[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 35 (Thursday, March 1, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H2112-H2117]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT AND PEAK OIL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Carney). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, there is a question that often 
comes to my mind, as I sit here in these Chambers. I have spoken about 
it often, what made America great. I have been reminded of this 
question in my past speeches on this topic as the debate evolved 
regarding the inappropriately named Employee Free Choice Act, H.R. 800. 
We had a debate that I never thought would take place here in the 
Chambers of the House of Representatives of the United States, 
questioning the use of the secret ballot.
  Now, I am asking myself again, what keeps America great? It is what 
our military is fighting for in Iraq, it is what they fought for in our 
American Revolution, our Civil War, World War I and World War II and 
every war great and small when our country has put our greatest 
treasure, the lives of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen at risk.
  What keeps America great is our commitment to the vigilant defense of 
the cause of freedom as expressed by the will of the people. Expressing 
their will by voting with secret ballots is integral to keeping America 
great.
  Our Constitution guarantees us freedom of speech and of religion. 
These are precious freedoms that allow us to prosper, to learn, to own 
property, to start a business, to teach our moral and civic values and 
build a legacy of wealth and knowledge for the next generation.
  But it is the greatest freedom for citizens to decide or to vote 
using a secret ballot that sets our Republican forum of government 
apart. Secret ballots allow people to freely make decisions through our 
elected process, decisions made about not only who will represent them 
here in the Congress but also in their hometowns, decisions about what 
new amendments will be made to the Constitution, State or Federal.

                              {time}  1900

  There are codicils in the contracts we have with our government about 
how we want to be governed. Voting is a basic tool of a free society. 
Thomas Paine said in his dissertation on first principles of government 
that, and I quote, ``the right of voting for representatives is the 
primary right which other rights are protected.''
  Voting is basic and natural to us. We have learned from an early age 
as school children voting for class presidents, and we expect it in 
adulthood as we elect representatives to our local, state and Federal 
elections.
  It took a long time in this country to universally use secret ballot 
to make freedom's choices. But once in use, the secret ballot is not 
only the norm, but also the pinnacle tool which permits our countrymen 
to make these decisions, great and small, freely, without fear of 
intimidation or reprisal.
  Mr. Speaker, we surely can't be serious when we pursue taking away 
from the rank and file worker the use of the secret ballot as the main 
vehicle for making decisions to unionize or remain an open shop. There 
may be problems with the unionizing process, but voting by secret 
ballot, I can assure you, is not one of them.
  We here in the United States have acted as counselor to other 
governments and governing bodies on the requirements of a free and fair 
election. After all, we are the longest enduring republic in the 
history of the world.
  I am going to reference such advice given on the U.S. Department of 
State Web site. If you search for principles of free and fair 
elections, you will find the requirements of an election. We here in 
Congress can benefit from relying upon this advice when considering the 
path to conducting union recognition process. And I quote, ``universal 
suffrage for all eligible men and women to vote, democracies do not 
restrict this right for minorities, the disabled, or give it only to 
those who are literate or who own property.'' Obviously, we want all 
people affected by union decision to have a right to vote.
  I am going to add a few words about American history's path to 
universal suffrage here, because it is useful to understand our painful 
evolution to reach a point where voting went from the select few to 
every adult.
  It has only been in my lifetime that true universal suffrage has been 
realized in our great country. We fought a great civil war that only 
put us on the path toward universal suffrage. We still had many battles 
to come. From 1865 to 1870 the Constitution was amended three times to 
guarantee equal voting rights to black Americans, but still the 
struggle continued. There were setbacks as States and localities 
undermined this Federal guarantee.
  At the turn of the last century, there were barriers to achieving 
universal suffrage. Poll taxes and literacy tests denied many black 
American men the ability to exercise their right to vote. Jim Crow laws 
protected segregation. Not until the 1950s did our laws begin to change 
to put an end to segregation. The 1965 Voting Rights Act provided the 
means to the Federal Government to ensure the ability to vote by black 
citizens that is guaranteed under our Constitution.
  Suffrage for women was long in coming. In 1776, Abigail Adams wrote, 
to her husband, John, who was attending the Continental Congress in 
Philadelphia, she asked that he and other men who were working on the 
Declaration of Independence remember the ladies. John responded with 
humor but got his point across; that the Declaration says that all men 
are created equal applied equally to women, he told her.
  After the Civil War, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony 
formed the American Equal Rights Association, an organization for white 
and black women and men dedicated to the goal of universal suffrage. 
Other organizations followed. Still, in 1868, 3 years after the end of 
the Civil War, the 14th amendment was ratified but only provided for 
male suffrage. It was not until 1920, after many struggles, and only 86 
years ago, that the 19th amendment was ratified and women in this 
country achieved the right to vote.
  Let me go back now to that Web site of the U.S. State Department. 
Principles of free and fair elections: And I quote again, ``freedom to 
register a voter or to run for public office, these are the qualities, 
the characteristics that society must have if they want to have free 
people and fair elections.
  ``Freedom of speech for candidates and political parties: Democracies 
do not restrict candidates or political parties from criticizing the 
performance of the incumbent.
  ``Numerous opportunities for the electorate to receive objective 
information from a free press: Freedom to assemble for political 
rallies and campaigns.
  ``Rules that require party representatives to maintain a distance 
from polling places on election day: Election officials, volunteer poll 
workers and international monitors may assist voters with the voting 
process, but not the voting choice.
  ``An impartial or balanced system of conducting elections and 
verifying election results: Trained election officials must either be 
politically independent, or those overseeing elections should be 
representatives of the parties in the election.''
  And now, the next two points, especially the last, are points that we 
really should well remember. ``Accessible polling places: Private 
voting space, secure ballot boxes and transparent ballot counting.''
  And then this one, Mr. Speaker. ``Secret ballots.''
  This is our advice on our State Department Web site to those who 
would like to emulate us and establish a government as free and fair 
and great as ours.

