Oil Drilling
Floor Speech
OIL DRILLING -- (Senate - July 15, 2008)
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I have come to the floor this morning to comment on the press conference that President Bush had just moments ago where he renewed his call for more oil drilling, saying that more drilling is the answer to spiraling prices.
I have to tell you, unfortunately for all of us who are suffering from these out-of-control prices at the pump, what I hear is the President coming out and talking real tough but offering no solutions to the real crisis in front of us.
Americans are hurting today. In my home State of Washington, we are paying $4.45 a gallon. But I cannot go home and tell my constituents that we are going to go drill off the coast of Washington State and lower their prices at the gas pump. That is not true. In fact, the President's own Department of Energy says to us that lifting the moratorium is not going to have an impact until 2030. Even then, in 2030, there is no guarantee that drilling more oil off the coast of my State or any other will solve this gas price problem in 2030.
The President says he wants to open more land for drilling to increase production. What he doesn't say is that the oil companies right now today hold 68 million acres of land, both onshore and offshore, that they could, if they wanted to, drill today.
Let me say that again. While the President wants to hand out more leases, he wants all of us to come out here and hand more leases to the oil companies, they are already sitting on 68 million acres of Federal land doing nothing to explore and produce oil on those leases. Why? Because if they put more oil out there today, prices will drop, and they are doing pretty darn good today.
I don't think we should be surprised. I don't think we should be surprised at this at all. These are the same oil companies that are making record profits, billions and billions each year, as a direct result of increasing oil and gas prices. It is no surprise they are telling us: More drilling, give us more to drill, give us more to drill, and making empty promises of lowering gas prices when that simply is not true.
Given that there are two oil men in the White House today, I don't think any of us should be surprised. I don't think any of us should be surprised that millions of barrels of oil the oil companies pull from American soil today never enter the market. It is sold, by the way, not to the United States but to markets in China and overseas. So telling us this will lower our gas prices, to me, seems pretty out of touch when we know that if we were to come out here and allow them to drill more in the areas off our coast, having a huge impact on our fishing industries and our tourism industries and other important industries in the State today, that we would never see that oil even if we allowed them to drill it because it would be sold to markets overseas.
There is no requirement that it would come here to the United States anyway.
Families in my home State of Washington and across this country are pretty sick and tired of paying higher and higher prices at the pump. It is certainly impacting the economy of every small business, every family, every community. Those people deserve real solutions. They deserve solutions that are going to offer stability and controlled prices. What we are hearing from the President today is just going to give them more of the same: empty promises and failed policies.
Over the past week or so, I have heard the Republicans saying: Find more, use less. That sounds pretty good to me, but I have a good solution to that. Have the companies find that ``more oil'' in the 68 million acres they currently hold by drilling today. Then let's invest in ``using less'' by passing the energy tax credits that Republicans have filibustered, by the way, time and time again on this floor. I think it is long past time that those new investments are made in renewable energy and fast-tracking alternative energy technology so we don't continually come out here and fall into this drill, drill, drill debate that sends empty promises to people who really are hurting today.
I think we should have a policy that really works. I think we ought to look for solutions on this floor in ways that provide real solutions. But just getting into a debate that sends empty promises and listening to a President in the White House say give the oil companies lots more to drill and sending an empty promise to my home State of Washington and across this Nation, to me, is pandering at its worst.
Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mrs. MURRAY. I will be happy to yield.
Mr. BIDEN. First of all, I agree with everything the Senator just said. But if, in fact, if I am not mistaken, all of the reserves that are estimated to exist off of your shore and ours--in Delaware they want to drill as well--if all the reserves in the entire continental United States, the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean--if they all exist, and they all meet the expectation of the best, most probable high return, we still only represent 3 percent of the total world oil reserves.
My problem is my Republican colleagues who tout themselves as being big businessmen who understand how the business world works in the market economy, it always amazes me how they fail to remember how cartels work. The cartel called OPEC controls the vast majority of the oil resources. Not one of these wells would come on before 10 years--not one. That is according to our Department of Energy. Not one for 10 years.
