[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 137 (Tuesday, October 25, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H9094-H9099]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Peterson) is recognized for the remaining time until midnight.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk 
about what I believe is the number one issue facing America. It is the 
energy issue. And the one part of our energy debate that, in my view, 
has been neglected is natural gas.
  Natural gas is the fuel that we use to heat our homes, we cook our 
meals, we heat our schools, hospitals, YMCAs, YWCAs. Most small 
businesses use natural gas. We melt steel. We melt aluminum. We make 
nitrogen fertilizer, all fertilizers; and 71 percent of the cost of 
making fertilizers for our farmers is natural gas. It is used as an 
ingredient in all our petrochemicals. All the chemicals that we buy at 
the hardware store and the grocery store, the cleaners, skin softeners, 
all have a natural gas base to them. Polymers and plastics are made 
from both petroleum and natural gas. From face creams to fertilizers, 
everything we manufacture in this country, they use natural gas to make 
it; and they use natural gas as an ingredient.

[[Page H9095]]

  Now, the crisis in natural gas is the price. Currently, the price is 
somewhere between $13.50 and $14 a thousand. That is a crisis because 
just 5 years ago, it was $3.30. Eleven years ago it was less than $2. 
That is an 1,100 percent increase in 15 years and a 700 percent 
increase in 5 years.