[[Page H2113]]

  This is what it says. ``Secret ballots. Voting by secret ballot 
insures that an individual's choice of party or candidate cannot be 
used against him or her.''
  It is only through the use of the secret ballot allowing for privacy 
voting without fear of reprisal that we can determine the true will of 
the people or the true will of workers. Do they want to be represented 
by a union or not?
  If we keep in mind the advice that we so freely give to those outside 
our country, we can create a system for America's labor which will work 
for them. And frankly, who should be more protective of this basic tool 
of our society? Who should understand that the secret ballot should be 
the tool of choice for the members and their political members, but the 
union leadership themselves?
  The union history is as painful as the struggle for the basic right 
to vote endured by blacks and women. The Industrial Revolution did 
usher in one of the most ugly periods of our history. Worker abuse, 
child labor abuse was, in fact, a huge problem. Brave men and women who 
formed unions led the efforts that addressed intolerable working 
conditions.
  There will always be a place for employee unions. However, employee 
abuse by employers should not be replaced by employee abuse by unions.
  In today's Los Angeles Times, not, I would remind you, Mr. Speaker, a 
conservative paper, in today's Los Angeles Times, there is an editorial 
entitled ``Keep Union Ballots Secret. Doing away with Voting Secrecy 
Would Give Unions Too Much Power Over Workers.'' This is the title of 
their article. This editorial outlines the issue well and, I believe, 
reflects the sentiment of the country.
  Indeed, in recent polls, 87 percent of the American people believed 
that we should have secret ballot elections for determining whether a 
group of employees wanted to unionize or not.
  We, in this body, are privileged to serve, because we were elected to 
represent our constituents in secret ballot elections. We took an oath, 
and we have the obligation to serve not big labor or big business. Our 
sole obligation is to uphold the Constitution and serve the individual 
residents of our districts.
  I agree with Los Angeles Times editorialist. In part, I would like to 
quote that editorial, with which I wholeheartedly agree. And this is 
what it says. ``Unfair labor practices deserve tougher penalties. But 
improper influence can work both ways. As a rule, union membership 
improves worker prosperity and safety. Even so, the bedrock of Federal 
labor law is not unionism under any conditions, but the right of 
workers to choose whether they want to affiliate with a union.''
  This, from the very liberal Los Angeles Times. ``Unions once 
supported the secret ballot for organization elections. They were right 
then and are wrong now. Unions have every right to a fair hearing. And 
the National Labor Relations Board should be more vigilant about 
attempts by employers to game the system. In the end, however, whether 
to unionize is up to the workers. A secret ballot insures that their 
choice will be a free one.''

