[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 77 (Monday, May 12, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3993-S3996]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              FUEL PRICES

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, the pending business that will be before 
the Senate is S. 2284. That is a bill to reauthorize the Federal law 
governing flood insurance. Our next scheduled vote, as my colleague 
from Alabama just pointed out, does not relate to that bill. Our next 
scheduled vote does, in fact, not relate to the subject of flood 
insurance at all. The next vote will be on an amendment which the 
Republican leader has filed, allegedly to deal with the high price of 
oil and the high price of gasoline at the pump. I will oppose that 
amendment tomorrow when the vote is cast, and I urge my colleagues to 
do the same.
  The high price of oil and gasoline and diesel that are refined from 
that oil is creating a very substantial economic burden on the American 
consumer and on the U.S. economy. At the close of business Friday, the 
price of oil stood at about $126 per barrel on world markets. The 
average price of gasoline in this country was around $4 per gallon. 
This reflects a dramatic increase over prices a year ago. The increased 
cost is difficult for many Americans to avoid because many Americans 
commute to work or they otherwise need to travel substantial distances 
where there is no ready alternative to the use of their private 
vehicles. To the extent Congress and the administration can take action 
to reduce the burden of this increased cost, we should do so.
  Unfortunately, the amendment of the Republican leader is not a 
credible proposal for reducing that burden. We should be honest with 
the American people about this so-called debate on high gas prices. 
This is an election-year effort. This is election-year politics in its 
classic form. It is Washington finger-pointing. Unfortunately, it is 
very little else.
  Let's be clear. The President set the tone for the debate. On April 
29, 2 weeks ago, the President went to the Rose Garden to express his 
concern about the price of gas and to blame the Congress for it. While 
he was there in the Rose Garden, he also took the occasion to blame the 
Congress for the rise in food prices. Unfortunately, as far as I know, 
there has been no effort by the President to sit down with the leaders 
of Congress and to work out a consensus on constructive actions that 
might actually help, either with the high price of gas or with the high 
price

[[Page S3994]]

of food. The amendment of the Republican leader, which will come up for 
a vote tomorrow, continues with this same old ``blame the other guy'' 
approach.
  Let's talk about the facts of why oil and gas prices are so high. In 
my view, there are supply and demand factors in world oil markets that 
explain some of what we have seen, and some of those factors are 
outside our control--at least in the short term. The simple fact is 
that the market for oil is a global market. The price of oil is 
reflected on that market.
  The United States is the largest purchaser of oil in that market. 
China is rapidly gaining on us in that regard. We are not even close to 
being the largest producer of oil for that market. In fact, we import 
about 60 percent of the oil we consume. If we want to affect the price 
of oil either by reducing world demand or increasing our supply, our 
ability to do so is limited.
  By far the most significant step we can take to reduce demand in the 
short and medium term is to improve vehicle fuel efficiency in our cars 
and our trucks. Last fall, we did just that. Many of us believed the 
increase in required miles per gallon was too modest, but it was a 
substantial improvement over what had prevailed for the three previous 
decades. We need to look at other ways to reduce demand for oil in the 
short and the medium and the long term.
  On the supply side, our ability to affect world prices is even more 
limited. That is simply because of our limited reserves. We have about 
3 percent of the world's oil reserves. Also because most experts 
believe that U.S. production in the coming years will do well to 
maintain its current level. We can affect that production somewhat by 
adopting enlightened policies, but its impact on world markets and 
consequently on the world price of oil will be limited.
  When we look at issues that we in the U.S. Government can most 
directly and immediately affect, I would cite two. We can reduce the 
incentives for speculation in the oil market--that is No. 1--and 
second, we can strengthen the dollar by showing some commitment to 
getting our own fiscal house in order. Let me comment briefly on each 
of these issues.
  The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which I am privileged 
to chair, has held several hearings on oil and gasoline prices and 
markets this year. Other committees in the House of Representatives had 
similar hearings. Current high prices are a result of several factors. 
One of them is certainly the tight global supply-demand balance. One 
thing stands out from all the testimony both the Senate and House has 
heard: A key factor pushing oil prices into the triple digits in recent 
months is a dysfunctional energy market.
  Here is what a senior vice president of a major oil company said at 
one of these hearings on the House side:

       When you look at the fundamentals of our business, 
     Congressman, the supply/demand fundamentals, our assessment 
     would be the price should be somewhere around [$]50 [or $]55 
     a barrel. There is a disconnect. To me, there are three 
     factors that contribute to that. One is the monetary issue, 
     the weaker dollars we've already talked about. The other is 
     geopolitical political risk. And the third, we believe, is 
     speculation.