                              {time}  2310

  If milk had increased the same, it would be $28 a gallon for milk. 
Would we be dealing with it? Yes, we would.
  I have been just stunned by the reluctance of anyone but a small 
group of us to take on the issue of natural gas. It is the clean fuel. 
It is the safe fuel. It is the abundant fuel. It is the one we could be 
totally self-sufficient on if we just produced it.
  We get a lot from the Gulf and we get a lot of it from the Midwest, 
and it is scattered around the country. We get very little from the 
Outer Continental Shelf, because 85 percent of our Outer Continental 
Shelf is locked up.
  What is the Outer Continental Shelf? The State owns 3 miles out into 
the ocean and the Federal Government owns 3 miles to 200 miles, and 
then it is international waters. That is the Outer Continental Shelf. 
That is the shelf before the ocean gets real deep, and, in most parts 
of the world, that is where they produce a great amount of their 
energy, both gas and oil.
  Canada produces out there, right off the coast of Maine, right off 
the coast of Washington. They actually produce in our Great Lakes and 
sell us the gas. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, New Zealand, 
Australia, all produce both oil and gas on their Outer Continental 
Shelf. In fact, that is their greatest source of supply.
  Well, why is America short on natural gas? We produce 84 percent of 
our own. We import 2 percent from foreign countries, which is called 
LNG. You have to liquefy it, put it in very huge ships, bring it, build 
ports, turn it back into gas. There is a lot of fear about those. I do 
not think they are unsafe, but there is a fear factor. We get 2 percent 
that way. And we get the rest from Canada, who is the only neighbor who 
can import us natural gas.
  Now, we could be totally self-sufficient, because we have had a 
moratorium from producing gas or oil on the Outer Continental Shelf for 
22 or 23 years. That happened under President Bush-one. President 
Clinton extended it to 2012, and currently it has not been addressed.
  About the same time, leadership in the House put a moratorium on 
also, a legislative moratorium. So we have two moratoriums, a 
presidential and a legislative moratorium that says we cannot produce 
gas or oil in our most productive field, the Outer Continental Shelf.
  Now, we have lots of it in the Midwest, but it is not as easy, and we 
have lots of gas in Alaska and they have been trying to build a 
pipeline for years, it will be another 10 or 12 years, if it gets 
built. In the meantime, the supply that we have of natural gas and oil, 
and I am promoting natural gas, not oil, because we cannot drill our 
way out of our oil problem. We have about 3 percent of the world's oil, 
but we have a unlimited supply almost of natural gas.
  There was a switch in policy in this country about 10 years ago, this 
was about the year before I came. The decision was made to use natural 
gas to make electricity, to generate electricity.
  Historically it was always prohibited, and you could only make 
electricity at peak power time, that was in the morning when we are all 
cooking and doing our things at home and the factories are running, and 
then in the evening time when we are running the washing machine and 
doing the dishes and cooking, so we were using a lot of natural gas, a 
lot of hot water and things that take energy. That is when we have this 
peak demand.
  So for electric companies to meet that peak demand, it was easier to 
have natural gas plants, they are quicker to build, and you can turn 
them on and off. You cannot do that with coal and nuclear plants, but 
with the peaking plants for natural gas. So it was only allowed to be 
used for peaking, and I think about 8 percent of our electricity was 
created. Now one fourth of our electricity is produced from natural 
gas.
  Many years ago I attended some breakfasts by the Edison institute. We 
were talking about this 10 to 15 year period when in this country we 
would generate a lot of electricity with natural gas. I had some 
concerns about that, because I knew there was so much land in the 
Midwest, millions and millions of acres where you could not produce it, 
where there was a lot of it, and the Outer Continental Shelf was locked 
up. I thought, where are we going to get all this natural gas?
  Daniel Yergin, who wrote the book, ``Expose' on Oil,'' a Pulitzer 
Prize winning book, was speaking over in the Senate, and I went over 
with a group of House Members and listened to him. At that time, this 
was 6 or 7 years ago, he predicted if we did not open up supply and 
move forward with this program of making electricity out of natural 
gas, we would have a short supply at high prices.
  Why is $14 natural gas worse than $65 oil? Well, they are both 
harmful. But gasoline prices, which have dominated the news, you hear 
it every night, in fact I was debating a Member of the Florida 
delegation the other day on one of the networks and we were talking 
about natural gas and the Outer Continental Shelf. In the prelude to 
us, the two hosts were talking about oil and gasoline prices. I said, 
``Folks, you just talked about oil and gasoline. We are here to debate 
natural gas. That is a different fuel.''
  So the American public knows that gasoline prices have increased. 
They have not quite doubled, they are 80 percent greater than they were 
3 or 4 years ago. But at the same time, natural gas is 7 times more 
costly.
  In my view, tonight is really the first cool night here in 
Washington, and cool weather is just starting to come down the East 
Coast, those Canadian fronts are starting to come down. The furnaces 
are going to be turned on. As these Canadian front start coming down, 
the early ones go all the way to Florida, and you will have tremendous 
gas consumption up and down the coast as we heat our homes and run our 
businesses and keep our schools and hospitals warm and all the other 
things we do with natural gas.
  So, here we are with $14 natural gas. When we have $65 oil, the whole 
world pays that. But when we have $14 natural gas, we are the only 
country in the world to pay that. Canada is $2 or $3 cheaper. Europe is 
about $6. China, our big fears competitor, gives them another 
advantage, they are $4. So when they melt steam, melt aluminum, bake 
products, heat treat products, melt anything, cook anything, bake 
anything in China, it costs a third as much as it does here. You add 
cheap labor to that and now you show how it hurts us competitively.
  The rest of the world is less than $2. In fact, in South America, in 
Trinidad, it is $1.60. In Trinidad, American companies are building 
steel plants, they are building aluminum plants, they are building 
fertilizer plants, they are building chemical plants, polymers and 
plastic plants. Why? Because the amount of natural gas used at all of 
those productions is immense.
  I talked to a fertilizer company the other day that uses $3 million 
worth of natural gas a day. That is kind of an unbelievable figure. Do 
you think they are going to do that very long in America when it costs 
$14, and you can go to South America and do it for $1.60?
  Mr. Speaker, that is the job side. If we do not deal with natural gas 
in this country, we are going to export really the best working man 
jobs we have left. People working in polymers and plastics and 
petrochemicals and fertilizer plants make good wages. They are 
sophisticated jobs. It is very sophisticated machine and equipment.
  Last year, Dow Chemical, one of our big ones, moved 2,000 jobs to 
Germany. Why? Natural gas is a lot cheaper. That is not a cheap labor 
market, but they have the sophistication, the technology there, because 
these are high-tech companies. They are not simple tasks. The people 
that run these have to be very skilled.
  So the fear I have is that we are just going to lose 1 million or 
more of the best jobs left in America? Why? Because they cannot afford 
to be here and pay these exorbitant natural gas prices that no one else 
has. It is like tying both hands behind our businesses and saying 
compete. Do hand-to-hand combat here with your hands tied behind your 
back.