  Mr. Speaker, I ask again, in conclusion to these remarks, what keeps 
America great? It is our commitment to a vigilant defense of the cause 
of freedom as expressed by the will of the people, and the will of the 
people is best and freely expressed by secret ballot elections.
  As I read this, Mr. Speaker, my mind goes back to a comment made by 
Benjamin Franklin as he came out of the Constitutional Convention in 
1787. Many copies of the Constitution may have this little quote on the 
front leaf page. He was asked, tradition has it, by a woman, who said, 
Mr. Franklin, what have you given us? And his answer was, a republic, 
madam, if you can keep it.
  There are two things about this statement, Mr. Speaker, that deserve 
some reflection. The first is a republic. We do the Pledge of 
Allegiance to the flag and we note the republic for which it stands. 
And then we all too often get up and talk about the great democracy in 
which we live.
  What is the fundamental difference between a democracy and a 
republic? And why was Mr. Franklin explicit in a republic, madam; if 
you can keep it?
  A couple of examples of a democracy may be helpful in permitting us 
to understand why Benjamin Franklin was so specific. A somewhat 
humorous example of a democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what 
they are going to have for dinner. You see, in a democracy, the will of 
the majority controls. And if these two wolves and a lamb were in a 
true democracy and they were voting on what they should have for 
dinner, I suspect that the result might be lamb.
  Let me give you another example of a democracy. And I kind of 
hesitate to do this because I don't want to be misunderstood. But I 
think it says very clearly what the difference between a republic and a 
democracy is.
  If you will stop and think about it, I think you will agree that a 
lynch mob is an example of a democracy. Surely, in a lynch mob, the 
will of the majority is being expressed. Aren't you glad, Mr. Speaker, 
that you live in a republic?
  Now, what's the fundamental difference? To help me understand this, I 
reflect back on an experience in our country with a President, Harry 
Truman, ``Take Charge Harry,'' who made a very abrupt decision when the 
steel mills were going to strike. Then we did some manufacturing in 
this country, and it would have mattered. And our economy was already 
in trouble and was going to be in bigger trouble if the strike 
occurred. And so President Truman nationalized the steel mills. What 
that meant was that the workers at the steel mills were now Federal 
employees, and as such, by law, they could not strike. And so this 
averted the strike. This was a very popular action.
  The Supreme Court met in emergency session and, in effect, what they 
said was, and by the way, Mr. Speaker, this is just one of two times in 
our history that the Supreme Court has set aside an executive order of 
the President.

                              {time}  1915

  This is in layman's language what the Supreme Court said to the 
President: Mr. President, you can't do that. You can't nationalize the 
steel mills because that is unconstitutional. You see, in a Republic we 
have the rule of law, no matter what the majority wanted, and clearly 
then the vast majority of Americans wanted what their President did. 
They were approving of nationalizing the steel mills, which avoided the 
strike. But the Supreme Court said you cannot do that because, you see, 
that is unconstitutional. The fundamental difference between a republic 
and a democracy is that in a Republic, we have the rule of law.
  This Constitution that I hold in my hand is the fundamental law 
against which all other laws are measured. Now, we can change it. We 
have done it 27 times. But that is a very thoughtful process. It is 
two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate and it bypasses 
the President and goes to the State legislatures, and three-fourths of 
the State legislatures must ratify it.
  It has been quite a while since we amended the Constitution. The last 
time we tried to amend the Constitution, it was the so-called ``equal 
rights amendment.'' Nobody argued that women should not have equal 
rights, and nobody argued that we didn't need to do something to assure 
that women had equal rights. And that amendment almost made it through 
the three-fourths of the State legislatures. But suddenly it began to 
dawn on people that what that amendment required was not quite what we 
wanted. What the amendment required was that you could not 
differentiate between men and women. If you are going to have a draft 
for the military, you would need to draft women as well as men. And so 
ultimately the equal rights amendment failed. It did not pass.
  I think that if we could be so fortunate as to have some of these 
Framers of our Constitution be resurrected and join us here that they 
would counsel, as Benjamin Franklin did when he answered the woman's 
question by saying ``A republic, madam, if you can keep it.''
  Abraham Lincoln understood that this was a new experiment that might 
not work: ``Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth 
on this continent a new Nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to 
the proposition that all men are created equal.''
  We read those words and we slide through them so easily: ``that all 
men

