Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
Town Hall on Gas and Food Prices
Wayne, Pennsylvania
Saturday, June 14, 2008
As Prepared for Delivery
Americans work longer and harder than the people of any other wealthy nation. We’ve built the largest economy that the world has ever known, and the biggest middle class in history. But for the last eight years, we’ve failed to keep the fundamental promise that if you work hard, you can live your own version of the American dream. Instead, folks are working harder for less. The cost of everything from health care to college tuition is going up and up and up. It’s getting harder to save and harder to retire.
Earlier, I spent some time with the Ellis family, who’s feeling this squeeze when it comes to everything from health care to groceries – and especially gas prices. All over the country, families like them are scrimping and saving just to put food on their kitchen table. And it’s no wonder – because last year, the price of eggs rose nearly 30 percent. And the price of fruits and vegetables, bread and meat is rising faster than many families can afford.
But few costs are rising more than the one folks pay at the pump. For the well-off, high gas prices are mostly an annoyance, but not to the young man I met here in Pennsylvania who lost his job and can’t afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one. Not to the truck drivers whose families are cutting back on expenses as the threat of bankruptcy looms. Not to the hardworking families I’ve met across this state and across this country who drive long distances to work each day. For these Americans – and so many others – high gas prices aren’t just an annoyance, they’re becoming a crisis.
Here in Pennsylvania, gas costs more than $4 a gallon. And that price has gone up 33 cents over the past month alone. Just this week, we were told that we can expect prices to remain around $4 per gallon through next year.
Now, it isn’t an accident that gas prices are this high. It’s because Washington failed to deal with the challenge of alternative energy when it had the chance. Instead we’ve had an energy policy that’s been written by and for the big oil and gas companies. When George Bush asked Dick Cheney to come up with our energy policy, he met with the environmental groups once, he met with the renewable energy folks once, and he met with the oil and gas companies 40 times. That’s an outrage.
And yet, we also know that this problem goes deeper than the Bush administration. We’ve been talking about high gas prices in this country since the gas lines of the 1970s. But nothing has changed – because the big oil and gas companies keep using campaign dollars and corporate lobbyists to block reform. And when the next election rolls around, we’re even more dependent on foreign oil, our planet is in even greater peril, and the price of gas is even higher.
That’s why I’ve fought to rein in the power of lobbyists throughout my career. That’s why when I arrived in the Senate, I reached across the aisle to pass a law that will give more Americans the chance to fill up their cars with clean biofuels, and passed a plan to raise our fuel standards that won support of lawmakers from both parties who had never supported raising fuel standards before. And that’s why I even voted for an energy bill that was far from perfect – because I helped make sure it contained the largest investment in renewable sources of energy in our nation’s history. And I’ve fought to eliminate the tax giveaways to oil companies that were slipped into that bill – oil companies that have spent half a billion dollars lobbying Congress in the last ten years while their profits have risen to record highs.
Well it is time for a President who will take on the big oil and gas companies so we can finally meet our energy challenge; a President who will help Americans pay their rising gas bills during these difficult economic times.
And that will be a real difference in this election – because while Senator McCain has spoken out on energy reform in the past, in this campaign, he isn’t offering any solutions to help Americans pay for high gas prices. Instead, he’s proposing a gas tax holiday that’s nothing more than a Washington stunt. You may have heard about it. If this idea worked, it would save you thirty cents a day for the next few months. That’s a quarter and a nickel. For three months. But it won’t even do that because oil companies will simply jack up their price to fill the gap. That’s what they did when we tried this in Illinois. I was for the idea back then, but I’ve learned from my mistake, because I don’t think it’s right to say you’re offering families relief when you’re just boosting oil company profits.
But here’s the thing. It’s not just that Senator McCain’s proposal won’t give hardworking families real relief; it’s that his proposal will actually do real harm. His gas tax holiday will take $3 billion a month out of the highway trust fund and hand it over to the oil companies. That’s $3 billion a month that will no longer be going to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges, or to ensure drivers’ safety and instead will be going to set new records for oil company profits. And at a time when the unemployment rate is rising faster than at any point in the past twenty years, this idea would cost another 300,000 jobs in the construction industry, including more than 11,000 right here in Pennsylvania.
That’s not the kind of change the Americans I’ve met are looking for. They’re looking for a President who will fight for hardworking families, not just big campaign donors and corporate allies. That’s the kind of President I’ll be. I’ll put a windfall profits tax on oil companies and use the proceeds to help Pennsylvania families pay their heating and cooling bills and reduce energy costs. I’ll take steps to reduce the price of oil and increase transparency in the way prices are set so we can make sure that energy companies aren’t bending the rules. And to help Pennsylvania families meet the rising cost of gas, I’ll put a middle class tax cut in your pockets that will save your families up to $1,000 a year, and we’ll eliminate income taxes altogether for seniors making less than $50,000.
So these are a few short-term steps we can take to ease the burden that Pennsylvania families are bearing as a result of our failed energy policy. But the truth is, there is no easy answer to our energy crisis – and we need a president who’s going to be straight with us about that; a president who’s going to tell the American people not just what they want to hear, but what they need to know. And what they need to know is that any real solution isn’t going to come about overnight. It’s going to take time.
When I’m President, we’ll finally have a comprehensive energy policy. I’ll invest $150 billion over the next ten years in establishing a green energy sector. We’ll create a National Low-Carbon Fuel Standard that will help ensure that the fuel we’re using is more efficient. We’ll invest in clean energies like solar, wind, and biodiesel. And we’ll create up to 5 million new green jobs – and those are jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. Right now, a number of foreign-owned clean energy companies are creating quality jobs here in Pennsylvania, and that’s a good thing. But I want to see American companies creating green jobs here in America. I want to see America leading the world toward a clean energy future.
So you will have a clear choice in the fall. We can keep playing the same old Washington games that may get politicians where they need to go and may reward the big oil and gas companies but won’t move this country forward; or at this moment, in this election, we can say enough is enough, we’re going to finally solve our energy crisis once and for all.
I don’t want to wake up one day many years from now and see that gas prices have gone up even further, that we’re still funding both sides in the war on terror, and that ocean levels are even higher – because we failed to take on the big oil and gas companies and achieve real energy reform. That’s not the future I want for my children. That’s not the future I want for your children. That’s not the future I want for this country.
I want to wake up and know that no family is struggling just to fill up a tank of gas, that our energy future is secure, and that our planet is a little cleaner – because we finally tapped the entrepreneurship and ingenuity of the American people and freed ourselves from the tyranny of oil. I want to wake up and know that Washington is finally looking out for Main Street, not just Wall Street. I want to wake up and know that the American dream is being put within reach for every American. That’s the choice in this election. That’s the opportunity we have at this moment. And that’s the kind of leadership I intend to offer as President of the United States.
http://thepage.time.com/obamas-remarks-at-saturday-town-hall/
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