[[Page H9096]]

  Let us go back to families. We are just approaching the winter 
season, especially in the northern part of the country. Seniors and the 
poorest of our communities struggle to make ends meet. Their gas bills, 
I know people who have told me already that they have set their 
thermostats at 55. That is no way Americans should live. I know other 
people who have not yet turned on a furnace. They are literally 
dressing warm with layered clothing and said they are not going to turn 
it on because they know the price of natural gas.
  In Pennsylvania we have a system where they argue once a year about 
how much it costs to deliver gas, but then every 90 days the natural 
gas prices pass through whatever they pay. Where I live, we are going 
to get a big increase in November. We are going to get another increase 
in February and we are going to get the third increase in May. We 
already got one in August. I think August was in the teens. They are 
predicting the one in November to be close to 40 percent, and nobody 
knows what it will be.
  But no one projected $14 gas for this time of year. Some thought we 
might reach $11 or $12 during the winter crisis, but here we are in the 
fall when we are still utilizing minimal amounts, but the storms have 
curtailed supply, and the generation of electricity just continues to 
grow and suck up our natural gas.

                              {time}  2320

  Folks, in my view, the rubber is going to hit the road in the next 
few months. I have just been joined here by the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson), and I will turn to him in a moment. But we 
were having a debate on the floor on this issue in spring, and I think 
the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) said it best. He said, 
folks, sometime we are going to get our act together and open up the 
Outer Continental Shelf for production where we have such an abundant 
amount of natural gas, and the secret is, do we do it now and preserve 
a million good jobs, keep people in their homes, keep people affording 
to heat their church, their YMCAs, their community centers, or do we 
wait until that all falls apart, we lose those million or more jobs, 
those companies move offshore because they cannot compete here, and 
people actually lose their homes to foreclosure and lose the ability to 
maintain their residences as they would like to in elder years.
  This is a crisis that is facing this country, and it is one that I 
think has been caused by inaction. I have been one, and several of us 
have been predicting this for years. We looked at all the charts and 
graphs. We are using more and more natural gas and we are producing the 
same amount. One of the things that I have noticed is I think we are 
drilling almost twice the number of wells daily now than we did before, 
and we are not getting any more gas and the reason is that we are in 
these old, tired fields that have been producing for decades and the 
volumes are gone. We are drilling deeper, which costs more, and we 
cannot even maintain an equality to or supply. It still continues to be 
flat, and we are doing all of that production. Why? We are not out 
producing gas where it is plentiful, where those fields are rich.
  My proposal is, and then I will turn it over to my friend from 
Louisiana, my proposal is we need to open up the Outer Continental 
Shelf to natural gas production. Both coastlines have been locked up, 
over half of the gulf has been locked up where there is rich amounts. 
One of our big opponents has been Florida. They have been fighting most 
viciously to not let production happen anywhere near them; yet they use 
233 times more natural gas than they produce, and they are in one of 
the richest fields there are, and 75 percent of their electricity is 
made from natural gas, which is going to come back to bite them when 
this all comes home.
  So I am going to now ask the gentleman to join me and let him share 
his thoughts. I thank him for joining us at this hour of the evening.
  Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
rise to bring attention, as the gentleman is doing so well, to the 
natural gas crisis that our country is facing today, and I want to 
thank the gentleman for the commitment he has shown on this issue, for 
the clarity with which he articulates the concerns that we all have in 
this country, that we ought to have anyhow, about the natural gas 
crisis, and for calling upon the leadership of this Congress to bring 
this matter to the floor so Members can take a vote on it and people in 
this country can have the benefit of the wise legislation that the 
gentleman is proposing.
  The price of natural gas is approximately three times the average 
price from 2000 to 2005, and it is nearly seven times the average price 
during the 1990s. This natural gas crisis has been building for years, 
for the last 2 years, and has suddenly erupted as those hurricanes hit 
the gulf down there and the aftermath has paralyzed much of the gulf 
natural gas and oil production. No region in the United States provides 
the United States with more natural gas than the gulf where 10 billion 
cubic feet are produced each day, representing approximately 20 percent 
of the gas consumed in the U.S. and 16 percent 16 percent of that is 
produced. This tight market, as the gentleman points out, is 
exacerbated by the devastating impact of these hurricanes we have just 
lived through, Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina, and the price has 
risen dramatically from $3.21 in 1995 to $12.68 per million BTU today, 
as opposed to other countries.
  For example, China pays 4.85, Iran pays $1.21, Russia, 95 cents. I 
mean, how can we compete with that? How can the American consumer 
compete with these sorts of prices? According to the Energy Information 
Agency, the heating costs are expected to increase somewhere between 69 
to 77 percent for homeowners in the Midwest, for Southerners, 17 to 18 
percent, for Northeasterners, 29 to 33 percent, and people can expect 
huge heating costs increases. The average family is looking at heating 
costs of $1,666 this year, which is a $433 increase from last year. 
These are huge numbers. The expected rise of home energy costs will 
particularly affect low-income people and fixed-income individuals.
  According to a survey on the rising energy costs on poor families 
conducted by the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, 32 
percent of families will have to sacrifice medical care, 24 percent 
will fail to make their rent or mortgage payment, 20 percent will be 
without food for at least a day, and 44 percent will skip paying or 
will pay less than their home energy bill in the past years. So these 
are devastating results.
  As others have said and as the gentleman has said tonight, most 
devastation is going to take place in our economy and the capacity of 
our businesses that rely on natural gas as a major feedstock to 
survive. Fertilizer plants, chemical plants, food processing plants, 
other small businesses, our Nation's 32 million small businesses are 
going to suffer if we do not do something about these natural gas 
prices.
  That is not the end of the story. Homeland security, national 
security all are affected here. This is a blue collar, working-family 
issue. People simply are going to be unable to afford it, and their 
families are going to have to sacrifice as a result of it. It is 
something we can do something about. A lot of the time we face these 
issues and we know the consequences and we do not have any way to get 
out of it. But this time we do. It is a pretty simple solution: open up 
the Outer Continental Shelf to gas production. It is as simple as that. 
If we do that, we can fix the problem for God knows how many years into 
the future.
  I think it is a solution that this Congress cannot afford not to take 
at this time, and the American people cannot afford to take at this 
time. And I applaud the gentleman for the efforts he is making to get 
this brought before the Congress, before the people of this country and 
have an honest debate about it, and then I believe we can get this bill 
passed. I think the people of America, once they see it, will push our 
colleagues to make the right choice, and I thank the gentleman for his 
leadership.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, Florida has been one of 
the big opponents, but recently we received a letter that was sent to 
MMS, the Mineral Management Agencies, urging them to open up the Outer 
Continental Shelf as soon as possible. The largest business association 
of Florida, with

