American Energy Solutions for Lower Gas Prices

AMERICAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS FOR LOWER GAS PRICES -- (House of Representatives - June 26, 2008)

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Ms. FOXX. Thank you so much, Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you for leading this Special Order tonight and for the work that you have been doing for the last several weeks on this issue.

I think it's important that we say over and over and over again that the Republicans do have a plan to lower gas prices. We are doing everything that we can to create new sources of American-made oil because we are in touch with the American people. We go home every weekend. Most of us worked for a living before we came here; so we know what it's like to meet a payroll. We haven't been in government all our lives. We haven't served in the Congress for 53, 54 years.

We are out there every weekend talking to the folks that we represent, and we know how the high prices of gasoline are hurting them. I think the Democrats are in strong denial. They think, again, that they can continue to bash the oil companies and hide their heads in the sand about what is going on.

I want to thank you and our colleague from Indiana and our other colleagues that are going to be speaking tonight who are exposing the Democrats for who they are and what they are. Again, as I said earlier, it's important that we let the American people know it's the Democrats who are in control. The President cannot create new gas sources or new oil sources. Only the Congress has the power to do what needs to be done. So we need to set the record straight.

It seems like the Democrats want to do everything possible to avoid creating new oil and bringing down the price of gasoline. They purport to represent the little person, the common person, the average person in this country, but it's obvious that that's not who they care about. They care about the radical environmentalists and toeing their line.

Now I consider myself an environmentalist. My husband and I are in the nursery and landscaping business. I cherish the earth. I am a big recycler. I am very careful about how I spend things. When you grow up poor, you learn to be careful with money.

But we know that our Speaker is the wealthiest person in Congress. Many of the Democrats are among the wealthiest people in the Congress. This really isn't hurting them at all. Again, I think it's very important that we debunk what they are trying to say to the American people about why their ``use it or lose it'' is what needs to be done. Again, they are good at blaming everybody else in the world for the problems that they create or that they can't solve.

I want to talk a little bit about their comment that all we have to do is get the oil companies to use the leases that are available to them and put out some facts. We had the Truth Squad. The Truth Squad hasn't been active lately, but we need to bring it back. As our colleague says, You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to create facts.

So let me say something about why we need to do something more than simply pass legislation that has already been passed. During President Reagan's administration, 160 million acres of onshore land was leased for exploration. Today, only 50 million acres are leased. Only 6 percent of Federal onshore land is available for leasing. ANWR contains 10.4 billion barrels of oil, but is 100 percent closed.

I want to say something about ANWR, and I want to say something--I saw these pictures on TV again tonight. When ANWR is portrayed, it is usually portrayed as this meadow with daisies growing in it, animals grazing. That isn't what ANWR is. ANWR is a frozen desert. The temperature gets to 60 degrees below zero there sometimes. Practically nothing grows there.

I was all over Alaska in 2005. I saw the oil fields. And, you know what? The oil fields don't look like the oil fields they show you on TV either. We have got to get those guys to get up-to-date pictures. You don't have these big cranes going up and down and back and forth like this. The oil wells don't even look like oil wells. They are little boxes with some gauges on them. If somebody didn't tell you that they were drilling oil there, you couldn't possibly know it. So we are not going to be spoiling our scenery, and we are certainly not going to hurt ANWR.

The OCS contains 86 billion barrels of oil, the Outer Continental Shelf, but 97 percent of it is closed. Onshore Federal land contains 31 billion barrels of oil, but only 6 percent of it is open to exploration. Oil shale on Federal land contains 2 trillion barrels of oil, but is 100 percent closed.

The Democrats' claims are wrong. They claim that there are 4.8 million barrels and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day that may be extrapolated from unused Federal leased lands. Stephen Allred, Assistant Secretary of the Land and Minerals Management, wrote that anyone who makes these claims has a ``misunderstanding of the very lengthy regulatory process. Lessees must comply with permit upon permit, often 27 total permits, without any drilling, and a lease does not equal oil. A lease is not a permission to drill, a lease is a permission to explore.''

The Democrats assume that every acre of leased land can produce the exact same amount of oil and gas as the very best producing acres. This argument is not based on science, fact, or even common sense. A lease doesn't guarantee the discovery of oil and gas. A lessee may never actually find oil or gas. Between 2002 and 2007, 52 percent of all exploration wells were dry.

We have got to set the record straight. We can't let the Democrats get by with talking about things that aren't true and trying to fool the American people.

I see my colleague from Georgia has some wonderful maps here. Let me defer to you to talk about ANWR a little bit.

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