Hire More Heroes Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. President, there is a proposal that is going to be made before the House of Representatives and before the Senate. That proposal will lift the ban on the exportation of American oil--oil that is drilled for here in the United States. The oil industry wants to have this ban lifted. You have to go back in history 40 years, to 1975, in order to find why that ban on exported oil is on the books. In 1975 we were at the height of the first oil embargo from OPEC. We were importing 30 to 35 percent of the oil we consumed in the United States. A ban was put in place for us to export our own oil if we were importing 30 to 35 percent of the oil that we were consuming in America. It put us at a big disadvantage if we took that approach to our own oil.
Today the United States imports 25 to 30 percent of all the oil which we consume. Mark Twain used to say that history doesn't repeat itself, but it does tend to rhyme. Today is a lot like 1975 in terms of the amount of oil that we import into our country. Right now we import 5 million barrels of oil a day. We import oil from Iraq, we import oil from Venezuela, and we import oil from the Persian Gulf in order to fuel our economy. Now the oil industry says: Let's start selling the oil we have and drill for in the United States out in the open market. Why does the oil industry want to do that? Because when oil is drilled for in the United States, the price that is set is set in Oklahoma. Cushing, OK, is where the price is set. On average that price is $3 to $6 less expensive per barrel than the oil that is on the open market. That is called the Brent crude price. But it is the world price. That is not our price. Our price is $3 to $6 less.
The oil industry in America wants to get our oil out in the open market so they can sell it to other countries. What countries? First in line would be China. After that, most likely, are other Asian nations. That makes a lot of sense for oil companies. It does not make any sense for American consumers. By keeping the ban in place, Barclays Bank estimated that all that oil here put pressure on prices and lowered prices for consumers by $11 billion last year. You can see it when you look at the price at the pump when you go to fill up.
This year Barclays Bank estimates that there will be a $10 billion reduction in cost for consumers. You can see it at the pump. You can see the price coming down. The pressure works for consumers. The oil industry does not like that. They want to get that oil out of America. They want to get a higher price on the global market.
As to national security, does it really make any sense for the United States to be sending young men and women over to the Middle East in uniform, into that highly unstable part of our planet in order to ensure that this stability leads to huge ships with oil in it coming from the Middle East into America, while simultaneously having the oil industry saying let's export our own oil that we already have? It makes no sense. As long as we are exporting young men and women over to the Middle East to fight, to protect ourselves, we should not be exporting our own oil domestically. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Our own Department of Energy says that our production in America is going to peak in the year 2020--peak--and then decline for the next 20 years. We import 5 million barrels a day. Our oil production will peak in the year 2020 and then start to decline, and the oil industry wants to start exporting our own oil. Many of the advocates of that say: You wouldn't have a ban on any other product being exported from the United States. That is probably right. We don't have a ban on the export of widgets or watches. But on the other hand, we don't fight wars over widgets. We don't fight wars over watches.
Oil is different. Oil has been at the center for 50 years of this powerful geopolitical battle that the United States has been drawn into in the Middle East. Let's not kid ourselves. We are living it every day, looking at the lead stories on every television network in our country--every day.
In terms of what we lose, the domestic refining industry is totally opposed to this. The oil refining industry of the United States is totally opposed to exportation. Why? Because they are investing in the construction of new refineries here to refine American oil here in refineries that are constructed and employing hundreds of thousands of people within our own country. The refining industry opposes it. It would be a $9 billion loss and a reduction by 1.6 million barrels of oil per day that could be refined in the United States. The shipbuilding industry is opposed to it.
We are seeing a 40-percent increase in the amount of shipbuilding in America. Here is what is happening. The oil is produced in the oil patches. It is put on ships, and it is sent to Pennsylvania, sent to New Jersey, sent to other parts of America. You need ships to do that. Then that oil gets refined in Pennsylvania, and it gets refined in other parts of the country. That would end this incredible shipbuilding boom that we have seen.
Where will these exports go? We are not like Russia. We are not like Saudi Arabia. We don't have state-run oil companies. We are a capitalists. Capitalists go for the highest price no matter where it is. You put the oil out on the open seas, and our companies will head toward the highest price.
Who is going to pay the highest price? China is going to pay the highest price. Other countries that are wealthy are going to pay the highest price. We can't pretend that it is going to go to where the geopolitical needs of the Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense are going to go. That is not how capitalism works. You go towards the highest price. That is the fiduciary responsibility that you have as a CEO of a company. That does not get mixed up within our society. The hand on the tiller of those ships is heading towards the highest price.
Who benefits? The oil companies will benefit. There are estimates that by 2025, they will be making an extra $30 billion a year in profits--per year. It makes sense for the oil companies.
Who are the losers? Our consumers are going to be big losers. Our national security is a big loser. We are exporting our strength, our oil, even as we need 5 million extra barrels a day. Our domestic refiners are big losers. Our U.S. shipbuilding industry is a big loser, and our environment is a big loser.
Can you imagine it? The Pope is arriving next week, and he is going to talk about the role that human beings are playing in the dangerous warming of our planet. What the oil industry wants us to do is to continue to engage in expanded fracking of oil on our own soil, even though we haven't fully figured out how to contain the methane that comes out of that fracking, and then put it on ships and send it around the world. Where are the benefits for the American people? Our environment takes all of the risks, and the oil goes out to the open seas with the benefit to the oil companies. It makes no sense at all.
Within 10 years, they are making an extra $30 billion every single year from that additional profit that they get by selling it overseas, rather than keeping it here and keeping the pressure on lowering the price for consumers here in our country.
Many times you hear them saying: We really should be able to drill off the coastline of the United States, all the way up to Maine, down to Florida, from San Diego up to the top of Alaska--right off the coastline. What about the fishing industry? It could endanger it. What about tourism on those beaches if this is spilled? It could endanger it. But they say: We must do it in order to ensure that we have the oil that we need here in the United States.
You can't have it both ways. You can't say that we have enough oil that we can export it out of our country, and simultaneously say that we must drill off of our coastlines in dangerous conditions because we don't need the oil because we can export it. You can't have it both ways. No one is allowed to do that.
There is a pretty high contradiction coefficient in the argument made by the oil industry. We need to have this debate. The American people must know that they are going to run the risk of being tipped upside down at gasoline stations all across the country and having money shaken out of their pockets as they fill up their tanks because the oil industry just wants more.
So national security--let us know when we have produced the extra 5 million barrels a day here. Let us know when they have the evidence that proves that the Department of Energy is wrong and our production doesn't start to go down after 2020. Let us know when they have invested in the safeguards that ensure that methane does not come up from the fracking wells. Let us know when we put as a priority those American young men and women that we are sending over there into the Middle East. It makes no sense. It is a bad policy. They had it right in 1975. We are still importing about the same amount of oil as we were back then. We don't want to invoke the first law of holes, which is, when you end one, stop digging. We want to make sure that we abide by that rule, that we guarantee that we start to come out of that hole, that we use American oil here first before we sell it overseas and hurt consumers, the environment, and our national security.
This is the beginning of a very important debate in our country. I am looking forward to it. I think the American people are going to rise up and realize that this is very dangerous for them on so many different levels that it will be rejected on the floor of the Senate before this entire process has ended.
I yield the floor.
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