[[Page H9097]]

10,000 members, sent a very clear message, a 2-page letter that my 
staff said, I am surprised you did not write this letter because it 
sounds like you talking saying, we must open the OCS. Yes, here in 
Florida we love our tourism businesses; but if people are not 
successful in America, they are not going to have money to come to 
Florida and have their vacations, because tourism is a huge part. I am 
not trying to pick on Florida, but they have been much of the reason we 
have not dealt with this issue as a State. I have not understood that, 
because they are great consumers of natural gas.
  They are a big farm State. You take farmers, who get hit by the 
energy issue probably as many times as anybody. When they plow their 
fields, they use petroleum. When they harvest, they use petroleum. When 
they dry their grains, they use natural gas. When they plant, and I 
missed this in the beginning, they use fertilizer, which up to 71 
percent of the cost of making fertilizer is natural gas, and those 
prices have doubled and tripled in the last few years. Farmers do not 
set the prices that they sell the products for, and with these huge 
energy cost increases, they just cannot raise their price. They are 
subject to whatever the markets pay and, unfortunately, it has been low 
pay a lot of the time, and that is why we are always trying to keep our 
farmers healthy and working, but it is very difficult. But energy is 
playing a huge, huge role with our farmers.
  Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I can tell 
my colleagues that this has an effect on the balance of payments on 
trade deficits that our country is so concerned about. Domestic 
production is going to mean we will have to import less and less of our 
fuel for this country's needs, and I just think it makes sense on every 
score that we look at it. It is a blue collar working issue, it is an 
economic issue for our economy, it is a national security issue for our 
country, and it is an issue of global competitiveness for our country. 
I think it encompasses so many important points that the gentleman has 
pointed out, and I think it is time for this Congress to face up to the 
fact that we have to do something about it.
  This is a bipartisan issue. We had a press conference a few weeks ago 
and you had Democrats and Republicans pushing this idea together.

