Energy

Floor Speech

ENERGY -- (Senate - April 29, 2008)

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise this morning to talk about what everyone is talking about, which is the price of energy today. I was home in Alaska over the weekend. Everywhere I went, the price of gasoline was the main topic. Everyone wanted to talk about it. Here in the lower 48, as we are looking at high crude prices hitting the $120-per-barrel mark yesterday, or nearing that mark, recognizing that we are seeing a nationwide average of gas prices at $3.60 for a gallon of regular-- this is up just 4 cents over the weekend--we all agree that prices are high, far too high. But in a State such as mine, we consider the prices to be in the stratosphere. In Bethel over the weekend, the price of gasoline was at $4.98 a gallon. I just met with a constituent coming over here. We were talking about prices in Fairbanks, about the national average. But up in Allakaket, which is a pretty remote little village, the prices they are looking at for their gasoline are over $7 a gallon for regular gasoline.

In Valdez, which is the site of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, the terminus of our gas line, they are finding regular selling there for more than $4 a gallon. I think we would all agree these prices are not just high, but for many they are absolutely unbearable.

We can talk about why the prices are high. It is important to understand that. But Americans are tired of hearing, when we talk about the world demand, the world using 85 million barrels a day, that there is very little surplus oil production capacity left.

They are tired of hearing of the weakness of the dollar that is driving investors into buying oil as a safe haven against inflation. The truckers who were gathered around The Mall yesterday in protest of the high prices--I have to wonder if they care that we, in Congress, in 2005 and again in 2007, passed legislation to promote energy conservation that requires an increase in the vehicle fuel efficiency standards. That is going to begin to improve their mileage in about 7 years. They do not necessarily care we have funded the research and the demonstration of alternative energy technologies, whether it is for geothermal or for ocean energy. They do not care about the loan guarantees we intend to make for nuclear and solar and wind and biomass as we try to make our biofuels go even further.

What people care about--what they want to know--is: What are you doing, Congress? What are you going to do to make the price I pay at the pump go down?

I suppose we can halt filling up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve--something we certainly are looking at. I think at this time of very high prices it makes some sense. But we need to recognize that is only going to add 70,000 barrels a day to the nearly 21 million we are using.

We could also reduce the Federal gas tax, which is currently 18.4 cents, and dedicate the nearly $5 billion we gained in OCS lease sales this winter from sales up in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska and from the Gulf of Mexico to help offset the losses to the highway trust fund. But, again, that would only offset the revenue losses to transportation projects for probably a few weeks.

So the question the consumer is asking is: What can you do that could make a difference in this country? I believe one of those things we need to do in America is to produce more of our domestic oil and gas supplies to help increase global oil supplies and, thus, drive down the prices. We would do this at the same time we are working toward renewable fuels. We would do this at the same time we are focusing on a level of conservation. It has to be this kind of three-legged stool approach. But we cannot stick our head in the sand and say increased domestic production should not be part of that comprehensive strategy.

Now, some have suggested we do not have enough oil in this country to make a difference. But look at what we in the Federal Government have done through regulation and through moratoria. We have prevented exploration in many of the places where oil and gas are most likely to be found in this country.

If you take the areas that are covered by the OCS moratoria--the Atlantic coast, parts of the Gulf of Mexico closest to Florida and the Pacific coast and you throw in the Arctic Coastal Plain and parts of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska--you have nearly 40 billion of the Nation's 112 billion barrels of remaining undiscovered oil which has been put off the table for consideration. That is nearly enough to power over 20 million cars for 60 years and heat nearly 10 million homes for the same period.

Last year, I came to this floor--actually, I come to this floor quite often--to urge my colleagues to consider greater oil development in my home State of Alaska. Earlier this year, I came and I urged that we simply allow--just allow--us winter-only exploration in northern Alaska to confirm that the oil we believe is there is truly there. Last year, when I spoke, the price of oil was at the $60 mark. At the same time, I warned that if we continued to do nothing, the prices would only continue to climb.

I have never been one of those people who relishes the ``I told you so'' approach, but I am here to say it is time for this country to snap out--snap out--of its lethargy and actually explore for and produce more of our Nation's fuel needs.

It was about a month ago, Senator Stevens and I introduced new legislation to open a tiny part of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. Opening a few thousand acres--we are talking about 2,000 acres--of Alaska's Arctic coast to oil and gas production could produce up to 16 billion barrels of economic oil by current Government estimates. To some, that might not seem like much. But without opening ANWR, we are going to have to import between 780,000 and 1 million barrels of additional oil each day. That is only going to continue to help drive up the world price of oil.

Without ANWR, American domestic oil supplies fall sharply. The EIA predicts Alaska will be producing about 270,000 barrels a day, next decade, from our existing oil fields up in Prudhoe Bay. This is compared to the nearly 800,000 barrels a day the State is currently producing.

The bill we introduced will automatically open the coastal plain of ANWR in the northern part of the State if the world price of oil tops $125 a barrel for 5 days. In return, what it does is allocates all the Federal revenues that would come from that oil to both alternative energy development and to programs to help improve energy efficiencies and to those in need. What we anticipate, in terms of revenues, would be an estimated $297 billion--$297 billion--to help fund the wind technology, the solar, the biomass, the geothermal, the ocean energy, the landfill gas--everything that was covered in those Energy bills that were passed in 2005 and 2007, plus it would provide funding for LIHEAP, for weatherization, and for the WIC Program. The bill incorporates protections so that while we do the exploration and the production, we are also protecting the environment.

We mandate that the exploration occur only in the winter, when no animals are on the Coastal Plain to be disturbed. It requires the use of ice roads that disappear in the summer to protect the wildlife. It allows for special areas to be designated to protect the key habitat. There are dozens of stipulations to guard against noise and flight disturbances, spills or land use problems.

Opening ANWR does so many things. It makes us, first and foremost--and most important--less dependent on foreign sources of oil. It cuts our balance of payments deficit. It improves our economy. It keeps our jobs at home, not exporting them to foreign oil producers such as Venezuela. But, more importantly, I think it signals that we are finally serious about helping ourselves, that we will do it here first, that we can produce oil from ANWR, and we recognize this will help to drive down the psychology and the speculation that is currently acting to drive up world oil prices.

I will be the first one to admit to you that opening ANWR tomorrow will not produce more oil tomorrow. We recognize that. But we do believe it will dampen the price speculation that is helping to fuel higher prices.

We have to talk about true and meaningful solutions: not only increasing alternative energy--which is a must--not only doing more to improve our energy efficiency and our conservation--absolutely important--but we need to get on now with also increasing our domestic energy supplies. ANWR is one way to demonstrate we are serious about doing that.

I do hope we will seriously look at the current merits of opening ANWR to exploration and development.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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