[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 111 (Tuesday, July 8, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H6203-H6204]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     DECLARING ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, I would like to say to the 
gentlewoman who just spoke that I sure share her admiration for Jesse 
Helms. I had the honor to work with him on legislation known as the 
Helms-Burton law, and I want you to know he was a wonderful man, a 
titan and a real conservative, and the kind of man that everybody in 
America could be proud to say that he was a Senator in the august body 
on the other side of the building.
  Let me just say briefly today that we just celebrated the 4th of 
July, known as Independence Day, and we celebrate that because we 
became an independent Nation after the Revolutionary War by winning 
that war and becoming not a colony of Great Britain, but a United 
States of America, an independent country. Our Declaration of 
Independence.
  Now we are faced with another problem. It is called energy 
dependence. We are dependent on Saudi Arabia, we are dependent on other 
countries in the Middle East, we are dependent on countries in South 
America like Venezuela that are not friends of ours, and we ought to be 
moving toward energy independence.
  Any of my colleagues who were out marching in parades during the 4th 
of July recess ought to know that the people they were talking to on 
those parade routes were saying, hey, we don't want gasoline at $4 or 
$5 a gallon. We don't need to have gasoline at $4 or $5 a gallon, 
because we can drill right here in the United States and get

[[Page H6204]]

enough oil or gas or other energy products so we can be energy 
independent. All we have to do is start.
  The problem is in this body and the other body on the other side of 
the building, they will not move, the majority will not move on 
drilling here in the United States. We could drill in the ANWR in 
Alaska and get 1 to 2 million barrels of oil a day. We could drill off 
the continental shelf and get 1 or 2 million barrels of oil a day. We 
have about a 400 or 500 year supply of natural gas. And we are not 
doing anything. We are not drilling.
  We are sending $400 or $500 million a day over to Saudi Arabia and to 
Venezuela and South America for oil that we could produce right mere in 
America. It is costing us jobs, it is costing us energy, it is causing 
food price hikes, the price of anything else that you buy that is 
transported by truck in this country, and the people going to and from 
work or paying $4 or $5 a gallon or $70 or $80 or $90 for one tankful.

                              {time}  1945

  They can't survive. The economy will continue to go down if we don't 
do something about these energy prices. And we are not going to do it 
until we allow this country to drill, this government to drill in 
places like the ANWR and off the Continental Shelf, and use the coal 
shale that we have here in abundance to produce our own energy. We can 
do it. The people of America by about an 80 percent margin say drill 
now, drill in America, lower those gas prices. And we are not doing it.
  We just celebrated our declaration of independence from Great 
Britain. It is high time we had a declaration of independence regarding 
our energy. We need to drill here in America, we need to drill in the 
ANWR, we need to drill offshore and become energy independent. It is 
time. And I hope all of my colleagues will sign my good friend, Mr. 
Westmoreland from Georgia's petition over here that will let everybody 
know in this country, all of their constituents know that they are 
committed to drilling in America to get energy prices down.
  He is going to take a one-hour special order here pretty quick 
telling everybody why we should be drilling here in America. So if I 
were talking to people across this country, Madam Speaker, I would say 
call your Congressman, call your Senator, and tell them to sign Mr. 
Westmoreland's petition so we can move toward energy independence. It 
is high time. We should do it now.

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