[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 25, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6687-H6688]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2030
            MAKING AMERICA INDEPENDENT OF MIDDLE EASTERN OIL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Putnam). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, there has been much debate on how the 
United States should proceed with Iraq. I rise to draw attention to an 
issue that is critical to this decision-making process.
  As we debate how and whether to take military action in Iraq, I 
should hope that we could all agree to take economic action against 
Saddam Hussein. Now, it is clear that the United States is overly 
dependent on foreign oil. The United States presently imports 48 
percent of the 19.7 million barrels of oil it consumes each day. Of 
that total, approximately half a million barrels come from Iraq.
  Now is the opportunity to pursue a policy of making America 
independent of Middle Eastern oil. To do this, we have to aggressively 
pursue new technologies and development of renewable energy, biomass, 
geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind. A renewed effort toward 
policies that encourage reduced reliance on fossil fuels and more 
secure sources of dependable energy would mean the creation of jobs 
that would strengthen our economy and better serve our national 
interests.
  Now is the precise moment for the United States to shed its 
dependency on any Iraqi oil and work toward a future when our domestic 
energy policy plays a role in how we implement strategic initiatives.
  Already we are told that Saddam Hussein does not use the proceeds 
from the sale of oil to feed his population or to provide medical needs 
for his people. We are told instead that the profits

[[Page H6688]]

from these sales are going to his own personal needs, to his 
aggrandizement with palaces and other monuments that he builds to 
himself, and to embellishing his Republican Guard. Especially if that 
is the case, then we ought to be talking about not buying Iraqi oil so 
that he has the proceeds with which to act in that manner, and we ought 
to be talking about convincing our allies in the international 
community to do the same.
  This will not be easy, but the fact of the matter is we have a 
capable State Department and a capable Secretary of State who ought to 
go about the hard work of working diplomatically to convince our 
international community that that is one way to enforce inspections and 
enforce disarmament, one tool to use to get the attention of Saddam 
Hussein, knowing there is a hammer at the other end that can be 
effective, and we ought to do it.
  In the long range, we ought to make sure that we have an energy 
policy in place that allows us not only to back off of any use of Iraqi 
oil, but to eventually overcome any need to rely on Middle Eastern oil. 
It is a relatively small portion of the fossil fuel that we use in this 
country; and over a period of a reasonable number of years, a concerted 
and wise energy policy will allow us to strategically pull out of that 
area and resolve many of the crises we may have in the future dealing 
with Middle Eastern problems and situations, politically and otherwise.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that this is a policy that would be wise. I 
think we have international resolutions for inspections and disarmament 
that need international enforcement. We ought to call upon the United 
Nations to do everything in its power to work within the international 
community to make sure that they in fact enforce those resolutions and 
have inspections and make sure that we have disarmament in Iraq.
  But that is hard work, as I said before; and it is not as easy 
sometimes as taking an overpowering military force and attacking. But 
there is no imminency to any attack on the interests of the United 
States at this time, and we have an international body and we have an 
international means to act; and we have the time to do that and try 
that. We should exhaust all avenues before going to the extreme avenue 
of an unprovoked, in the sense of any action against the United States 
directly, action. We should make sure that we use our resources, work 
within the international community, understand that we can embargo oil 
to Iraq as an opening step, and get our allies to do the same as a way 
of enforcing provisions for inspections and disarmament. We ought to 
move in that direction.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can get some agreement on this, and I 
hope that we can work within the international community to do just 
that.

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