                              {time}  2330

  I think it is a welcome, I think, respite for the country to see us 
come together on an issue, and embracing it in a bipartisan way to try 
to get the Congress to make the right choice here.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Well, we really are appreciative of 
your support. And many other Democrats have come on this issue, and we 
both have been working both sides of the aisle.
  If we get a chance, and I am going to share with you that we have 
been promised that there is going to be an energy bill in Resources 
tomorrow as part of reconciliation, and we have chosen not to try to 
amend that, because that is going to be a complicated bill. We are 
getting great resistance. So we have been promised that if we do not 
amend that bill, that my bill, our bill, will be given consideration in 
the Resources Committee, we will have a hearing in the near future.
  We will have a vote, if we can get it out of committee, and I have 
strong belief we can, because we have already successfully passed that 
amendment on another bill that they have since held up and did not 
bring it to the floor because of our amendment winning, opening up the 
Outer Continental Shelf, then we have been promised that we will a 
chance on the floor.
  So all I have asked for is for a timely format where we can debate 
this in committee, have a hearing first and then mark up the bill and 
pass it, bring it to the floor, and have a debate on this issue alone, 
not tied into all of the other issues that are going on the 
reconciliation act, but get focused on that.
  I was promised that by the leadership of the House. So I am really 
looking forward, because that is what I have been wanting.
  It is interesting to me in my district. When I talk to any group that 
I talk to, I have people that are part of very green organizations who 
did not particularly like production or drilling, and they will come to 
me and they will say, I think you are right.
  You know, I have just spoken to group after group, because I keep 
saying someone debate me and show me a natural gas producing well that 
has caused a dirty beach, that has caused pollution in the waterways. 
It does not.
  As I said earlier, Canada drills off the coast of Maine. They drill 
off the coast of Washington, right near it. They drill in the Great 
Lakes, our Great Lakes, and sell us the gas. We get 14 percent of our 
gas from them. And I have nobody yet saying they want to debate this 
issue, that natural gas production is some wild polluting threat to our 
environment. You are familiar with it. You live where it happens.
  Mr. JEFFERSON. I think you are exactly right. We have encouraged, by 
national policy, the use of natural gas for the very reason that it 
burns cleaner; it is better for the environment when we are using it. 
And as you point out, the production of it has not resulted in a 
catastrophe that anybody has been able to single out as a reason why we 
should not produce it in these areas that have been foreclosed so far.
  We cannot have it both ways. You cannot encourage the use of natural 
gas as a cleaner-burning fuel, and at the same time see prices go up, 
at the same time make it harder for people to get access to that fuel 
without paying higher prices. It does not make any sense. So if you are 
going to end up encouraging it, you have got to have a policy that 
makes it affordable for people.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. If we would produce the right amount of 
natural gas, and the price would moderate and be cheaper than oil, it 
should, all of our hospitals and our schools have dual capacity. They 
have to have a redundant heating system. So they will have fuel tanks 
full of fuel oil, and they will have a gas line, and then they, if one 
system goes down or something, then they have the back-up, because you 
cannot have a hospital or school without that.
  Now, what happens is they also use that to advantage economically. In 
the last couple of winters, they have used a lot of fuel oil because 
gas has been higher than normal. So now we are adding to our need for 
oil, which we depend 65 percent on foreign countries, and we have a 
lack of refining capacity.
  We passed a bill last week dealing with refining capacity, but 
natural gas, I say, can be the bridge to the future of renewables and 
other energy because it is the clean fuel. There is no pollutants. It 
is one-fourth of the CO2.
  I have bus system in State College, Pennsylvania, that is all natural 
gaps. Now, that used to be a savings for them. Now it costs them 
considerably more. They are getting penalized. But in the cities where 
we have pollution problems from vehicles, we can have all of our buses, 
school buses, transit buses, taxicabs, short-haul vehicles, 
construction vehicles, service people servicing our air conditioning 
and refrigeration, and all of those short-haul vehicles could go home 
and gas up every night and run on natural gas, because that is a cheap 
conversion.
  So we could really take away the need for so much foreign oil, and we 
could have less pollution in the air. And also everybody knows that the 
hydrogen fuel, I have been a supporter of hydrogen for years. How we 
will run the first hydrogen car, and I have ridden in a couple, is they 
have a natural gas tank on them, because natural gas is the easiest way 
to make nitrogen, so the first natural gas cars will have a natural gas 
tank. Then they will use the natural gas to make hydrogen, which will 
burn more efficiently than natural gas does and even cleaner yet.
  It is the bridge to the future. In my view, natural gas should be 
what we are really using a lot of, but we got to produce a lot of it to 
get the price down.
  I was a retailer. I had a supermarket for 26 years. I was in business 
during the late 1970s and early 1980s when we had our other energy 
crisis, when natural gas was high, and we had at that same time our 
news magazines were all talking about global chilling then. They were 
talking about the new ice age because we had three or four severe 
winters in a row.
  And I remember in my store, historically it was hard to make money 
and profit in December or January and