[[Page H2114]]

are created equal.'' Of course, they are, you say. But to most at that 
time this was a revelation because most of the pioneers that 
established this great country came from either the British Isles or 
the European continent. And in almost every one of those countries 
there was a king or an emperor who incredibly, from our perspective, 
demanded and was granted divine rights, which said that the rights came 
from God to the king or the emperor and he would give what rights he 
wished to the people. Sometimes they were few, and sometimes there were 
more than a few rights that were given to the people.
  But our Founding Fathers declared in the Declaration of Independence 
that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator. Mr. 
Speaker, do you think our courts might declare the Declaration of 
Independence unconstitutional because it mentions God, it mentions our 
creator? Endowed by our creator with inalienable rights: life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness.
  I don't know what was in Benjamin Franklin's head when he made the 
second part of that statement to the lady: ``A republic, madam, if you 
can keep it.'' Do you think he was concerned about some foreign power 
coming and conquering our country and taking our Republican form of 
government away from us? I doubt it. We are on the other side of a 
really big ocean. It took a lot of ships and a long time to gain any 
meaningful number of troops here. I suspect that he was more concerned 
about the threat to our Republic from within.
  It has been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. You 
just can't ever, ever let down your guard. We are the longest enduring 
Republic in the history of the world. And I have asked myself many 
times how did we get here and why are we so fortunate, this one person 
out of 22, or less than 5 percent of the world's population, and we 
have fully one-fourth of all the good things in the world?
  I think very often about this question as I recognize that we no 
longer have a population with the best work ethic in the world. I just 
came from China about 6 weeks ago. We no longer have a population that 
is focused on science, math, and technology. We no longer have a 
country that prizes the nuclear family. We no longer have a society 
that prizes that. Nearly half our kids are born out of wedlock today. I 
would suggest today society is at risk when half of the kids are born 
out of wedlock. So what is it about this great country that makes us so 
special that we have a fourth of all the good things in the world?
  I think there are two things, and I want to focus for just a couple 
minutes on one of them, and that is the incredible protection that our 
Constitution gives to our civil liberties. There is no other 
constitution, there is no other country that has such respect for civil 
liberties. I think that in large measure it was this respect for our 
civil liberties that established a climate in which creativity and 
entrepreneurship could flourish. And I rise tonight because I am 
concerned about any threat to these civil liberties, and I think when 
we change the way we vote for any process from the traditional secret 
ballot process to something where your vote is exposed that in some 
little way you put at risk the civil liberties and start down a path 
that I don't think America needs to go down or wants to go down. Civil 
liberties are always a casualty of war, and I guess I am a little 
sensitive now because we are in a war.

  Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. In World War II, my friend 
Norm Mineta, with whom I served here, a few years younger than I, a 
Japanese American, now Secretary of Transportation, told me, he said, 
``Roscoe, I remember holding my parents' hand when they led us into 
that concentration camp in Idaho.''
  That war is over and we are embarrassed we did that. Civil liberties 
are frequently, perhaps always, a casualty of war. And I remember that 
counsel that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. So excuse me, 
Mr. Speaker, if I seem to have maybe a bit overreacted to the dialogue 
that occurred here today because I am just so jealous of who we are and 
the great privileges that we have.
  And now I want to turn our attention in the remaining time to a 
subject that I have come to the floor 22 previous times to talk about. 
And I think the great freedoms that we have are going to be tested as 
we meet the challenges that are ahead. I want to begin this discussion 
and will be discussing energy and one particular aspect of energy which 
is now fairly conventionally referred to as peak oil. I would like to 
note that it was the 14th day of last March that I gave my first speech 
on the floor here on peak oil. What I wanted to talk about was the 
probability that the world was about to reach its maximum ability to 
produce oil.
  Obviously, that had to come at some point. The Earth isn't made out 
of oil. The amount of oil is finite. At some point we would reach our 
maximum capacity for producing oil. Few people ever thought about that 
because oil was just so ubiquitous. It was everywhere. Thousands of 
cars on the road. Electricity, heat whenever you needed it. And I was 
trying to decide what to call this and to label the charts, and you may 
see in the charts we use in a few moments some labels on top of the 
charts and they are put on with scotch tape because I wasn't sure what 
to call it.
  I was debating between the ``great rollover.'' You see, when you have 
reached your maximum production of oil, you then roll over and start 
down a slope where you produce less oil, and it becomes harder and 
harder to get. So I thought maybe I would refer to it as the ``great 
rollover'' and finally decided that I would refer to it as ``peak 
oil.'' It is a good thing because now everybody is referring to it as 
``peak oil,'' and I would have been a little out of step talking about 
the ``great rollover.''
  I have here an article that appeared today from the Associated Press 
published March 1, 2007. That is today. And it is an interview. T. 
Boone Pickens says global oil production has reached its peak. T. Boone 
Pickens. I didn't really know who he was. I knew he was a very rich and 
capable man who had an incredible talent at deciding where the market 
was going and has become very rich as a result of that. I didn't know 
that Pickens started his career in the 1950s as a petroleum geologist. 
I don't know if in 1956 on March 8, and we are coming up to the 51st 
anniversary in a few days, I don't know if he was in that audience in 
San Antonio or not when a very, very famous speech was given by M. King 
Hubbert that I will refer to in a few moments.
  The article begins by saying: ``Legendary Texas oilman T. Boone 
Pickens sees today's stubbornly high oil price as evidence that daily 
global production capacity is at or very near its peak. `If demand for 
crude oil rises beyond the current global output of roughly 85 million 
barrels per day,' Pickens told the Associated Press, `prices will rise 
to compensate and alternative sources of energy will begin to replace 
petroleum. If I'm right,' he says, `we are already at the peak. And if 
I'm right, the price of gas will go up. I think there are less reserves 
around the world than are being reported. There are no audited reserves 
in the Mid East. It makes me suspicious,' he said.''
  Now, he was challenged in this by a friend of mine, a person that I 
really admire, Steve Forbes. Forbes publisher Steve Forbes challenged 
Pickens' assumptions during an exchange in the conference, saying 
political, not technological or geological, roadblocks stood in the way 
of increasing the world's oil output.

