad enough that the law imposes an unconstitutional mandate on americans. it also imposes new regulations on businesses which are stifling job creation. let me share with you one figure that serves as a devastating entitlement on the new health care law. so far 1,000 businesses and organizations have been granted waivers from the law's onerous mandates. these waivers may prevent job losses now, but they don't guarantee relief in the future. nor do they help those firms that lack the connections to lobby for waivers. this is no way to create jobs in america. true bipartisan health care reform starts by repealing this v

the e.p.a.n my state of south dakota we're primarily an ag economy and many policies are at agriculture and all those sort of things that allow the economy and my state to grow and to prosper. i think one of the reasons the tax revenues are down, people aren't investing. when they're not investing, they're not turning those resources over. they're not taking realizations and they're not paying taxes. we need to get capital put back to work, we need to get people back to work and the best way is to provide certainty, tax policies, regulatory policies that are reasonable and provide incentives, not disincentives for people. today we have tax an regulatory policies doing exactly the opposite. they are discouraging investment and as a consequence i think we have a lower level of revenues. but the real problem -- the real problem, mr. president is not revenues, it is spending, and that's -- that's abundantly clear. if you look at where we have been for the last four years in terms of what we spend as

it turns out that the e.p.a.and michael's stomach as federally protected wetlands. so we're very honored by that. i hope my mom's not watching. that's really -- that's really wrong. now, in all candor, rob is back at the hotel this evening. he's afraid to turn off his tv. if he does msnbc's audience will drop by 25%. that's just wrong and unfortunate. rob and michael are at a really big fight -- in a really big fight right now. the mascot for save the whale servings is up right now. and they're fighting over it. it's been a while since he's had a hit movie. he misses the public adulation. tonight's award will help rob with that. in fact, it god so bad last week he was out in california and he did what he often does when he's depressed, he went out to a public location and hope that people recognized him and he went to a senior stenholm in san francisco just last week. i hope he didn't hear about this. it was really tragic. he was walking around the rom and going, hi, do you know who i am? do you know who i am? fi

and they need to call an end to the antienergy crusade of e.p.a. in short, democrats need to throw away the old play book, throw that one away and face this crisis with a new kind of creativity, independence and common sense that the american people are demanding. democrats need to stop deflecting attention from their own complicity in our nation's overdependence on foreign oil. they need to stop paying lip service to the need for american exploration while quietly supporting efforts to suppress it. an end to the approach that hasn't changed, frankly, since the days of jimmy carter. just like carter before them, today's democrats are using the crisis of the moment as an excuse to push their own vision of the future with a windfall profits tax on energy companies, and just like carter before them, they have rightly been accused of bringing a b-b gun to the war. this is a serious crisis. it's time for serious solutions, solution that is create jobs instead of moving them overseas, solutions that decrease our dependence on foreign sources of oil rathe

a study by the affordable power alliance concluded that e.p.a.' greenhouse gas regulations could increase the cost of gasoline by 50%. electricity by 50%, and natural gas by 75% over the next 20 years. that's a stunning figure. as know doubt it'll drive it up. so the majority has yet to recognize the negative impact these tax increases and new e.p.a. regulations will have on the economy. with gas prices up to $4 a gallon from $2.75 in september -- $4 from $2.75, this translates into a 5% cut in the average american's discretionary income. just for the same amount of gas you buy. this means less spend on home improvements, furniture, clothes, vacations, things people and families need. it is eaten up by increased energy costs. it's in a way a stealth tax on the american people. furthermore, increasing energy taxes will make doing business in the united states more expensive. as a result, jobs will go overseas t means a family which pays $100 per month for gasoline will now pay over $140 per month for gasoline. if you were paying $200 a month -- and

crowding out the ability of the education department, the transportation department, the noaa, the e.p.a. and every other agency in government that gets funds. we just would crowd out that spending by placing an annual burden on our people of of $940 billion a year. it's this trend, this path that is unsustainable, and we have been told that. and i just want to repeat and make clear what happened just a few moments ago. what happened? four votes were brought up by the majority, and they were brought up with the full knowledge that nothing would happen. there was a couple of hours of debate, several hours of debate. we ved on then four tremendously important items. four budgets for the united states of america. with no real ability to discuss each one of them in any depth at all. it was a political exercise. the majority leader said it would be foolish for us to pass a budget. in other words, it's foolish for us, the democratic majority, to commit ourselves to any plan for the future of america. that's what it was, an avoidance of responsibility. they wouldn't even vote for the president'

need a moratorium on regulatory overreach, agency overreach as we see in the interior department, in e.p.a., in many other agencies. so this legislation is intended to prevent federal action that you would -- you would unilaterally destroy jobs on federal lands, on the o.c.s. that is happening every day at the interior department. instead of issuing permits to find american energy, they're issuing regulations, the most recent on a whole new category of contractors completely unnecessary because they're already regulating the drillers and that is regulatory overreach and that is job-killing action. my agency overreach will lay out the real moratorium we need on job-killing action out of washington, out of this administration, not on domestic energy production. mr. president, i want to thank all of my colleagues and i hope we'll all come together soon around a commonsense pro-active domestic energy policy. it needs to include a lot of things. i'm a fervent believer in all of the above. but it certainly needs to start on lifting the continuing de facto moratorium on u.s. energy production, on