  Other key analysts in the Government and the private sector have made 
similar statements, although their assumptions about what exact price 
level was supported by supply and demand fundamentals have differed. 
But it would be fair to say that key energy analysts are in general 
agreement that around $30 of the current price of a barrel of oil is a 
result of market pressures unrelated to supply and demand for physical 
barrels of oil.
  This general assessment of a significant cause of high oil and gas 
prices is broadly shared. One noted energy economist put it this way 
recently in the Wall Street Journal:

       Crude futures prices have decoupled from the forces 
     controlling the underlying physical flows of the commodity.

  In plain English, that means crude oil prices are not connected to 
supplies. If oil prices are not being driven by supply and demand, then 
by what are they being driven? We heard some strong testimony on this 
in our committee from Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the firm 
headed by Daniel Yergin, who is a leading oil expert, well known to all 
in this field. Here is what their analyst had to say in early April:

       Crude oil futures trading activity on the New York 
     Mercantile Exchange--the largest in the world--is currently 
     about 350 percent higher than in 2002. Noncommercial 
     investors have contributed to this increase. . . .
       New fundamentals--new cost structures and global financial 
     dynamics--are behind the momentum that pushed oil prices to 
     record highs, around $110 a barrel.

  That was $110 a barrel in early April.
  If we want to get at the real question why oil today is around $125 a 
barrel and why gasoline is closing in on $4 a gallon across the 
country, we will not find the answer in the Republican leader's 
amendment. We are witnessing a substantial influx in speculative money 
into energy markets. It is bidding up the price of oil beyond any 
reasonable level that could be explained by supply and demand. Every 
consumer can see it at the pump. But do we have any serious effort to 
regulate that speculation or even to notice it?
  A Commodity Futures Trading Commission witness told our committee 
they did not see any evidence that speculation was a factor in oil 
prices. I thought they were alone in that view because the amendment of 
the Republican leader seems to agree in that it fails to acknowledge or 
deal with this significant part of the problem.
  If we are going to protect consumers, we need to have a Federal 
Government as an effective overseer to start policing these markets. 
There is a proposal Senator Reid has introduced that will begin to 
address the issue. That bill requires the Commodity Futures Trading 
Commission to start doing the job Congress intends for it to do; that 
is, to make sure oil trading is done with adequate transparency and to 
make sure limits on speculation apply across the board. Right now, it 
is entirely possible for hedge funds or traders to evade the 
protections put in place for trading oil in the United States. They 
simply trade U.S. crude oil in foreign markets that the Commodity 
Futures Trading Commission has decided it will not regulate. The 
Commodity Futures Trading Commission could regulate these so-called 
dark markets, but it has decided not to. Instead of turning a blind eye 
to this offshore oil trading, Senator Reid's bill will ensure that the 
Commodity Futures Trading Commission makes a priority of protecting 
American energy consumers. The majority leader's approach is aimed at 
bringing down the price of oil in the near term by having effective 
regulation of speculation. Some big hedge funds will not like that, but 
it will help the average consumer.
  Let me talk for a minute about the second issue which both the 
Congress and the administration ought to be addressing. If we are going 
to get commodity markets of all kinds to act in a more rational way, we 
also need to do something serious about our overall fiscal policy in 
this country.
  The United States is borrowing money on world financial markets 
because we cannot summon the political will to actually pay for the 
things we want our Government to do. We are fighting a war in Iraq on 
borrowed money, to the tune of over a half trillion dollars since 2002. 
A number of us have proposed to strengthen and to extend tax incentives 
to spur energy production from renewable sources, but those are being 
opposed by others here in the Senate for the simple reason that we are 
proposing to pay for those, the extension of those tax provisions, 
instead of borrowing even more money from overseas to cover their cost.
  Because of the mismanagement of the economy and our high borrowing 
overseas, the value of the dollar has fallen dramatically. The price we 
are paying for international commodities such as oil is rising. That is 
another major factor driving up the price of oil. We need to face up to 
it here in the Senate. If Senators want to lower high oil prices, 
getting our budget house in order will do much more to strengthen the 
dollar and to lower gasoline prices--and sooner than any of the new 
drilling called for in the amendment of the Republican leader.
  I have covered two of the most important things we can do to address 
high oil and gas prices; that is, curbing oil market speculation and, 
secondly, getting our budget and fiscal policy in order.
  Now, let me turn more specifically to the Republican leader's 
proposal. The