                              {time}  1930

  Just give them an incentive to go drill and they will find more oil. 
With the right incentives in place, more oil could be brought to market 
and prices could drop, Forbes said.
  Forbes referred to Mexico and what was happening there. Pickens 
responded by saying Mexico is a declining producer of oil, as are most 
other countries. Indeed, 33, I think, out of the 45 oil-producing 
countries have already reached their peak and are already in decline.
  Pickens responded by saying that Mexico is a declining producer of 
oil, as are most other countries, naming the United States, Norway, 
Britain and soon Russia. Indeed, I think Russia now has a second peak 
that they are declining from. They had an earlier

[[Page H2115]]

peak, the Soviet Union before the Soviet Union fell apart, and they now 
have recovered from that and are reaching a second but smaller peak.
  The world has been looked at, Pickens told Forbes. There is still oil 
to be found, but not in the quantities we have seen in the past. The 
big fields have been found, and the smaller fields, well, there are not 
enough of them to replenish the base. This is T. Boone Pickens.
  Pickens predicted oil prices will rise this year to an annual average 
of around $70 per barrel. It was $62 a barrel today. Global consumers 
led by the United States have already burned through 1.1 trillion 
barrels of oil, or what Pickens described as nearly half. Many 
observers will tell you it is half of the world's estimated 2.5 
trillion barrels of oil.
  This is his prediction. This is a man who has been able to make 
really good predictions, because he has gotten incredibly wealthy doing 
it.
  From now on, Pickens said, rising demand will be met by higher prices 
rather than ever larger crude production. He says the days of meeting 
the demand with producing more are ending. Alternative energy sources 
will begin to take a share of the energy market until the world evolves 
from a hydrocarbon-based economy to something that is a mix of 
hydrocarbons and something else.
  Now, since hydrocarbons are not infinite, they are finite, ultimately 
everything will be the something else. Everything from nuclear, coal, 
wind, solar, hydrogen and biofuels, stands a chance to assuage growing 
demand for energy, Pickens said.
  I will put up the first chart now. What this chart does is to list 
the predictions of many of the world's experts, and T. Boone Pickens is 
not on here because he just made this prediction today and this is a 
chart made some time ago. It shows here a number of authorities, their 
background and references and the projected peaking date. What you can 
see here is that most of the authorities believe that peaking will 
occur quite soon.
  I would like to digress for just a moment to talk about what we mean 
by ``peaking.'' Traditionally, peaking has meant to refer to 
conventional oil sources, the kind of oil you will get by drilling a 
hole in the ground and then pumping it out.
  It is almost certain that the production of conventional crude oil 
has peaked, but we now are able to get the equivalent of crude oil from 
other sources, like gas to liquids, like oil from the tar sands of 
Canada, where it is really thick. It won't flow. They lift it up in a 
shovel that lifts 100 tons, they dump it into a truck that carries 400 
tons, and then they cook it, add some volatiles to it so it will flow, 
and then you have the equivalent of oil. Or really heavy oil, like some 
of the oil that Venezuela is producing.
  Then you might also include an unconventional oil, oil that is in 
places that is really, really hard to get to, like that last find in 
the Gulf of Mexico, which I think was under 7,000 feet of water, more 
than a mile of water, and several miles of dirt. They aren't pumping 
that yet. I have been told, and you are told a lot of things that may 
or may not be true, but I have been told that we will start pumping 
that oil when oil is $211 a barrel, because that is what it will take 
to get it out.
  There are some who believe that the peak is a bit down the road, but 
you see that they all are pretty close.
  There are several others who have made predictions about when peaking 
will occur. I have been talking about T. Boone Pickens and his 
prediction that it is now, that we are here. I noted all of these.
  I have some remarks here from one of those, and we will look at the 
next chart now, and this is the chart from a study that was done at the 
request of the Energy Department and paid for by the Energy Department, 
by the SAIC, big SAIC organization. The principal investigator was 
Robert Hirsch, so it is frequently referred to as the Hirsch Report.
