Energy Solutions
ENERGY SOLUTIONS -- (House of Representatives - July 16, 2008)
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Mr. LATTA. I thank the gentlelady from Minnesota for this hour and for her leadership on this issue. It is an important issue. It is probably the most important issue facing this Nation today. Our well-being and our economic independence relies upon it. And the other Members that have spoken, the gentlelady from Ohio, the gentleman from Iowa and the gentleman from North Carolina all touched on these major issues that we have to be looking at from ANWR, to drilling, to making sure that we have energy conservation in this country.
So I thank the gentlelady for her time here tonight and for her leadership. The big issue really is this: The people back home understand what the issue is, and Congress doesn't. That is the big issue. We have had many telephone town halls that we have conducted. The people back home, the vast majority of that hour and a half is all dedicated to one thing: What is Congress going to be doing about energy in this country? We have got to be doing something right now.
Why is it important? Because you have to think about a few things. As we have seen in these charts and the graphs tonight, when gasoline is over $4 a gallon, when diesel is over $4.69 a gallon, we are talking energy equals manufacturing equals jobs. It spreads out across the economy. And when you are talking about spreading across the economy, we have people having to pay more and more and more for the energy to put in their vehicles, energy to put in their trucks and tractors and to heat their homes this winter.
We are in trouble because we have been told over and over that Americans aren't saving enough. We're not saving enough. Well, if we are going to put more and watch more of our dollars go overseas, and a lot of people are starting to see the commercials, that T. Boone Pickens is running right now showing how many dollars are flowing out, over 65 percent or 70 percent of every gallon of oil that comes into this country is imported that we are using, 65 percent. That is really a tough thing for us to be doing.
So we have to make sure that the future holds that America can take care of itself. Because we want to make sure that our kids can have a good college education, that people can buy a home, that people can make sure they can save for their future, for their retirement.
But if all we're going to be doing is putting more and more dollars into an envelope and shipping it overseas, that is not the future for America. It has already been stated, we have to produce and we have to conserve in this country. But we can't wait. And it has been talked about earlier, when President Clinton vetoed the bill back in 1995, we would have 1 million extra barrels of oil flowing down here every day, 1 million barrels. But we don't.
And it's also the naysayers saying that, well, it might take time. Well, we don't know how much time we're talking about. We can always say it can take 10 or 15 or 20 years. But it can take a lot less. But that is the spirit of America. If we put our minds to it, we are going to get it done. We're in a crisis. And in a crisis, that is where America shines. So we want to make sure that we start working on this.
The other thing that was mentioned by the gentlelady from Ohio, my colleague, is that when you're talking about all these groups out there, organizations, local government and schools that are being hit hard, one of the things she didn't mention is the volunteer firemen out there. We have a lot of volunteer fire departments across my entire district. We don't have a lot of departments that are there 24 hours a day. And a lot of these volunteers out there are now saying we don't know if we will have enough fuel to get to these fires. Because there is just not enough money. The price keeps going up. They are running at a cash crunch.
We talk about public safety out there that we have to worry about. And we're talking about those volunteer firemen out there that have to make sure that they get that fire truck to that fire in time.
The other thing happening in my district right now is across the entire country. It is wheat harvest time. And so the farmers are out there bringing in that wheat. But again, they're paying a lot of money to do it. And not only once they get the wheat harvested with the combine and with the diesel fuel, but then they have to put it in trucks to haul that wheat to the elevators or wherever it is going to be stored. So again, there is costs involved over and over. It's driving up the price for all of America. We've got to be doing something now. We can't wait.
And again, the folks back home get it. Congress isn't getting it. The Democratic-controlled Congress here has got to realize that the American people are saying we have got to conserve and we have got to drill. We have to make sure that we use the assets we have in this country to do it. And as my district points out, according to the National Manufacturers, we have about the ninth largest number of manufacturing jobs across the entire country. I have the number one agricultural district in the State of Ohio. I have transportation in my district. At one point you can almost be within 60 percent of the United States population in one day's hard drive.
So we have all these things going on. But we're not going to be producing food. We're not going to stay food-independent in this country if we don't do something about this right now. So the time to act is now, not later. When the President just the other day said that he was going to lift the ban on his end on offshore drilling, it is time for Congress to do the same. And I demand that we start working on that to make sure we get that done right now. Because you know what happened right off the bat, the world market said, do you know what? The Americans are serious. The Americans are saying we're going to go out there and drill. That price of oil is starting to go down. It's down about $9 from where it was. But that is because the world is thinking, hey, America might be getting serious about this.
We have all these energy resources out there. As has been pointed out, 10.3 billion barrels in ANWR. And again we're only talking about as the gentleman from Iowa stated, you are talking about a 2,000-acre out of a 19.5-million acre area, a very small footprint that would be confined. It would be an area that we can make sure we get that oil drilled. And we have to do it. We have to get that oil up. We have to get it moving.
The Outer Continental Shelf, we are talking about 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. We are talking about 86 billion barrels of oil. What are we doing? Absolutely nothing. It's time to start acting and start acting now, because if we don't, it will be, well, if another year goes by, we can't do it because it will take that much more time. The time to act is absolutely right now. And we have to get it done.
America has so many resources at its disposal. But we're not using them. We've talked about oil. We've talked about natural gas. The other thing up here that has also been talked about a little earlier is oil shale. We are talking about 2.1 trillion barrels of oil in oil shale out West. And what are we doing? Nothing. Congress has to start lifting the restrictions so that America will be energy independent and get it done right now. Because if we don't do it, we can't be held hostage by dictators around the world and also by Middle Eastern oil. It's time to act right now.
And as we also talk about some other things that we have in this country that we want to make sure that we keep using, we have over 24 percent or 25 percent of the world's coal. And what are we doing in this country? Well, we don't like coal. Well, we have an abundance of coal. We can gasify it. We can liquefy it. And we can make sure it is done in a clean manner and start utilizing it. In Ohio we have what we call ``high sulfur'' coal. It is too expensive to use. Well, not only if we can use it in a clean system what we can do out there with that coal is in a clean system we can put more people to work that want to go out there and mine that coal. We have other people that can transport that coal. So we want to make sure that we have that coal out there for Americans to be using and using it today.
Another area is of course that we have talked a little bit about earlier, we talked about the alternatives, the supplementals. In my district alone, we can talk about several things. Out my back door we have the only four wind turbines in the State of Ohio. We can also use those wind turbines across the country. We can start utilizing them. But we also have other things in my district. We have solar power production. We have folks out there producing and working on getting a hydrogen engine. We have people out there working with ethanol, biodiesel.
So America has all these resources. We are a great country. We can get it done. And I just want to thank the gentlelady from Minnesota again for her leadership on this and for putting this hour on tonight. We have got to get this out to the American people. But it is one of those issues that the people back home are far ahead of us here in Congress. And it's time that the people here in Washington start listening to what the people back home say.
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