Congressional Budget for the United States Government for the Fiscal Year 2006

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 2006 -- (Senate - March 16, 2005)

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding.

How high do gas prices have to get? How over a barrel does OPEC have to get us before we realize what the American people realized a long time ago that we have an energy crisis in America today? We have gas prices that continue to soar. We have supply problems because we rely on the geopolitics of the Middle East.

Earlier this month, I was glad to join Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, and four of my colleagues, including the Senator from Alaska, Ms. Murkowski, on a trip up to the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge. It is a big place.

Alaska is 386,000 square miles. My home State of South Dakota is 77,000 square miles. We think we have a lot of wide open space in South Dakota. But you could put seven of my States of South Dakota into the State of Alaska.

If you look at Alaska in its totality and look at what we are talking about in terms of the exploration and possible production in ANWR, it is 19.6 million acres on the wilderness area, ANWR area. Eight million acres of that is wilderness. The area we are talking about for development and exploration is 1.53 million acres.

Furthermore, the area that would be used under the legislation limits it to 2,000 acres.

That is the equivalent in South Dakota terms of about three sections of farmland in an area that is 19.6 million acres in a State that is 586,000 square miles, where we could put seven of the State of South Dakota.

We had the opportunity when I was up there to look at technology. It is remarkable what has transformed over the last 30 or 40 years. You probably can't see it on the map, but Prudhoe Bay technology is 1970s vintage technology compared to 1980s vintage technology. We went to a site called the Alpine site, which is the millennium technology. The changes that have taken place are dramatic, and the way it has evolved minimizes the impact and the footprint that is left. In fact, at the Alpine site, there were 97 acres, which included the runway where they land the planes to provide their supplies and the lake they get their water from. They are generating 120,000 barrels of oil a day on 97 acres. Why? Because the technology allows them to go underground, to drill horizontally, and to drill directionally. It minimizes the impact above the ground.

We saw where they use ice roads for exploration to get back and forth. In the winter, the roads disappear. Below the frozen tundra is the single largest and most promising onshore oil reserve in America--somewhere between 6 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil. The average of that would be 10 billion barrels.

How much is that? A million barrels a day that we could add to our production in this country. That is 5 percent of what we use--20 million barrels a day in the United States. We get 10 million barrels a day today from outside the United States.

This would lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Put another way, it could power the State of South Dakota for 499 years.

We are talking about a significant resource that we need because America is facing an energy crisis.

Gas is over $2 a gallon. A barrel of oil is near record highs. Make no mistake about it, America's energy crisis is an economic crisis that impacts every American. This country needs energy legislation which fosters more oil production and increases the alternatives, such as renewable fuels and ethanol that we produce in my home State of South Dakota.

I hope we can get a comprehensive energy bill that increases the use of ethanol in this country. Right now, we do about 3.5 billion gallons a year in ethanol, but we use 120 billion gallons a year of gasoline in this country. It has to come from somewhere.

Right now, we are paying all the money to the folks in the Middle East who have gotten us over a barrel. We need to change that. We need to reduce our dependence on politically unstable foreign sources of oil.

Specifically, the United States imports about 3 million barrels of oil a day from the Persian Gulf. The estimated daily domestic supply from ANWR would reduce that number by half.

Passing this legislation will reduce America's dependence on foreign sources of oil, strengthening our economic security, strengthening our energy security, and strengthening our national security.

When I was in the House, we passed an energy policy, but it got stuck in the Senate.

We have an opportunity to finally finish the job that the American people sent us here to do and to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil.

Listen to the people of Alaska. Mr. President, 57 out of 60 members of the Alaska State Legislature support this. You just heard the Senator from Hawaii talk about most of the tribes in Alaska support this. The congressional delegation, the Governor, the people's representatives here in Washington and in Alaska believe this is important to the future of that State.

It is important for the economy of this country and to the people who are having to pay the price at the pump because we fail and refuse to do something that is so important--to tap the vast reserves that exist right here in America rather than relying on the Middle East for our energy supply.

I hope my colleagues here today will join with me and with those in the past who have supported this and vote for this so that we can begin the process of lessening our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

I yield the floor.

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