FAA Reauthorization Act of 2007

Floor Speech

FAA REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - May 01, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, today, marks more than 2 years--by my count, 738 days--since Speaker Pelosi said:

Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices.

That was on April 24, 2006--738 days ago. I think it is important to look at what has happened to the price of gas and to see whether her prediction was correct.

Lo and behold, we find the average price of a gallon of gasoline in America at $3.62, up $2.33 from the time when Speaker Pelosi became Speaker in January of 2007. Again, that is a rise from $2.33 a gallon to $3.62 a gallon.

I will tell you we have been asking and waiting, and the American people have been waiting and watching, to see what Congress is going to do to help relieve some of this pain at the pump. The American people want us to work together to try to find commonsense solutions to help them with this increasing pain they are feeling in the family budget.

Do you know that taking the difference between $2.33 a gallon and $3.62 a gallon represents roughly a $1,400 increase in the cost for gasoline for the average American family? Of course, I don't have to tell anybody here, or anybody listening, that this is necessary for driving the kids to school, driving to work; it is necessary also to provide fuel for the airplanes Americans fly in. This is an American problem, and I suggest we need to come up with an American solution.

The problem has been that about 60 percent of our energy needs in this country are now satisfied by imported oil and gas from other parts of the world. That is a national security challenge because, of course, to the extent which others supply our energy needs, it means they can turn off the spigot; or if hostilities were to occur that would, let's say, for example, block the Strait of Hormuz, there could be an economic body blow to the United States as a result of the restriction on our energy supply.

We need to recognize there are certain things that are irrefutable or, I should say, maybe unchangeable by Congress. We can pass a lot of laws and repeal laws, but we cannot change the law of supply and demand. Try as we might, Congress has neglected that for these many years. While we have done some good things on conservation, passing fuel efficiency standards recently, and we have also supported renewable fuels, which are an important part of the energy supply, you cannot put wind energy in your tank to drive your kids to school.

We need to recognize that with a fixed supply of oil, which is 70 percent of the price of gasoline, we are competing globally with countries such as China and India, rising economies where people want a better quality of life, and they realize one key to that is affordable energy. America has not had that exclusively, but we have had it pretty much to ourselves, and others want what we have, which is a good quality of life and standard of living. That comes with affordable energy.

So what are we going to do about satisfying the laws of supply and demand? Of course, we know Congress is the primary culprit when it comes to obstructing access to American natural resources. I remember that when I was growing up, we would talk about different countries in school and about how some were blessed with abundant natural resources and how that was a good thing because the citizens of that country could use those natural resources to enhance their quality of life--in this case, provide for affordable energy. But we have simply, by our inaction--and I would say to the extent it applies--actually acted affirmatively to place our natural resources out of bounds in a way that has exacerbated and not solved the problem.

I know how popular it is these days to say it is all big oil's fault. The blame game. Then we have people saying we need another investigation. Well, the blame game and investigations are important, and investigations and oversight is for Congress, but that is not producing a single drop of additional energy. We need to do that and we need to act today.

A moment ago, a group of Senators announced an omnibus energy bill that would satisfy America's need for more American solutions to our energy supply. My hope is that by taking advantage, for example, of the million-barrel-a-day capacity Alaska could supply, by taking advantage of the Outer Continental Shelf, such as we have in the Gulf of Mexico, with the vast oil deposits there, and by taking advantage of our abundant natural resources in the form of oil shale in the West, we could relieve our dependence upon imported oil in this country to the tune of some 3 million barrels a day.

I know there are environmental and safety concerns with developing our oil and gas resources right here at home. But I invite the people who are concerned about that and who do not believe we can do so to come to Fort Worth and see the Barnett shale, which is an abundant, plentiful source of natural gas being developed right in the city of Fort Worth. As a matter of fact, if you fly into DFW Airport, you will see drilling rigs on the airport property. The tract of land in Alaska that is going to be explored and used for producing this million-barrel-a-day-plus oil that is located in the Arctic is going to be on a postage stamp-size piece of property.

I see the distinguished ranking member of the Energy Committee. I was saying the city of Fort Worth is producing the Barnett shale and actually drilling gas at DFW Airport and that you can see the rigs there.

I suggest that if we can produce those natural resources in Texas and in Fort Worth on the DFW Airport property, American energy producers can do it in Alaska. People are concerned, as they should be--and I wish they would act on those concerns and not just complain about it--about $120-a-barrel oil. It has been projected that if we were to take advantage of the natural resources God has blessed us with in the Arctic, we could produce oil there that costs roughly $55 a barrel. So $120 a barrel or $55 a barrel? You pick.

If we are talking about developing oil resources from the Outer Continental Shelf, even beyond the horizon, as we did in lease sale 181 in the Gulf of Mexico--it is 300 miles off the coast of Texas. You cannot even see it. Yet we have a way of producing those abundant resources. If Congress will simply quit the blame game, the finger-pointing and wake up to the fact that the American people are feeling pain not only at the pump but in their family budgets--they are looking for Congress to get out of the way and let the American people produce the natural resources we have been blessed with, in a way that will satisfy the laws of supply and demand, by producing as much as 3 million barrels of additional oil, which will then have a dramatic impact at the pump and help American families meet their energy needs at a reasonable price.

Source