[[Page S3995]]

amendment is a grab bag of energy-related provisions which have little 
connection either to the current or future price of oil or gasoline. 
Although the amendment contains various other disconnected proposals, 
the main thrust of the amendment is to increase the amount of Federal 
land available for leasing for oil and gas exploration and production 
in the areas proposed for leasing:
  First, the Outer Continental Shelf off the Atlantic and the Pacific 
coasts of the country. And, second, a portion of the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge. The underlying assumption on the proposal is that our 
lack of supply is a result of our refusal to permit exploration and 
drilling on Federal lands, that changing the law to permit drilling in 
these two specific areas will solve the problem.
  Well, what about that basic assumption? Is our ability to produce oil 
and gas domestically being held back because of our unwillingness to 
lease the Outer Continental Shelf off the east coast and the Outer 
Continental Shelf off the west coast and the area known as the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge? Well, let's look at the facts. What is 
happening on the supply side for oil production in the United States?
  Last year, we saw the amount of crude oil produced in the United 
States remain constant, instead of falling. That may not sound like a 
big achievement, but it is an improvement on previous trends. It is no 
doubt a reaction to higher prices, but it also reflects bipartisan 
support to increase production on Federal lands in places where it is 
appropriate. I have three charts that illustrate the general trend of 
what has been going on, and all of these relate to onshore oil and gas 
drilling and production.
  This is acreage of new national oil and gas leases in millions of 
acres. Last year, we leased 4.6 million acres of Federal land for oil 
and gas production onshore in the United States. That is the column on 
the right.
  That is in places such as my State of New Mexico and Wyoming and 
Colorado. That is almost double the 2.6 million acres we put up for 
leasing in the year 2000. So the trend is for leasing of more acres of 
Federal land for oil and gas production onshore.
  And, of course, these figures do not include all the leasing we did 
last year in the Outer Continental Shelf. Let me show another chart. 
This chart is approvals of applications for permits to drill, APDs. In 
the business they are referred to as APDs. Last year, we approved 7,124 
permits to drill oil and gas wells on Federal land. Again, this is all 
onshore. That is the right-hand column. That is more than double the 
number approved in 2000.
  This is partly due to the direct funding stream we put in place for 
this process as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Now, let me show 
you one other chart. This one relates to drilling activity initiated on 
Federal lands. As a result of the increased number of drilling permits, 
and that was the previous chart, we had actual drillings start last 
year on 5,243 new wells, both oil and gas wells. That is approaching a 
doubling of the number that were drilled in 2000, which was 2,861.
  So these are three charts that make the case for what has been 
happening onshore. Similar positive trends are underway in the Gulf of 
Mexico, although the overall results today are more modest. According 
to the latest report by the Minerals Management Service, total 
production of oil in the Gulf of Mexico was up slightly in 2007 to 1.3 
million barrels per day.
  That is an increase of about 10,000 barrels per day of oil over 2006 
levels. We have gone from drilling 134 deepwater wells in the Gulf of 
Mexico in 2006 to 142 new deepwater wells last year. There were also 
eight announced deepwater discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico in 2007.
  We are certainly not in decline in oil production in the Gulf of 
Mexico, but the increase in activity painted by these statistics is not 
overwhelming either. So there is still much more we could be doing to 
support domestic production of oil and gas.
  The most effective strategy we could pursue, I believe, is something 
that is not in the Republican leader's amendment. To understand where 