[[Page H9098]]

February, and maybe March you started to make a profit. But in those 
years when you had those cold winters and high energy prices, people 
just purchased less. Business was tough. And I think that is what we 
are going to find this year, because people are going to be spending a 
lot more to drive to work, drive to school, and then they are going to 
be spending a lot more to heat their homes. And about 70 percent of 
Americans spend every dollar they earn every paycheck, and when they 
spend twice as much to drive and twice as much to heat their homes, 
they are going to have a whole lot less money to spend, and the economy 
is going to get soft.
  Actually we can fall into a recession, and it will be energy costs, 
and most of them have been.
  Mr. JEFFERSON. If I can get back to your environmental point for just 
a minute. We are relying a lot in the future on the importation of 
liquified natural gas from other parts of the world. The process to 
deliquify that and gassify it again is a very problematic environmental 
question. We are concerned about fisheries that are going to be 
affected by the heat that is generated by this process in the gulf, in 
these facilities that are used to gassify the liquified natural gas. We 
do not have answers to that.
  We have people who are objecting to the location of these plants 
around the country because they worry about this sort of issue. Yet as 
you point out, there is such an increasing demand in the country for 
natural gas uses, that means we are going to rely on imported natural 
gas and suffer the consequences of trying to figure out how to 
degassify it in a way that does not cause environmental degradation.
  If we can produce it ourselves, we would not have that sort of issue. 
We would have all of the pipelines to distribute from down in Louisiana 
and the rest of the gulf and other parts of the country. We can move it 
straight from the point of exploration to the distribution points 
around the country and solve this whole issue of how we handle the 
regassification of liquified natural gas for use in this country.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I am not a big fan of LNG. Right now we 
need everything we can get, and it is okay in a pinch. But we buy it 
from Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Russia. Do we want to go down the same 
road we went down with oil, of buying another part of our energy 
portfolio from countries that do not have real stable governments, that 
are not exactly good friends of ours, in fact, who are working to form 
a cartel as we speak, so they can, their terminology is, so we can get 
a fair price for our natural gas?
  When you have an abundant supply of your own, I think it is just not 
an appropriate policy to be going to foreign countries, and you have to 
build the most expensive ships known to man. You have to build these 
very controversial ports.
  I do not know about the ports in the gulf, you may, but we have a 
port in Baltimore that I do not think has gotten above 63 percent 
capacity in utilization. I do not understand that. When can you buy gas 
in other countries for $2 or $3, liquify it and bring it here in a 
ship? Why the ships would not be lined up and why that port would not 
be accepting all of the gas it could, because it is pretty profitable 
to go from $2 to $14, but for some reason it is not happening.

