[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 10 (Thursday, January 30, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         U.S. FOREIGN OIL CONSUMPTION: HERE'S WEEKLY BOX SCORE

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, one troubling aspect of our determining 
national security is the manner in which the United States has become 
more and more deeply dependent upon foreign countries to supply the 
bulk of our energy needs for the American people.
  I was holding hearings on this perilous situation a decade ago when I 
was chairman of the Agriculture Committee; and again this past Congress 
in my present capacity as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee.
  The administration does acknowledge that this is a national security 
concern, but, the administration has done precisely nothing about U.S. 
dependency on foreign oil.
  Mr. President, the American Petroleum Institute reports that for the 
week ending January 24, the U.S. imported 7,840,000 barrels of oil, 
945,000 barrels more than the 6,895,000 imported during the same week a 
year ago.
  To put it another way, Americans relied on foreign oil for 54.7 
percent of their needs last week, and there are no signs that the 
upward spiral will abate. Before the Persian Gulf war, the United 
States obtained approximately 45 percent of its oil supply from foreign 
countries. During the Arab oil embargo in the 1970's, foreign oil 
accounted for only 35 percent of America s oil supply.
  Which raises the inevitable questions: is anybody else interested in 
restoring domestic production of oil--by U.S. producers using American 
workers? Politicians would do well to ponder the economic calamity 
certain to occur in America if and when foreign producers shut off our 
supply--or double the already enormous cost of imported oil flowing 
into the United States--now 7,840,000 barrels a day.
  Mr. President, as I say, I shall continue to report to the Senate--
and to the American people--on a regular basis regarding the 
increasingly dangerous U.S. dependency on foreign oil.

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