  In this report, and I have highlighted here something that I thought 
was significant, he says, the world has never faced a problem like 
this. World production of conventional oil will reach a maximum and 
decline thereafter. That maximum is called the peak.
  A number of competent forecasters, I have just shown you a list of 
those, project peaking within a decade. Others contend it will occur 
later. Predictions of the peaking is extremely difficult because of 
geological complexities, measurement problems, pricing variations, 
demand elasticity and political influences. Peaking will happen, and he 
should have really underlined that, peaking will happen, but the timing 
is uncertain.
  The next chart shows some additional quotes from the Hirsch Report. 
The peaking of oil presents the United States and the world with an 
unprecedented risk management. Remember in the previous chart it said 
the world had never faced a problem like this.
  As peaking is approached, and note how similar this is to what T. 
Boone Pickens said in the article today, as peaking is approached, 
liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and 
without timely mitigation, and then he says this, economic, social and 
political costs will be unprecedented.
  Another chart from the same Hirsch Report makes reference to another 
projection of when oil will peak, and this is a projection made by our 
own Energy Information Agency using data from USGS. I will spend just a 
moment on this chart because it holds the essence of a pretty big 
debate that is going on out there.

  The black curve here represents our use. Notice what happened in the 
70s, the Arab oil embargo. If that line had kept on going up, as it had 
been going up for years, it would be way up there, wouldn't it, and 
there wouldn't be anywhere near enough oil. Eighty-five million barrels 
wouldn't begin to meet the world's demand if that were true.
  There was a stunning statistic during this rapid rise up to the 
seventies. In every decade up until the Carter years, we used as much 
oil as had been used in all of previous history. That is stunning. What 
that means is that when we had used half the oil, there would only be 
10 years left. That is not 10 years at that use rate, because it is 
going to be harder and harder to get, so it is going to fall off in 
what can be pumped.
  But, fortunately, we had a wake-up shock, and we found out how to do 
a lot of things a lot more efficiently. Your refrigerator and air 
conditioner today may be three times more efficient than it was at the 
time of the Arab oil embargo. I don't think anybody will argue that we 
aren't living as well today as we did in the seventies, and we are 
using precious little more oil than we did in the seventies with a fair 
sized increase in the population. So efficiently really is possible, 
isn't it?
  Well, back to this chart. USGS uses a very interesting technique for 
predicting how much oil is yet to be discovered. They have some very 
elaborate computer simulations, and they make some assumptions, and 
they put these assumptions into the computer simulations and then run 
these simulations. And they change the assumptions, because it might be 
a little higher or might be a little lower. So they have done this a 
very large number of times. Then they graph the frequency of certain 
predictions, of how much oil will be produced against the quantity that 
will be produced. Then they pick the mean of this.
  This is the mean of their computer projections. They pick the mean of 
this and they say that that mean is the expected value. This is simply 
the result of putting some assumptions into some computer models and 
then running it a number of times.
  Now, this says probability, but in their charts it says frequency. I 
don't know how frequency got translated to P for probability, but there 
is a bit of miscommunication here. They say that the low probability is 
the 95 percent probability. Of course, this was the number where there 
was 5 percent of predictions on one side and 95 percent of predictions 
on the other side of this point on their graph.
  Now, what they called the 95 percent probability is what T. Boone 
Pickens said, you remember he had 2.3, that is slightly different from 
this, 2.5, something like that, slightly different from that, as the 
total amount of oil that had been discovered in the world, a little 
over 1,000 gigabarrels. And we use ``giga'' rather than billion, 
because a billion in England I think is a million million, and a 
billion here is 1,000 million. So if you use billion you may be 
misunderstood, but giga apparently around the world means a billion, 
and,

