Washington Journal
CSPAN (CSPAN) National Programming, DMA: 0
08:15AM EDT May 21 2008
Programming Type: Talk News Politics Interview Public affairs

that will not save them any. they have had nine investigations into priced counting. that does not affect the price at the pump. they have for investigations into speculators. they have a new tax that they want to do. they had one vote on the filling of the spr, so that would reduce it by 5 cents. they cannot do anything to keep it going up further but they can get it down 5 cents, and that is what they are willing to vote for. what we are trying to do today is getting this price down under $2 a gallon. legislative bodies have the ability to make decisions. they are going to be tough and they are going to have to weave some rules on the ooks and say that we need to visit some of these proposals and maybe alter this. look at what we can do. bringing these things online, anwr and other areas, in utah, canadians and, beginning -- sands, beginning to go to these areas, deep water, you can see the improvement. these are all there. these are steps that can be taken today, before congress leaves the floor for the memorial day recess. but the political will has not existed to do this. it is time for us to say, if there is a istake and it has been made, you stop and reassess and say, how do we make this right? the way to do then is to take action and solve the problem. host: louisiana. caller: i wish you would not set up there and take up all of our time. i would like to ask her if she is aware of the baker-hughes report. it shows that we have 23% last rigs drilling in the state of louisiana and then we did in the beginning of the year. 15.8% less than the year ago. surely you know that we opened up more of the gulf of mexico. we have 4% last -- less n the gulf coast, so that means they are creating these oil prices. we also opened up a refinery here, and we are going to get 7.5 million gallons of fuel a day. we have expanded refineries but the oil companies have closed refineries. whenever they merge, they closed refineries all over the country, you know that, so you look foolish talking about the environmentalists. you know it is not the environmentalists. it is the oil companies. guest: i have not seen the baker-user report but this gentleman is probably like my father who has spent some time working in the oil industry. there are a couple of points where he is right and i agree with im but there are a couple of points where we disagree. but we will agree to disagree on some of the us. less rigs, he is right on that. less oil wells producing, he is right on that. he did not mention capped wells but i am sure he is aware of some of those that have been capped. i grew up in southern mississippi. my father worked in the oil industry so i have a little bit of knowledge. probably not working around it as much as the color. there are a couple of problems here. capacity, it is difficult to expand refining capacity. i spoke to an auto company trying to get a permit to build a refinery and they spent four years in that process and probably have another four to go. sometimes these refineries are closed and it is due to epa regulation that will not allow expansion. one of the things to bear in mind is some of the new technology. when those oil rigs go in and start to drill, they can drill latterly, so they had fewer incursions' when they enter the earth and then they enter the earth in a lateral platform. some of them are more environmentally friendly and not as intrusive, an important point to make. capped ells, we will look to see them uncapped. when there is a land of oil or gas well, we would like to see those resources getting pulled out. we should make it easier to get american resources, american energy, and explore for american entry but what we' doing is making it more difficult and putting undue burden and red tape on top of those trying to solve the problem. host: robinson, illinois. caller: representative, i have to tell you, if you talk about this new plan you are coming up with that you are introducing, energy