Republican Freshman Quarterly Report

REPUBLICAN FRESHMAN QUARTERLY REPORT -- (House of Representatives - July 30, 2008)

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Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman for putting this hour together. I thank the folks who are participating and those who were able to go on our trip when we went to, we were up in ANWR, up in Alaska to see.

You know, the thing I just feel so strongly about is, Americans realize we live in the greatest country ever. But they are frustrated. They are frustrated by the fact that this Congress, if you saw the news yesterday, this Congress has run the largest deficit in history. $482 billion is the projected deficit this year.

They are frustrated that this Congress won't act on increasing the supply of energy, won't act on drilling more offshore, drilling more in Alaska, won't act on bringing down the price at the pump, bringing down the price of energy, won't act on those things that are necessary to help every single family across this country.

A few months ago, in our district, I had the opportunity to be in one of our Federal judge's courtroom for the ceremony where new Americans take the oath of citizenship. And I don't know if you have ever had a chance to participate in those ceremonies, Madam Speaker, but when you get an opportunity, it is an emotional experience to watch these, in my case, it was 36 new Americans, raise their hand, take the oath and become an American citizen. And when they completed that oath, the smile on their face, when they now realized that they were a citizen of the greatest country in the world, it is special to see. And frankly, those Americans, those new Americans, as all Americans, deserve better from their Congress.

The idea that we are going to leave here without taking an up or down vote on increasing supply on drilling offshore, on drilling in ANWR, is just wrong, and they deserve better.

One of the things that we learned that the gentleman from California has pointed out in some of his comments and remarks, when we were in Alaska, I will just be frank with you. If ever there was a place that we should be producing oil, it is in ANWR. Alaska is a beautiful State, except in ANWR where we were. When you went and looked across that area, this was a desolate, barren place that has over 10 billion barrels of oil waiting to be brought to production, waiting to be helping with our supply needs, waiting to be helping with the price at the pump that families are paying, and it is just something that we need to go do.

And as the gentleman points out, technology is our friend in this area. The footprint needed now on the surface to go down and get a much larger area subsurface is so small, and we can do it in an environmentally safe way.

I thought it was interesting, and my colleagues will recall this as well who were on the trip, that we flew over ANWR in propeller planes, prop planes, so we were flying pretty low to the ground. When we flew over ANWR I didn't see any wildlife. I am sure it was there, but I just thought it was sort of ironic and somewhat of a coincidence. We didn't see it. As I told the press, we didn't see caribou, we didn't see, you know, polar bears. We didn't see Bambi. We didn't see it. What we saw was a barren, desolate place which, as I said, has over 10 billion barrels of oil that needed to be brought to market.

But when we were on the ground, as the gentleman from California pointed out, in the Prudhoe Bay area, in that production are, where we have been taking oil out of the ground, bringing it to market for 30 years, when we were on the ground there in that area, at the pipeline itself, mile marker 0, pump station Number 1, we saw the caribou. They were right there. In fact, we saw one caribou trotting across the airport runway where we landed the plane as we flew into the Prudhoe Bay area.

So the idea that we can produce this in a way that is going to be friendly to wildlife, it is already there. We saw proof of that firsthand. This is something we need to do.

As I said, the American people get it, and the fact that their Congress doesn't is frustrating. It is frustrating them. It is frustrating for those of us who want to drill more, who want this legislation to pass so we can get started on bringing down the price right away.

They get it. And I am confident what is going to happen over the August recess, you know, is there is an old line in politics that most politicians don't see the light; they feel the heat. And I think when some of these Members go back home, they are not just going to feel the heat from the August summer weather, they are going to feel the heat from families and constituents back home who tell them, we need to drill; we need to go get more supply.

The American people get it. It is time that this Democrat-led Congress get it. I am still confident we can get a vote on this before the election, hopefully, when we come back in September, and we are going to continue to push on that.

And with that I would yield back to my good friend, the gentleman from California.

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Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. One of the arguments we hear is just what the gentleman brought up, it is going to take 8 to 10 years to bring this production. We forget about the fact that, as you indicated, ANWR is only 70, 75 miles away from the existing pipeline. We have already got that infrastructure in place.

And as the gentleman indicated earlier, it used to be 2 million barrels a day moving through that pipeline. Today it is 700,000. If it gets to a certain level, it drops to a certain low level, it becomes physically, the feasibility physically is just not there to continue to maintain it. And frankly, from an economic standpoint, there needs to be a certain volume of oil moving through that every day.

This place is right next door, 75 miles away. And the infrastructure is in place. It will take a lot less time to get that oil to market and help every single family.

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Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. Today in the Budget Committee we had a hearing today where we were talking about the increased price in food. We had two economists that were a part of the panel, and I asked them how much--you think about the fact that every commodity price is up. I asked them, I said, How much of all of these other commodity prices, the price being driven up, is attributable to the price of fuel? And they couldn't give a percentage, but they said it's a lot.

And it's not just a lot. When you think about the farmer and the fact that his input costs and just putting diesel in the tractor to plant the crops and harvest and cultivate the crops, but it's all our distribution. You have got to move all of these products that my friend from Tennessee listed, that my friend from Georgia talked about in agriculture. You have got to move them across this country.

Fuel drives up every single other commodity price, and that's why, again, it highlights and underscores the fact that we have got to pass legislation that allows us to get more supply.

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