our greatest opportunity for making progress on increased domestic 
production lies, we need to focus on a significant problem in the 
management of oil and gas on Federal lands, including in the Outer 
Continental Shelf.
  Simply put, all the policy emphasis has been on having more lease 
sales, but not enough emphasis has been placed on encouraging diligent 
development of Federal lands once they are leased.
  While it is generally true that leases must be produced within 
certain time parameters, Federal agencies have substantial discretion 
in managing those provisions. I am concerned we may not be following 
the correct policies to bring about production in the most timely 
fashion. I have asked the Government Accountability Office to examine 
this topic.
  Let me illustrate my concern with the following charts. Here, first, 
with regards to onshore production. This pie chart on the left shows 
all the leased acreage on Federal land for oil and gas development 
onshore in the lower 48 States.
  As you see, about three-quarters of all of this in red, three-
quarters of the Federal land we have leased onshore is not currently 
being produced. Of the over 45.5 million acres of land that have been 
leased, oil companies are sitting on 31 million acres on which no 
production is occurring. A similar story can be told in terms of the 
Outer Continental Shelf. This is the chart on the right. This is 
offshore.
  Of a total of 41 million acres that have been leased offshore, 33 
million of that 41 million are not being produced. The Republican 
leader's amendment proposes to open the entire Atlantic and Pacific 
coast to leasing and development. Although the amendment speaks to 
petitions from Governors to lease in specific areas, the way the 
amendment is written, the Secretary can open for leasing even areas 
where no such request is pending, by including them in the next so-
called 5-year-plan from the Minerals Management Service.
  Here is a map of all the leases in the Outer Continental Shelf in the 
Gulf of Mexico. To get an idea of what we are talking about, the blue 
squares represent areas that have producing leases. As we can see, 
there are many of those. The much more numerous yellow squares 
represent leased blocks where nothing is happening. The red blocks, 
which are also scattered around, represent new areas that have been 
added through recent lease sales.
  For all the increases in drilling activity I have mentioned earlier 
in the talk, you will see we still have a great many areas where no 
exploration or production is ongoing, even though those areas have been 
leased. We recently have added even more leased areas to this map.
  Here is a second map of the oil-and-gas-producing regions on the 
North Slope of Alaska. In the middle is the private and State land, the 
tan-colored area. This small area to the right over here is area 1002, 
the 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge which the 
Republican leader's amendment would open to leasing.
  The large area on the left, this yellow area, is the National 
Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. This area was specifically set aside to be 
exploited for oil and gas development. The National Petroleum Reserve-
Alaska totals 23.5 million acres, most of which can be developed and 
drilled. The mean estimate of oil resources in the National Petroleum 
Reserve-Alaska is 9.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil. 
That is significantly more oil than is estimated to be contained in the 
national portion of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge.
  To date, 3.8 million acres of this NPRA have been leased. That is 
twice the size of the portion of the Arctic Refuge that is being talked 
about in the Republican leader's amendment. Here is a slightly more 
detailed version of that chart that shows where those leased areas are. 
You can see that a large portion of the leased areas--those are the 
areas in red--is on the eastern side of the Petroleum Reserve, very 
close to the Alpine field which is tied into the Trans-Alaska Pipeline 
System. So the infrastructure to take oil from the Petroleum Reserve in 
Alaska, on the North Slope of Alaska to the lower 48 is very close at 
hand.