When they come on, what makes anybody think that the outfit that controls 60 or 70 percent of the world's oil reserves isn't going to just pump 3 percent less? Does anybody think that OPEC, knowing that we had 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, is going to continue to pump at the rate they are pumping? I promise you they will reduce the amount of oil they pump just like they always did to 3, 4, 5, 7 percent less, guaranteeing that whatever the price was will be sustained.
What I do not understand is, I do not understand our friends, including the President, who was a businessman of sorts--I don't mean that; I am not being a wise guy--who was in the business world prior to this, doesn't understand how cartels work. Is there anywhere in the President's offshore drilling where he has gotten a commitment from OPEC that they will continue to pump at the rate they are pumping now? Are you aware of any such?
Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Delaware raises a good point. Of course he hasn't gotten that kind of commitment from the OPEC countries. Of course he has not. They are focused on a profit, as they are doing quite well today.
The Senator is right. If we were to go ahead and use this moment in our history when we have some big decisions to make to just say: Oh, we will drill more, there is absolutely no guarantee that OPEC will not control that supply.
Mr. BIDEN. If the Senator will continue to yield for a moment, the thing I want everybody to understand is, as a guy named Yergin, who chairs the Cambridge Research Group, who advises not all but most of the major world oil companies, explained to me once, he said: You know, oil is like filling your swimming pool. If you put a hose in your swimming pool and you keep filling it and filling it, it takes a long time to raise an inch or two. It has virtually no impact on the total size cubic feet of your swimming pool or the amount of water in it. The second thing is, all the oil that goes into that swimming pool all goes into one big pool. It is all the same price.
If you notice, people pumping oil in Texas are not charging less than people pumping oil in Saudi Arabia. If you notice, people pumping oil in California are not charging less than people pumping oil in Venezuela. If you notice, when the OPEC price goes up ``American'' oilfields benefit.
I am not suggesting the American oilfields are in collusion with OPEC, but guess what. Americans think, if we pump our own oil, we will be independent. It "ain't'' our own oil.
Mrs. MURRAY. I remind the Senator, if we were to do that, that oil would not come to America where our constituents would be able to use it.
Mr. BIDEN. The oil on the Senator's side of the country would not. One reason I voted against the Alaska pipeline is instead of going through Canada to the United States, it would go to Japan, figuratively speaking.
Mrs. MURRAY. So it goes there today.
Mr. BIDEN. I hope we start talking about basic facts. If everything we think we have under the ground that we control as the United States--on the Continental Shelf, off the Pacific Ocean, in ANWR--everything out there, we have 3 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. It doesn't give you much of a bargaining chip. It would be one thing if you say: You know, every bit of the oil we pump that we control goes to the United States, and we are only going to charge $2 a barrel. Wouldn't that be great? Or $10 or $20 or $30 or $50. But I kind of notice, those guys down in Texas charge us exactly the same price as those guys wearing robes in Saudi Arabia charge us. Isn't that kind of funny? And if you only control 3 percent of the oil reserves and pump it all, all the folks we don't like so much who control 60 or 70 percent of the reserves, they just pump 3 percent less, and the price is the same. We cannot drill our way out of this.
I thank my friend from Washington for pointing this out.
I yield the floor.
Mrs. MURRAY. I thank my friend from Delaware for joining me. We have been listening to this debate now. The President weighed in from his podium this morning. Much as we would like to hand our constituents tomorrow morning a lower gas price, we in this Senate have to be realistic about today, tomorrow, and far into the future. Even the Energy Administration Agency has said the impact on wellhead prices from opening the Pacific, Atlantic, and gulf waters to drilling ``is expected to be insignificant.''
Let's not, here on the Senate floor, talk about empty promises to our constituents at a time when they are really hurting. Let's take this opportunity and time to make long-term investments that put our country on a path to being less dependent on oil. Those are the right investments that we ought to be making. Yes, they are hard. Yes, they are difficult. Yes, they are challenging. It is not easy to come up with compromises on them when we are all from very different parts of the Nation. But let's not just sell a bill of goods to the Nation when we are hurting.
I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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