                              {time}  2340

  I have not been able to get answers on that, but I have asked a lot 
of people and I do not know whether the ports in the gulf, are they 
running wide open.
  Mr. JEFFERSON. It is very difficult. The ports in the gulf and Texas, 
Louisiana are trying very hard to work with putting liquified natural 
gas into a gas form again. But there are many places around the country 
where this is simply unacceptable technology and, consequently, it 
means that the supply that is available around the world is still hard 
to get into this country; but when we do, we do face environmental 
challenges that we otherwise would not face.
  Now, the gentleman makes the point about national security. Our own 
government estimates that by 2020 half of our energy will be produced 
by unfriendly and unstable governments. Our reliance on natural gas 
from these countries is going to get us in the same fix we have been in 
for all these years with oil. And to go down the roads we are headed in 
a direction we know does not work for us currently does not make any 
sense for fuel so valuable for us in the future and where we are 
placing such reliance on it in the future.
  I think for all the reasons we pointed out, for our small businesses, 
for our own domestic chemical producers, for our own fertilizer 
producers, for our homeland security concerns, and our national 
security concerns, and just for the idea that the average consumer 
needs to have access to energy that is affordable, these just argue 
very strongly for our working the solution out that has us exploit our 
own resources and rely on ourselves to bring this vital energy source 
to our people.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. As we recap here as the evening grows 
short, we have been chatting here awhile about natural gas, the clean 
fuel, the abundant fuel, the one we have lots of. We are not short on 
natural gas. We are short because we have locked it up. Much of the 
Midwest is locked up, and 85 percent of the Continental Shelf has been 
locked up. To me that is bad public policy. We need to deal with that. 
We need to have that debate.
  The mineral mines management have been taking information from the 
public on what they should do in the next 5-year plan; and 80-some 
percent of those communicating, and it is thousands and thousands and 
thousands have been produced in the Outer Continental Shelf. Very 
strong support for it. In fact, 80-some percent of those from Florida 
who are very opposed to this, public policy leaders there, were 
produced, most people know that a natural gas producing oil has never 
harmed anything.
  What is interesting, and the gentleman is more from the gulf area, 
but I am told that after Katrina that one of the fears were by the 
fishermen that some of these platforms would be removed from the gulf 
and they would lose their best fishing. I have been told by the people 
over at mines and management who have to manage all this nationally 
that every test that has been done, there is more wildlife, there is 
more aquatic life, there are more fish and creatures around where we 
produce than where we do not produce. They like the break. They like 
the shade. They like to be in around those platforms and under them, 
and that is where the good fishing is.
  Mr. JEFFERSON. That is absolutely true. Most folks around my way will 
tell you the best fishing is around these platforms. We look to them as 
landmarks to get out there and get good fishing in.
  I want to give the gentleman the last word on there because it is his 
bill and it is his passion that has brought it to this point. But I do 
want to say that we are the only developed nation in the world that has 
locked up our access to our offshore gas resources. That ought to be a 
telling point. We have 406 trillion cubic feet of natural gas along the 
OCS. And currently we produce about 9.5 trillion cubic feet per year, 
which means we have 50 years at our current usage of natural gas that 
is locked up just by the fact of our policy having done it. Nobody did 
it to us. No country forced us to do it. There are not any 
international treaties or anything that prevents us from doing it. It 
is our own legislation, our own lack of will to make this decision.
  I think it is high time we turned our attention to solving our own 
problems here at home in this arena. I want to thank the gentleman 
again for what he has done to bring it to the attention of the country, 
and I am proud to be associated with the gentleman on this issue.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman very much. I 
really appreciate the gentleman's support because he brings a lot of 
knowledge because he has watched it. He has seen it happen in his part 
of the country. He knows it can be done appropriately; it can be done 
environmentally right.
  Let us conclude with talking about our proposal. We have added an 
amendment that, currently, the Federal Government owns the Outer 
Continental Shelf except the first 3 miles. I think there are a couple 
of exceptions to that where the States have 9 miles in one place. I do 
not know how that happened, but normally it is just 3 miles.

[[Page H9099]]

So the Outer Continental Shelf, which are Federal waters, are from 3 to 
200. Then you are in international waters.

