mr. speaker , i rise today in strong opposition to the wrongly named gasoline for america 's security act . 
it would be more appropriate to call this the do n't hold your breath act , as this bill will not do what my colleagues on the other side claim . 
while it is clear to all of us that our nation does not have the refinery capacity that we need , it is equally clear that the bill before us will not increase this shortfall . 
the idea that simply eliminating environmental standards and removing judicial control will solve this problem is absolutely wrong . 
over the past 30 years , there has been only one application filed to build a new refinery . 
i will say that again : only one application has been filed . 
we are not talking about permit after permit being thrown out . 
we are not talking about an industry trying time after time to site a facility and being denied . 
what we are talking about is the fact that the gasoline industry makes the vast majority of their profits at the refinery level , and there is zero economic incentive for them to increase their capacity . 
as long as the refineries are operating at near 100 percent , their profit margins are through the roof . 
this bill ignores this obvious fact and instead focuses on eliminating environmental protections , which is nothing more than a scapegoat measure that will not do anything to address the basic problem . 
so what does this bill actually do ? 
it strips virtually all of the environmental protections of the clean air act , the clean water act , and the endangered species act when they come into conflict with the siting of a refinery . 
the bill removes all cases challenging refinery siting from local state courts and forces communities to come to washington , d.c . 
in order to challenge the selection of their hometown for a new refinery . 
and , further , if the local communities lose in court , they have to pay all of the industry 's legal bills . 
this bill also will limit the federal trade commission 's ability to impose penalties when presented with evidence of price gouging , effectively incentivizing industry to take advantage of disasters like katrina . 
for these reasons , i ask my colleagues to reject this bill . 
democrats have a substitute that will address critical shortages during disasters without gutting our environmental laws , and it deserves our support . 