  So with all those favorable factors in place, you would wonder how 
many production wells do we have operating on the 3.8 million acres of 
the Petroleum Reserve that we have leased? And

[[Page S3996]]

the answer is zero. Zero current production from these leases should be 
a substantial cause for concern. It illustrates a basic problem with 
our domestic production of oil and gas. It is not that we have not 
leased Federal land for exploration and production. We have leased 
large tracts of Federal land. We are leasing more all the time.
  Oil and gas companies certainly benefit by having these leases on 
their books and claiming the potential oil as part of their reserves. 
But we need to get these oil and gas resources out of the reserves 
column and into the production column.
  What does the Republican leader's amendment do about any of this? 
Absolutely nothing. He is calling for more leases in areas that are 
much more remote from oil and gas transmission infrastructure than the 
acreage we have already leased.
  It would take a decade or more for those resources to come into 
production at the very best. Why should we expect oil and gas companies 
to rush into new areas to begin production when they are sitting on 
literally millions and millions of acres of existing leases without 
doing any production on those?
  The fact is, having a lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge will not do a single thing to bring down gasoline prices anytime 
soon. Opening offshore areas such as off the east coast and off the 
west coast, where there is no infrastructure, is also a very 
ineffective response to the prices that consumers are seeing today. 
These are not real solutions to what is wrong in energy markets today.
  If we are serious about doing something to boost domestic production, 
we need to focus on better management of Federal leases. Let me 
describe two concrete suggestions in that regard.
  First, we might consider imposing a production incentive fee on all 
the Federal acres that are under lease, a fee that would increase over 
time but which would be cancelled by royalty payments. That would 
provide a disincentive for sitting on leases for purposes of inflating 
a company's reserve estimates.
  Second, we enacted some specific provisions in the Energy Policy Act 
of 2005 that reduced pressure on the leaseholders in the National 
Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, in terms of their responsibilities to develop 
the oil resources there. We changed the law to allow oil companies with 
a lease in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to hold it for 30 
years or more, without producing.
  I opposed those changes to the law but was unable to prevail on that 
point. Provisions that allow for decades of additional delay in 
developing oil on Federal lands that are dedicated for production of 
oil make no sense when that oil is selling at $126 a barrel.
  If anyone in this Chamber wants to advocate for oil production in 
Alaska or anywhere on Federal land, then the threshold test is whether 
they are willing to change the incentive structure that currently 
rewards delay and inaction. That dysfunctional incentive structure was 
put in place in the law we passed in 2005.
  If we are not willing to take action to bring the 3.8 million acres 
already leased in Alaska into production, then there isn't much 
credibility to the argument that somehow one more lease sale up there 
will greatly add to energy security.
  There is another area in which the Republican leader's amendment 
misses the mark on promoting domestic oil and gas production. His 
amendment leaves out the one place offshore where it would be easiest 
and fastest to get additional production, and that is in the Gulf of 
Mexico. His amendment opens the entire Atlantic and Pacific coastlines 
for new oil and gas production but leaves in place the oil and gas 
moratoria in the Gulf of Mexico. That is out of touch with reality. The 
Gulf of Mexico is the first place we should be looking to for expanded 
production, not the one place we should leave off the list.
  Let me put up this chart. When we last debated offshore oil and gas 
production in this Chamber in 2006, we made what I consider to be a 
very bad bargain. We put off limits--that is the yellow area on the 
chart--10 times the amount of natural gas that we opened to exploration 
and drilling. We made available for lease 2 trillion cubic feet of 
natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico while putting off limits 22 trillion 
cubic feet of natural gas. We also put new areas of the Gulf of Mexico 
under moratorium for the first time, including portions of the lease 
sale 181 area that were closest to the existing oil and gas 
infrastructure. The area now under current law is off limits until 2022 
because of that provision we passed into law in 2006. The portion of 
the lease sale 181 area we put under moratorium for the first time 
contains a half billion barrels of oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of 
natural gas.
  The available infrastructure to take it to market is already there. 
The interest by industry in these resources is intense.
  This weekend I was reading the current edition of Barron's, the Dow-
Jones business and financial weekly. There is a column in there by Jim 
McTague where he quotes President Bush's former economic adviser, Al 
Hubbard, as saying:

       If the other 49 states realized what Florida is doing to 
     them, they'd be up in arms.

  McTague goes on to lament the fact that President Bush does not 
support revoking the lease sale moratoria on the outer continental 
shelf that were first imposed by his father in the early 1990s.
  He then states:

       Bush, during the 2000 presidential contest, promised his 
     brother Jeb, Florida's governor at the time, that he'd 
     maintain the drilling ban.

  So there you have it. If we are really serious about increasing 
domestic production and repealing existing moratoria, the place to 
start is here in the gulf. The Republican leader's amendment leaves 
that out, much to its detriment.
  I have additional comments that I do not have time to go through. 
There is one area where I very much compliment the minority leader, and 
that is including in his amendment the proposal to suspend the filling 
of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the remainder of this year. 
Senator Dorgan has been pushing this legislation for many months. I 
have been glad to be a cosponsor. I know Senator Domenici recently 
indicated he now supports this position. This is a proposal that is in 
Majority Leader Reid's proposal. It is proposed legislation. It is also 
in the Republican leader's amendment. I congratulate him for that.
  Right after we vote on the Republican leader's amendment, the large 
comprehensive amendment I have been talking about, the vote right after 
that will be on the proposal to suspend the filling of the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve.
  I hope will get a strong bipartisan vote. Clearly, it would be a step 
in the right direction. It is something we should do. I hope we can at 
least include that positive action before the Congress has to turn to 
other business tomorrow as it plans to, when we get back to discussing 
the flood insurance.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I understand the minority leader is on his 
way to make a few remarks. In the meantime, I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the order for quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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