  Now, our proposal, the new amendment we have added, would say, all 
right, States can control oil and they can choose to opt out of both 
the legislative and the Presidential moratorium. They have the right to 
do that. So that would mean a State legislature, house and senate, 
would have to pass it. Their Governor would have to sign it. They then 
have to petition the Department of the Interior to open it up. That is 
going to take some time. At best it would be several years.
  I was in the legislature for a number of years. It is hard to get a 
house and a senate to agree on the fine prints of the bill. I can hear 
those arguments in the States as they happen.
  I am willing to concede 20 miles. When you are producing, you can see 
12 miles. On a clear day after 12 miles they claim you cannot even see 
a pimple on the horizon. So let us give them 20. Now, there is lots out 
there so we are not giving away the store totally. So now nobody on the 
beach or the east or west coast or the gulf would not see a rig. They 
would not know it was there.
  We will say we will give the States the first 20 miles for both oil 
and gas, but on natural gas from 20 to 200 that is Federal waters and 
that is open for production. To me that would send a clear message. We 
will deal with some other proposals that will tinker with this thing, 
but they do not really fix it. If we open up the Outer Continental 
Shelf as we have talked, that is where the gas is close to the 
population. Where is the population in this country? They are in the 
gulf. They are on the east and west coast. The majority of this 
population is not in the Midwest where there are other reserves. The 
problem with getting to those reserves is getting it to the people. But 
on the Outer Continental Shelf, you are close to the population 
centers. You can bring that gas right in to where it is needed in our 
largest cities, our largest populations, our largest factories and make 
this gas affordable.
  I believe we can send a message to the chemical companies. We can 
send a message to the polymers and plastics companies, the fertilizer 
companies. Bear with us, because the statistic that I saw the other day 
really scared me. Petrochemical people have been talking to me for 3 or 
4 years. I said, Why did you come to me 3 or 4 years ago? They said, 
Some people said you understand our looming natural gas problem. It is 
hard to get people around here to deal with it. I said, Yes, I have 
been speaking about natural gas, and I was wondering why you came to 
me. You are not from my district. You are not even close to my 
district. They were the big companies. And they said, Well, we want to 
solicit your help. We have to get natural gas if we are going to stay 
here.
  The statistic I wanted to mention was the Manufacturing Association 
chairman said the other day in the hearing there are 120 chemical 
plants being built in the world; 119 in the rest of the world and one 
here.
  Those are jobs that American men and women can work at and have a 
nice home, have a nice vehicle, have a savings account for their kids' 
education and have the American Dream. Those are really the best jobs 
left in America, and we are not going to lose them to cheap labor. We 
are going to lose them because we have not dealt with the natural gas 
issue that they just cannot afford to pay.
  I talked to three or four companies this week that went from $7. They 
do not buy from the distribution system that our homes buy from. Most 
companies buy direct. They pay the distributing company a flat line 
fee, but every company I talked to was currently buying gas at the $14 
price because this spring when their contracts were up, the price was 
higher than expected and the consultants told them, do not buy yet, it 
is going to get cheaper. Well, it did not get cheaper. Now they are 
paying $14. And when you use millions of dollars of gas a month and you 
are paying twice as much, how do you make that up? You do not. That 
comes right out of the bottom line.
  ALCOA, a Pittsburgh corporation, a month ago said the following on a 
Monday morning, AP story: if energy prices in America persist high like 
they have been, especially natural gas, in parentheses, we will have to 
reconsider if we can produce here. Do we want to say good-bye to ALCOA 
Aluminum? Do we want to say good-bye to U.S. Steel?
  Not only the steel and aluminum makers, but those who bend it, those 
who shape it, those who heat treat it. I have pottered metal companies 
in my district who make parts for cars and parts for everything that 
moves. Now, after they make those through the presses, then they run 
through them through heat treatment. That is natural gas. So it is just 
utilized so much; and like I said, chemicals and fertilizers, it is 
almost beyond comprehension what a major part of our success of America 
has been clean, affordable natural gas.

                              {time}  2350

  So I want to thank the gentleman for joining me in this discussion. I 
know he is going to join me in the debate because we are going to 
debate this. When all of us Members of Congress can get this message 
out to the American people, they are going to vote to open up the OCS, 
to get adequate supplies of natural gas, so we can heat our homes, so 
we can run our businesses, and so we have a strong economy.
  Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

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