[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 144 (Thursday, November 3, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12285-S12286]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND ANWR

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, over the past couple of weeks prices at the 
pump have been steadily falling--thank goodness. After the shock of 
paying nearly $3, sometimes over, sometimes well over $3 a gallon, 
families are finally getting some relief when they are filling up their 
cars or trucks, automobiles with gas. Gas prices are finally back to 
pre-Katrina levels.
  And that is the good news. The bad news is that prices are still much 
higher than they were a year ago. Americans are paying significantly 
more to fill up their cars, their automobiles with gas. And as we all 
know with winter right around the corner, home heating costs threaten 
to literally break the family bank.
  Meanwhile, America's oil companies are making multibillion dollar 
profits, record profits. You could not miss the news last week that oil 
companies posted these record-breaking profits with one company posting 
the biggest profit in U.S. history. So while Americans have been 
reeling from Katrina, standing in long lines at the pump at gas 
stations following Katrina and the other hurricanes and their cutting 
back on the necessities of everyday life, what they see are oil profits 
that are booming, going off the chart. And we have constituents 
naturally calling and writing and e-mailing saying, Why? How could that 
possibly be?
  Literally, what they see is pumping gas and watching the little 
figures come up higher and higher and higher, seeing money go out of 
their pocket and then going home and turning on the news and seeing 
that the coffers of oil companies, that same money going into the gas 
tank almost being in the coffers of these large oil companies, and they 
are asking why.
  I think these are legitimate questions, and Americans do have the 
right to know what is going on. Is this the way the market works and, 
if so, what are those dynamics? They need to know why those gas prices 
and those oil and natural gas prices are so much higher than they used 
to be at the same time these profits are off the chart.
  That is why last week I asked Chairman Domenici and Chairman Stevens 
to hold a joint hearing to be able to answer those basic questions. 
Next week, several executives will be coming in from some of the 
biggest oil companies to explain. We may well learn that there are no 
sinister reasons behind all

[[Page S12286]]

this, but I think we all agree that our free market works best when we 
all know and we all follow the rules of the road and all have 
confidence in that system.
  That is what the focus of those hearings will be. If there are people 
abusing the free enterprise system to advantage themselves or their 
businesses at the expense of everyday Americans, they need to be 
exposed and they should be ashamed.
  Next week's hearings will help shed light on this very important 
matter.
  Meanwhile, the Senate is also working to strengthen and secure 
America's energy supply. Indeed, we are doing it, in part, in the bill 
that we will be voting on over the course of today.
  Last summer, the Senate passed a comprehensive energy plan that 
looked, in terms of framework, at production, at consumption, at 
conservation, at alternative uses of fuel, at nuclear, at hydrogen, at 
the investment of science and technology to make fuel use more 
efficient, and that was a good first step. But we have a lot more to 
do.

  When you go home and you are talking to constituents and you say: 
What if I told you that most of the oil that you are pumping into your 
gas tank comes from overseas, from foreign sources, from countries that 
are very specifically hostile to the United States, and what if I told 
you that the United States has barely 45 days' worth of oil on hand in 
our own Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the answer is obvious. You would 
want to diversify your energy sources, you would want to move toward 
energy independence, and that is exactly what we need to do.
  Now, if I told you that in the United States we have untapped oil 
reserves comparable to all of the oil in Arizona, California, Oregon, 
Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, North 
Dakota, and South Dakota combined, you would want to find it since it 
is here and get it to the American people.
  Well, we do have that resource. It is in Alaska under the Arctic 
National Wildlife Reserve, ANWR. We all know ANWR is the Nation's 
single greatest prospect for future oil. The Government estimates that 
ANWR contains approximately 10.4 billion barrels of technically 
recoverable oil. At peak production at this one site could be produced 
more oil than any other U.S. State, any other State in this country, 
Texas or Louisiana, from this one site.
  In 1968, the Federal Government estimated that Prudhoe Bay held 9 
billion barrels of oil. To date, Prudhoe Bay has produced 13 billion 
barrels and it is still producing. Now, more than ever, we need to 
recognize the need to strengthen America's oil supply and now we have 
the opportunity to do that. America can't afford $3 a gallon, and we 
can't afford to depend on sources many of which are hostile to the 
United States.
  Some critics complain that drilling in ANWR will hurt the 
environment. It is simply not true. It was stated again and again in 
the Chamber yesterday and explained, the prospective drilling site is 
an area equivalent to the size, if you took a tennis court, of a single 
postage stamp.
  State-of-the-art drilling technology has made remarkable advancements 
to preserve and protect the environment. It is now possible to extract 
oil using that horizontal drilling technique from a site that could 
reach way out from a site that is very tiny, as you look at it on the 
horizon or area. These are called extended reach wells. We talked 
yesterday about how far out you can go. You can go out horizontally 
twice as far as you can vertically, therefore reducing the number of 
drilling sites.
  Developing the Reserve will create hundreds of thousands of jobs for 
hard-working Americans. It will contribute billions to the economy and 
strengthen America's energy independence. The oil in ANWR is critical 
to our economic and national security. I look forward to the vote today 
on developing this tremendous resource. Responsible, environmentally 
sensitive exploration will help ease the bottom line for every American 
family. We are working hard to deliver real solutions for the real 
problems facing the American people by taking strong, decisive action. 
Indeed, by today's floor action, we are moving America forward.

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