[[Page H2116]]

of course, 1,000 gigabarrels is a trillion gigabarrels, and this is 
2.248 trillion gigabarrels, 248,000, which is 2.248 gigabarrels of oil.
  Now, their mean, they say, reflects the probability that we are going 
to find half as much oil as we have ever found, half as much more oil 
as we have ever found in the past. And they even have a high 5 percent 
probability where they say we might find twice as much oil as all the 
oil we ever found in the past.
  Now, even with this assumption, and this is really important, even 
with this assumption of the mean, and that is the red line here, you 
see, the mean, even with the assumption that we are going to find half 
as much more oil as we ever found, or to put it another way, we are 
going to find as much more oil as all of the reserves that now exist, 
even with that assumption, look where peaking occurs. 2016. That is 
just around the corner.

                              {time}  1945

  Now, if we don't find that additional oil, then the peaking would 
occur here. This is 2000. We are now in 2007, slightly after that, 
which is when T. Boone Pickens said it has occurred.
  The second part of this chart shows another interesting thing, and 
that is if you use enhanced oil recovery, you will certainly get the 
oil more quickly. You may get some more oil, too; but the primary thing 
you will do is get it quicker. But if you pump it now, it won't be 
available later; and so they show a very steep drop there.
  The next chart shows a comment by one of the giants in this field, 
James Laherrere, and he made an assessment of the USGS report which was 
the basis for this prediction of our Energy Information Agency that we 
are going to find this incredible amount of new oil. This is what he 
says: ``The USGS estimate implies a fivefold increase in discovery rate 
and reserve addition for which no evidence is presented,'' no evidence 
other than their computer modeling. ``Such an improvement in 
performance is utterly implausible given the great technological 
achievements of the industry over the past 20 years, the worldwide 
search, and the deliberate effort to find the largest remaining 
prospects.''
  We now have vastly better discovery techniques. We have computer 
modeling. We have 3-D seismic, and we pretty much have mapped the 
world. And oil and gas can occur only in fairly unique geological 
formations, and we know what those formations are, and we know pretty 
much where they are.
  The next chart is very interesting. It shows the EIA projections of 
discovery, how much oil we were going to discover. This is the 
discovery peak, not the use peak because we in the past discovered 
enormously more oil than we used. But this is the discovery peak. They 
made this chart in about 2000 and this red line was the discovery peak 
in the past up to that time. Then they made three projections for the 
future.
  One was their 50 percent probability. The mean, which is the 50 
percent; the P 95 which is the yellow one; and the blue one, which is 
the 5 percent probability. They said there was a 5 percent probability 
we would find an incredible amount of oil, and they said there was a 95 
percent probability that we would find only this tiny little bit done 
here. And the mean was this green line, and they saw it going up better 
and better.
  But look at what happened. The red data points show that the 
discoveries were precisely what you would have predicted them to be if 
in fact it is a probability, 95 percent probable, it is certainly a 
whole lot more probable than 50 percent probable, and the actual 
production curve has followed the 95 percent probability.
  All of this has given rise to a statement by Condoleezza Rice, and 
this is a very insightful statement on April 5, 2006: ``We do have to 
do something about the energy problem. I can tell you that nothing has 
really taken me aback more as Secretary of State than the way that the 
politics of energy is, I will use the word warping diplomacy around the 
world. We have simply got to do something about the warping now of 
diplomat effort by the all-out rush for energy supply.''
  Let me put the next chart up, and this chart comes from an incredible 
speech given by Hyman Rickover, the father of our nuclear submarine. I 
just want to quote a couple of things. By the way, if you do a Google 
search, Mr. Speaker, and ask for Hyman Rickover and energy, I think you 
can probably pull up this speech he gave on May 14, 1957. He gave this 
speech at a banquet of the annual Scientific Assembly of the Minnesota 
State Medical Association in St. Paul, Minnesota. Let me just read a 
couple of things that he says in this speech because he was so 
prophetic:
  ``With high energy consumption goes a high standard of living.'' And 
this was 50 years ago. What would he say today? ``Thus, the enormous 
fossil fuel energy which we in this country control feeds machines 
which make each of us master of an army of mechanical slaves. Man's 
