America's Increasing Dependence on Foreign Oil

AMERICA'S INCREASING DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL -- (House of Representatives - March 17, 2005)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, if Mr. Greenspan had been doing such a good job, the value of the dollar would not be declining every single week. Let me just say that the budget that just passed here is a national disgrace. It only passed by a couple of votes. If two people had changed, we might have gotten a real budget resolution on this floor, just by the narrowest of margins.

Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department announced the largest one-month budget deficit in U.S. history. Somebody better pay attention. Mr. Greenspan ought to pay attention. In fact, now we have the second largest trade deficit in history. The ships are lined up outside L.A. harbor as far as you can see out into the Pacific and they go back empty. What is wrong with these accounts?

Gas prices, by the way, are up 19 percent. The value of the dollar has declined by more than 33 percent, more than a third against the Euro in the past 3 years, and our economy is sputtering. The demand for oil is just about to increase with summer and vacations on the way. No wonder the stock market fell more than 100 points last week, based on investors' fears about, you guessed it, rising oil prices.

The February budget deficit of $114 billion was the first time the deficit for any one month exceeded $100 billion. Every day America goes more in hock to foreign lenders. They are the ones that are propping us up. In fact, if you just look between a year ago, October 2003 and November 2004, you can see who we are in hock to. Japan holds most of the paper, over $714 billion now. Next comes Europe, over $380 billion. China, Hong Kong, but they are going up very fast, $241 billion. We get down here to the oil exporting countries. OPEC, over $141 billion. And every day we owe them more and more interest as America goes into hock to foreign lenders who now own about 40 percent of us.

Equally troubling is the record trade deficit in January which increased to $58.3 billion as imports coming into our country continued to swamp exports going out. Even the lower value of the dollar has not helped with exports because the fundamentals are bad. Higher deficits mean more U.S. jobs get shipped to China, to India, to Latin America, jobs everywhere, good jobs. But not here in the United States. U.S. light crude flirted with $55 a barrel, near-record levels of last October and Ohio's gasoline prices at the pump rose 15 cents, up from the last week of February. Currently, Ohioans are paying over $2.10 for their gasoline and the upward trend just keeps on going. What is truly dangerous and tragic about this trend is America's utter dependence on foreign sources of oil.

Here we have it. We are supposed to be energy independent in this country. You go back to 1982, every single year America has become more and more dependent on imported petroleum. It means we are strategically vulnerable to disruptions, as over half the petroleum we use is imported. It is time for a new age of American energy independence.

But is this Congress or the White House up the street paying any attention? The Wall Street Journal reported last week on corn-based ethanol and whether the visionary farmers who are leading this effort across the Corn Belt would lose their shirts as some of these multinational interests would come in and buy up the meager investments that they had been able to make out of their own back pockets. This is where the Federal Government needs to step in.

My Biofuels Energy Independence Act of 2005, H.R. 388, does exactly this by helping these visionary Americans hedge predatory oil companies who lock their product out at every gas pump in this country.

They need long-term financing, not a comatose President and Congress. Imagine an America that was energy independent again and where energy independence rose to a national priority and where we put the dollars we are paying for imported fuel into the pockets of producers here at home.

The administration is cutting support for advancing biofuels by over $84 million this year alone. I ask people who is locking out a new energy age for America? Who is locking them out at pumps across this country? Who is putting their hand in people's pockets?

Freedom for America in the 21st century should mean freedom from dependence on petroleum. America could create thousands and thousands and thousands of new jobs and billions of new dollars back in our own pockets if we but understood what is affecting every single user of petroleum in this country and why we are falling further and further into hock.

It is time for an age of American energy independence again. Will Washington hear the message from the countryside?

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