Fox News "Your World" - Transcript

Interview

MR. CAVUTO: To Washington now. The House debating a bill today. It would outlaw energy-price gouging and carries tough fines and penalties. A vote expected later tonight. Democratic Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont is all for it. He joins me right now.

Congressman, where does this stand?

REP. WELCH: We had the debate this afternoon, and we're going to have the vote tonight.

MR. CAVUTO: Okay, so it's sort of like that question, when have you stopped beating your wife? I guess you take it as a given that gouging is going on.

REP. WELCH: You know, that's not actually right. What this is, it gives the authority to the Federal Trade Commission to watch for price gouging. And if there is price gouging and people ripoff the American public, they will pay a fine and go to jail.

MR. CAVUTO: Okay. I guess the FTC, the Justice Department have looked into this over the last, what, 13 years, two dozen times and never found evidence of that. I know there's a new investigation afoot. Have you discovered something that they haven't?

REP. WELCH: Well, you know, 28 states actually have passed price-gouging legislation. New Jersey just last month sent some investigators out. And they found, at the pump, a lot of ripoffs, pumps that weren't properly calibrated, people were being charged for more gallons of gas than they actually bought, improper grades of gasoline that they were purchasing. There was different prices on one side whether you bought on the left side of the island or the right side of the island. Those are specific activities that would be prohibited and subject to FTC protection for the consumer. So there's a lot of instances where you want to have a cop on the beat. That's what it really boils down to. It's a deterrent.

MR. CAVUTO: Okay. Because the reason why I'm asking, sir, is that, you know, looking at issues like price gouging, if in fact it's going on or some of these incidents are in fact going on, and some of the other things that you and your colleagues are doing, you're doing nothing to bring prices down. So what are you guys doing to bring prices down? When you took over Congress, the idea was that they were high already and you were going to address that, and they're higher. What happened?

REP. WELCH: Well, you know, the oil companies are doing very well under the current system. I mean, there are short-term and long- term things Congress can do. I mean, first, short term, we ought to have price-gouging legislation so the Federal Trade Commission can be a cop on the beat and protect the consumer. Second, we're going to be taking up use-it-or-lose-it legislation. You know, the oil companies are arguing they want to drill in ANWR, but they've got 68 million acres under lease right now where metal could hit ground, and that's on shore and off shore can produce about 4.8 million barrels of oil a day.

MR. CAVUTO: So you don't like the oil companies, do you?

REP. WELCH: It's not about liking them or not. The oil companies are very good at what they do. And one of the things they do well --

MR. CAVUTO: But you seem to be implying they're automatically gouging, coming up with legislation that has a pretty strong -- gouging legislation, you know. I mean --

REP. WELCH: You know, the present situation works real well for the oil companies. I mean, they made $127 billion last year. ExxonMobil had the highest profit in the history of the company, I think over $10 billion last quarter. Consumers, small businesses are getting whacked. So you know, we need a new energy policy, and that's really the big debate here. The oil companies appear locked in to advocating that we can drill our way out of our energy crisis. And I think that's a dead-end proposition. You know, we have 2 percent of the proven reserves of oil in this country, and we have 25 percent of the population.

MR. CAVUTO: So you're a no to drilling but you're for going after gouging, even though you don't know for sure whether it's out there, right?

REP. WELCH: No, I didn't say that. You know, if we have 68 million acres and the oil companies have them under lease and they're not drilling, I ask them why. And this use-it-or-lose-it legislation basically calls the question to the oil companies, you know, put up or shut up. One of the things they do with leases is buy them up and squeeze out some of the small, independent companies with oil at 135 bucks a barrel or so, there's a lot of economic incentive for them to bring that product to market.

MR. CAVUTO: Okay. Well, I'll tell you what, Congressman, we could go on and on about the 68 million acres. But you know, I'm tired of it. I'm just tired of. But Congressman, thank you very, very much. Appreciate it.

REP. WELCH: Thank you.

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