[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 17, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H1387-H1388]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FOREIGN OIL REVERSAL ACT OF 1999

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MORAN of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, it was a year ago today that I rose 
on this House floor to raise a concern with my colleagues with what is 
happening in the oil patch in our country. We are in the process of 
losing our domestic oil industry, which I believe is to our great 
detriment down the road and in fact today. The domestic oil industry, 
those small producers, those wells that are producing 2.2 barrels per 
day on the average, are currently being shut down and closed in. Since 
1997, a little more than a year ago, we have lost over 41,000 jobs in 
the United States with more than 136,000 oil wells shut down. In my 
State of Kansas alone, the job loss is someplace between 5 and 8,000, 
with a loss of revenue this year of $955 million.
  If the problem we face with our economy is not great enough, it is 
perhaps superseded by the problems we will face strategically in the 
future. The U.S. dependence on foreign oil continues to rise. We had 
problems, those of us who are old enough to remember the early 1970s, 
with long lines at the gas station and the oil embargo. At that time 
our foreign oil imports were only 36 percent of our U.S. consumption, 
while today 57 percent of the oil consumed in the United States is 
derived outside the United States. That estimate is expected to rise to 
70 percent in about 10 years. We have set the stage for significant and 
serious problems in defending our country and in our strategic 
reserves.
  Mr. Speaker, this issue needs the attention of the administration, of 
the Department of Energy and of the President of the United States. It 
also could use the attention of Members of Congress. Yesterday, I 
introduced legislation along with several other Members of Congress, 
the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Pickering), the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Sessions), and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watkins), 
and this legislation mirrors legislation introduced last week by the 
distinguished Mr. Domenici.
  This bill attacks the issue of foreign dependence upon energy, and by 
suggesting that when 60 percent of our consumption is derived from 
foreign sources that the administration, the President of the United 
States, must begin a process to determine the extent of the problems 
created by our foreign dependency on oil, must report to Congress those 
difficulties, his assessment, and must make recommendations to Congress 
to what we can do to minimize our dependence on foreign oil, issues 
such as tax reduction, regulatory relief and conservation measures. We 
have also included in this bill many proposals to react to the days in 
which the oil and gas industry was considered highly profitable and 
Congress and the administration then decided to, in a sense, gouge that 
industry, to take away its profits. And today when western Kansas crude 
is priced at $8 or $9 a barrel and the costs of breaking even for that 
production is $16, it is time to reduce, eliminate the tax policy in 
this country that discourages marginal well production and discourages 
this industry from remaining alive and solvent.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that over the course of the next few days and 
over the course of the next few weeks, Congress will begin to focus on 
the fact that we are losing an important industry in our country but 
perhaps more importantly focus on the fact that we are selling short 
our future, our children's future, our grandchildren's future by our 
reliance upon oil from other countries. It is clear that we spend 
billions of dollars protecting our foreign supplies but next to nothing 
in protecting domestic production.
  Perhaps as troublesome to me as anything is the idea that the so-
called surplus that results in this price of oil is derived from the 
fact that we are importing oil from Iraq. So on one hand we are trying 
to contain Saddam Hussein's activities and on the other hand we are 
providing the financial resources for him to pursue those activities, 
and at the same time we are hurting our own men and women employed

[[Page H1388]]

in the oil and gas industry in the United States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge support of H.R. 1117.

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