muscle power is rated at 35 watts continuously, or \1/20\th horsepower. 
Machines, therefore, furnish every American industrial worker with 
energy equivalent to that of 244 men, while at least 2,000 men push his 
automobile along the road, and his family is supplied with 33 faithful 
household helpers. Each locomotive engineer controls energy equivalent 
to that of 100,000 men; each jet pilot of 700,000 men. Truly, the 
humblest American enjoys the services of more slaves than were once 
owned by the richest nobles, and lives better than most ancient kings. 
In retrospect, and despite wars, revolutions and disasters, the 100 
years just gone by may well seem like a golden age.''
  Then he says: ``Whether this golden age will continue depends 
entirely upon our ability to keep energy supplies in balance with the 
needs of our growing population.''
  And if all of these experts that I have quoted are right and if T. 
Boone Pickens is right, we have now reached the maximum production of 
oil, which means that we are going to have to learn to live with what 
we have got for the moment, and then there will be a time when it is 
going to be harder and harder, and less and less will be found.
  Ultimately the nation which controls the largest energy sources will 
become dominant. We don't own them, but we control them with our 
dollars because we now are buying a fourth of all of the oil in the 
world. China is buying oil around the world. Why would they do that? 
You don't need to own a single oil well and will get all of the oil you 
want if you simply have the dollars to pay for it. I think it is an 
interesting exercise to reflect on why China might be buying these oil 
wells.
  If we act wisely and in time to conserve what we have, I have a 
notice we haven't been doing much of that, and prepare well for 
necessary future changes, we shall ensure this dominant position for 
our own country.
  What are these people talking about? What is peak oil, the next 
chart, and this chart is a chart from the Cambridge Energy Research 
Associates, and you will see them referred to as one of the major 
authorities in this area. They do not believe what T. Boone Pickens 
said today. They think that peaking is quite a ways out, and they 
created this little chart to ridicule the scientists who predicted that 
the United States would peak in 1970 and we did peak in 1970. By the 
way, he predicted the world would be peaking about now. If he was right 
about the United States, why shouldn't he be right about the world?
  They used this chart to ridicule him, and I think it gives 
credibility to what he said. The total U.S. production is the red 
curve. M. King Hubbert predicted that we would peak in 1970. In 1970 we 
reached a peak. He was making that prediction only from the lower 48. 
He couldn't have known that we were going to find a lot of oil in 
Alaska, and we did. What that lot of oil in Alaska did was to produce 
this little bump here.
  I have been at zero miles of that 4-foot pipeline that for many years 
produced a fourth of all the oil that we produced, and it only made 
this little blip in the downslope of Hubbert's peak. CERA says because 
this was the curve rather than the predicted curve of Hubbert here, he 
was therefore a fraud and not to be believed. I think there is 
reasonable concurrence between these.
  The actual, by the way, for the lower 48 which he produced follows 
pretty well his prediction, and we found the additional oil in Alaska 
which kicked it up a little. But in spite of everything that we have 
done, we now are producing half the oil that we produced in 1970.

[[Page H2117]]

  My last chart, and this chart, I could spend the whole hour talking 
about this, and I may do that some evening, but this chart has an 
enormous amount of information on it. These are the discoveries. This 
is when we discovered it. The black curve is how much we used. For many 
years we found very much more than we used. But starting in 1980, we 
started finding less and less and less, and our use rate went up and up 
and up. Here is the 1970 blip, and it keeps on going up. For all of 
this time we were dipping into reserves. We have a lot of reserves 
left.
  What will the future look like? One thing is certain, you cannot bump 
what you have not found. These graphs, the area under these curves 
represents the volume, the amount. So the area, if you put a smooth 
curve over this one, the area under that curve would represent the 
amount of oil that we have found.
  The area under this consumption curve would represent the amount of 
oil that we use. You can't use oil you haven't found. Within some 
limits we can make the future look like we want it to look with 
enhanced recovery and feverish drilling and so forth. But I would 
submit that you can't pump what you haven't found, and I would like the 
listener to make his own judgment as to how much we can change what 
they predict here will be the future production of oil.

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