Transcript of Pelosi Press Conference Today

Contact: Nadeam Elshami/Drew Hammill, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi held her weekly press conference today in the Capitol Visitor Center. Below is a transcript of the press conference:

Leader Pelosi. Good morning.

As we gather here this morning, our thoughts are with the families of all the victims of this week's devastating tornadoes in the Midwest. We extend our support and our prayers for communities in the storms' path. I especially want to mention cities which were drastically affected: Harrisburg, Illinois; Branson, Missouri; and Cumberland and DeKalb Counties in Tennessee. Our thoughts and prayers are with those families.

We are in budget season, hearings will be beginning soon, and here we are with the same Republican ideas that have already been rejected by the American people—end of the Medicare guarantee, increased costs for seniors. Medicare actuaries said that the latest Republican proposal will shift costs to seniors. This is just another version of the "Medicare should wither on the vine" philosophy of our Republican colleagues. According to the latest polls from Kaiser Family Foundation, 70 percent of Americans, including 53 percent of Republicans, see the Republican plan for what it is, a shift of costs to seniors. Budget season, and now also driving season. As spring and summer come upon us, we must work to lower gas prices for American products and businesses, to be competitive globally, for our “Make It In America” [agenda] to succeed, and thrive, and prevail, we must lower the cost of energy in making our products, and advocate American energy, American jobs.

What is happening about the price at the pump is very interesting. Supply is going up, demand is going down, and the price is going up. It is very contradictory. So how do you explain that? You explain it by recognizing that Republicans are protecting Wall Street speculators responsible for driving up the pain at the pump. Republicans blame inadequate U.S. production. You hear them say: “if only we could drill more in the U.S.” But the facts are these: since President Obama became President of the United States, oil rigs have increased by four times. They have quadrupled since he became President, domestic oil drilling. In addition to that, if you take all of our rigs, gas and oil, they are more than all of the rest of the world combined. Did you know that? Four times, quadrupled, since the President became President in terms of oil rigs, gas and oil, more than the rest of the world combined. So we are exploiting domestic supply. Any inference to be drawn from what the Republicans are saying, that but for more oil drilling, the price at the pump would be lower, is simply not true. Supply is up, demand is down. You would think the price would come down.

Enter speculation. Not the healthy speculation that is normal to the marketplace, but a speculation that can add 20 percent to the cost of a barrel of oil. The American people have to know that, because this has happened before. But what has made matters worse at this time is that, as the speculators are wreaking their havoc on the price of oil and gasoline at the pump in our country, the Republicans are standing in the way of enforcement of the Dodd-Frank provisions in the bill, which address speculation, even taking the initiative to address speculation to court as we sit here.

So it is part of their Republican response: protect the Big Oil subsidies to the tune of tens of billions of dollars for Big Oil; cripple the Commodities Future Trading Commission responsible for policing Wall Street price manipulation. According to a CFTC Commissioner, speculation, not a lack of production, raises the price at the pump by 22 percent, as I referenced.

I want to commend the American people for contributing to the success of reducing demand by their conservation efforts. For the first time since 1949, the U.S. is a net exporter of oil products. For the first time since 1949.
So production is up, exporting oil products is up, the American people are conserving, speculation has intervened, and therefore we do not see the commensurate lowering of price at the pump. And we must fight that, whether it is by shining a bright light on what is happening with speculators, that has been a problem, we have talked about it before. But as I said, added to that is the Republican obstruction to the CFTC doing its job.

Okay, so this is all part of their reigning in the American dream. We are about reigniting the American dream, building areas of opportunity for people who want to play by the rules, work hard, take responsibility to succeed. We want to do this through the promotion of small business and entrepreneurship in our country. We have plenty of work to do. But for us to “Make It In America,” we have to, again, lower the cost of energy in our country, and that is exactly what the President is striving to do.

We talked about the budget season, we talked about the driving season, and now it is Women's History Month in March. The Republicans are kicking off Women's History Month by bringing the Blunt amendment to the floor in the United States Senate. Instead of talking about jobs, which is what the American people expect and deserve us to be doing, what they sent us here to do, we have moved on to the Blunt amendment, a blunt, sweeping overreach into women's health, part of the Republican agenda of disrespecting women's health issues, allowing employers and employees to cut, this amendment, to cut basic health services for women, like contraception, mammograms, prenatal and cervical cancer screenings, and preventative health reform, benefiting 20 million women just in that prevention services piece.

They are focused on the extreme Blunt amendment, rather than on a vigorous job creation. And now we even have found out that their obstruction includes not being able to even bring a transportation bill to the floor, which is one of the biggest job creators that we have.

So, here we are in the beginning of March, they continue their assault on Medicare, they continue their assault on women's health, they continue their assault on the consumer, with the price at the pump, by siding with speculators rather than consumers.

With that I would be pleased to take any questions.

Q: Madam Leader, since you were talking about March being Women's History Month, and talking about this assault on women, we have talked to a number of Catholic women who see the contraception issue differently. You are a Catholic woman. What is the divide in this in the Catholic Church? How do you view this in your faith, compared to the way they are interpreting this as it pertains to their faith?

