Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008 - Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
STOP EXCESSIVE ENERGY SPECULATION ACT OF 2008--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - July 23, 2008)
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Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CORNYN. I will be happy to.
Mr. DURBIN. Senator Cornyn probably heard, as I did, when President Bush said America is addicted to oil. I took that to mean that we try to find a way to move to alternatives and renewable and sustainable energy. I hear the Senator's speech moving in that direction as well.
Could the Senator tell me why he believes 68 million Federal acres of land, which we have now given to the oil and gas companies, which they are not using for exploration and production, is an argument for giving them more acreage?
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I appreciate the question and the opportunity to try to answer that. Let me do the best I can. I think there is the illusion here in Washington that every acre of land that is available for exploration is going to produce oil. As a matter of fact, in Texas--I am not unfamiliar with the term ``dry hole.'' As a matter of fact, this is a very complex enterprise, where you do seismic testing to try to figure out where oil is likely to be. Sometimes you are wrong and it costs millions, even sometimes billions of dollars to invest to try to produce that oil.
What the oil companies try to do is figure out where their chances are best so they start there. But the more land--including the submerged lands in the Outer Continental Shelf--that is available to them that now Congress has put out of bounds, I think the better the chances are they will be able to find it.
As a matter of fact, there are experts--I am not an expert, but I read what the experts say--who believe there are vast quantities of oil and gas available in the Outer Continental Shelf that are not available now on the lands to which they have access.
Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for another question?
Mr. CORNYN. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. DURBIN. If you were given the opportunity to lease either a barrel of rainwater or a lake to go fishing, I assume you would lease the lake. And I assume these oil and gas companies, in leasing this land, believe it is likely to have oil and gas.
So I ask you, if they have paid their money to lease Federal lands, 68 million acres--half of it offshore, half of it onshore--and another 23 million acres in Alaska, where is this mother load of oil you are so certain we are holding back from these oil and gas companies that would bring us the oil instantaneously and bring down gas prices?
Mr. CORNYN. Well, I am delighted to try to answer that question, as well, because I think the Senator's question demonstrates--I am not complaining; I am not criticizing. You know we are not oil and gas experts, but I have had a little bit of exposure. Let me try to answer that.
There is not a big lake of oil under the surface of the land that is available to anybody who can punch a hole in the earth and then suck it out with a straw. So I do not think the analogy is apt.
These oil companies in America are owned by shareholders. They are not interested in drilling dry holes. They are interested in drilling where there is actually going to be some oil that can be produced. The more opportunity they have, the more lands available to them, the greater, they believe and I believe, they can maximize the likelihood that they will actually find oil.
This is not to help the oil companies, this is to help us quit sending 700 billion a year of American dollars to foreign countries for oil while we have more of it at home, if you believe the experts, about 3 million barrels a day.
Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for another question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
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