[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 69 (Monday, April 30, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5269-S5270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         EXPANSION OF DRILLING

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I rise to speak to the Senate 
because there is another thing the executive branch of Government has 
done today; that is, the Secretary of the Interior has announced a vast 
new expansion of drilling off of the continental United States. The one 
area proposed for lease sale for oil and gas production and drilling 
that is acceptable is the area we negotiated in the legislation we 
passed last year, which is lease sale 181 in the central Gulf of Mexico 
and part of the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Members will recall that this 
has been a 6-year struggle, of which this Senator from Florida actually 
had to engage in a filibuster in 2005 to protect the interests of my 
State, as well as the interests of the U.S. military, and finally 
prevailed in that protection in 2006, when we agreed to an area that 
could be drilled, but it was kept far from the coast of Florida and 
away from the military testing and training area, which is the largest 
testing and training area in the world for our military. Why that? 
Because where we are testing sophisticated new weapons systems and 
where there is live ordnance involved covering a vast array of space, 
you simply cannot have oil rigs on the surface of the water below where 
all of this testing utilizing new ordnance is going on.
  So what the Secretary of the Interior has proposed is some 
exploration in those areas we approved last year, which was approved 
with this Senator's consent because we protected the financial, 
economic interests of Florida, keeping the oil drilling away from our 
precious, sugary, white-sand beaches, which spawn a $52 billion-a-year 
tourism industry, keeping it away from the bays and estuaries that are 
so necessary to the ongoing marine life, and at the same time 
protecting the U.S. military and its interests to have its weapons 
tested so they are ready to go in case they are needed.

  The proposal today also includes other areas off the continental 
United States; with the concurrence of Virginia, 50 miles off the shore 
of Virginia. I would think the States of South Carolina and North 
Carolina ought to have something to say about that. I would think the 
State of Delaware or the State of New Jersey ought to have something to 
say about that because the wind and wave action doesn't just keep a 
potential oil spill right off of Virginia, even if Virginia wanted that 
drilling 50 miles off of its coast. There is a major tourism industry 
built on the beauty of those beaches in North Carolina as well as the 
beaches of Delaware and New Jersey, not to even speak of the beaches of 
South Carolina.
  The other part the Secretary of the Interior is proposing is four 
different areas off the coast of Alaska. We certainly remember the 
concerns, which were valid concerns, as a result of the Exxon Valdez 
disaster decades ago. But my argument against this proposal by the 
Secretary of the Interior goes far beyond those valid concerns I have 
just mentioned. It goes to the heart of the matter of national security 
and protection of the national economy; that is, we have an economy and 
a defense posture that puts us in the position today of being reliant 
on foreign oil to the tune of 60 percent of our daily consumption of 
oil coming from foreign shores in places such as the Persian Gulf 
region, Nigeria, and Venezuela, three parts of the world that are not 
necessarily stable and of which Venezuela--you have seen the kind of 
difficulty we have had with the President of Venezuela, who continues 
to threaten that he is going to cut off the oil to us and, by the way, 
that is 12 percent of our daily consumption.
  Then someone would say: If that is true, why not drill for more oil?
  In the first place, as to this drilling off Alaska, the oil wouldn't 
be ready for another 10 years. The economic crisis is today. The 
national security crisis is today. The United States has 3 percent of 
the world's oil reserves, but the United States consumes 25 percent of 
the world's oil production. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to 
figure out that you can't drill your way out of the problem.
  That brings me to the crux of my argument. The present policy of the 
administration is to drill, drill, drill. We simply have to change that 
policy. We have to go to alternative fuels. We have to go to increased 
mileage standards on our vehicles; otherwise, we can never get out of 
this problem of dependence on foreign oil, all the time

[[Page S5270]]

making ourselves easily seduced by arguments of drill, drill, drill, 
with oil companies having record profits and with, of course, the 
people, our folks, all of us, having to endure $3 a gallon gasoline.
  In an ideal world, you could say that you could do both--yes, in an 
ideal world. But this isn't an ideal world. This is a world in which 
the policy has always been drill, drill, drill. We have to break that 
policy. We have to start on things just like this proposal which is 
another part of the drill strategy of this administration. Only then 
are we going to protect our national security and only then are we 
going to protect our national economy by shifting to other fuels and to 
vehicles of which we easily have the technology now to get 40 miles per 
gallon on the fleet average instead of 27 miles per gallon on the fleet 
average.
  You can imagine, if we can do that, instead of relying on a plan to 
drill for more oil that is not going to become available for another 10 
years--if we will change the policy right now, which will have an 
immediate effect, starting tomorrow, on our consumption of oil--then, 
only then, will America start to move on a path truly toward energy 
independence.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________