Leader Pelosi. Well, first of all, this is a women's health issue, and as they say, the appropriators… [I was] forged in the Appropriations Committee: “the plural of anecdote is not data." I don't know which people you spoke to, but I know that the records show that [98] percent of women of childbearing age [have used] birth control. So this is a women's health issue. It is a matter of conscience for each woman, her doctor, her husband, her family, and her God, to make their own decisions. And as a Catholic, I support the right of a woman to make that decision.

This is about women's health, though. I talked about mammograms, and cervical and ovarian cancer screening, and those kinds of things. So the need for the birth control and contraception is not just about reproduction, it is also about women. It is all, in the larger sense, about the fuller picture of women's health.

Q: Madam Leader, the JOBS Act, the package of small business provisions that Leader Cantor and Speaker Boehner are now putting forward, they made claims yesterday, to express that the President seems supportive, or at least somewhat. How do you feel about the JOBS Act? Will Democrats support it? Do you think it is an opportunity to get it passed out of here?

Leader Pelosi. Well, those bills have passed. I think four of them have passed, there were 400 votes on the floor of the House. This is the path of least resistance. And, well, one of them is a Democratic bill, which they have renamed a Republican bill, but that is okay, just so the American people are well served by it. So, yes.

But that is not any substitute. That is sort of just a preliminary to what we have to do with a big jobs bill about transportation, where there is a public private partnership to rebuild America, to promote commerce, to move people, to increase broadband communication, all of the things that you would do in the infrastructure and transportation bill.

That is what, what this country needs. So while this little package is, I think, viewed positively, it is not any substitute for the jobs bill that we need.

Q: Leader Pelosi, do you see any area of common ground with Republicans on energy policy, in terms of something Congress could do right now to bring down gas prices?

Leader Pelosi. Well, we could address the issue of speculation. First of all…

Q: They say that is not the issue. I am saying something with common ground.

Leader Pelosi. Well, we should be able to find our common ground with the American people on that. They are getting completely zapped in that regard. One thing that is interesting, is that the Republicans keep saying: “if only we could drill more.” No, we are drilling more; four times more rigs than when the President took office; more rigs, oil and gas combined, than the rest of the world combined.

So we have to have some, shall we say, stipulations to fact here. So one thing we could do is stipulate to facts. What is it that we can do? The Speaker talked about some of the initiatives that are in the President's Job Council. The President has done some of those. And the others referred to cutting edge technologies for energy, as well as addressing the renewable issue. Some of that is longer term, in the short term, in the short term, to send a clear message to the speculators.

Now, I myself, my personal favorite, is the [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] SPR, for two reasons: first of all, if you don't put oil into the SPR, but you use it, and then you replace it, when the oil is at a lower cost, then you can do the right thing by the cost to the taxpayer. But also, every time oil has been diverted, or taken from the [SPR], one or the other, or both, the price at the pump has gone down. But even if you don't subscribe to that, it at least puts a question mark to the speculators that you might do this.

So that is something, I think, that should be prominently on the table, that we would be willing to use, so that the price could come down and speculators can be put off. That would be one.

Q: To get back to the lunch yesterday, Republicans came out of that sounding some encouraging notes. Speaker Boehner said he was encouraged. There was some talk that it was a constructive lunch. What is your takeaway from yesterday's meeting at the White House?

Leader Pelosi. I agree with that characterization that you just described. I don't know what the rest of his characterization was. But the President invited us there, in a spirit of bipartisanship, and how we can constructively go forward on a list of priorities that need to be addressed in this Congress. Our conversation was marked by friendship, and friendship is always marked by candor. So I think we had a positive, constructive conversation.

That is not to say that there was total agreement on every issue. I myself, well, I don't like to talk about what goes on there, but I know that the Speaker put out a statement on things that he brought up, relating to production in our country of energy. And I made the point then, as I did now, and I won't do it a third time, about what has really happened with production in our country. The President's commitment that he made in the State of the Union address of "all of the above," as we transition to something more friendly to the air we breathe, is what we all subscribe to. So I think it was positive.

The President, as you indicated, has a favorable view of the jobs package, but, as I say, that is easy. This has, as I say, bipartisan support across the board and the path of least resistance.

Q: What do you make of the Republican infighting about passing a budget and the idea of passing a budget along the lines of July's budget?

Leader Pelosi. Well, let me say that I don't know much about their infighting. You will have to ask the Speaker about that next. But I will say this about their budget: it is not a statement of national values, about what the priorities are for the American people. President Obama's budget is.

We will have our Democratic House budget. As we go forward, our distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Van Hollen, will be speaking to, and listening to Members, hearing their views, and what our priorities should be in that budget. But I will tell you what it won't be: it will not end the Medicare guarantee, or have initiatives in it that can cause Medicare to wither on the vine. If you want to have one defining contrast between ours and theirs, and there will be many, but the most important one is their insistence, in one shape, or form, or another, to end the Medicare guarantee, shift costs to seniors, and, again, cause the withering of Medicare on the vine.

Thank you all very much.

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