[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 113 (Thursday, July 10, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S6513]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, my distinguished colleague is right, gas 
prices are a tremendous issue. We in Nevada feel it very deeply. The 
average price of gasoline is now $4.11 or $4.12 a gallon. In Nevada it 
is much higher than that.
  We have to do something, there is no question, with domestic 
production. Right now, we have, counting ANWR--and the Republicans 
thankfully have stopped raising that as an issue; they do not want to 
drill in ANWR; that is good. But even counting ANWR, and all of the 
offshore, we have less than 3 percent of the oil in the world. So we 
cannot produce our way out of the problems we have, because we in 
America use more than 25 percent of every barrel of oil that is used 
every day. We use more than 25 percent of it. But we can do better with 
our domestic production, and we need to do that.
  The Republican bill that has been introduced does not have a single 
line in it that deals with renewables. But I accept the invitation of 
the Republican leader and I hope he accepts our invitation. Let's work 
together to try to get something done as it relates to domestic 
production.
  In the other areas, as we know, there are 68 million acres available 
for drilling right now, 68 million acres. How much is 68 million acres? 
Look at a map of the United States. Look at the State of Nevada. If you 
discount Alaska, we are the sixth largest State in the Union. We make 
up about 68 million acres. From the southern tip of Nevada to the top 
is more than 700 miles; across the top of the State of Nevada is more 
than 400 miles; a lot of space. That is how much area is left available 
to drill right now. We ask and invite the oil companies to start 
drilling, find out where in the 68 million acres there is oil. We know 
there is oil. I also invite the oil companies to look at the 8 million 
acres in the Gulf of Mexico that we legislatively, less than 2 years 
ago, allowed them to explore and drill.

  We know we need to do a better job producing domestically. We are 
going to do our very best to do that. But we hope there would also be 
an agreement that any oil that is drilled and produced in the waters 
off the coast of America be used in America. That is important. And we 
have had test votes in that regard.
  When there was a question about whether there would be drilling in 
ANWR, we asked that oil--and I believe the amendment was offered by 
Senator Wyden, an amendment that said: Okay, we can drill oil out of 
ANWR. You must use that oil in the United States. All but 16 Senators 
said: That is absolutely right.
  One of the 16 Senators who said no was John McCain. I hope John 
McCain would join us in saying that the oil we get offshore should be 
used in the United States. In the past, obviously, he has disagreed 
with that. I do not think it is fair that we drill in the territorial 
waters of our country and then ship that oil overseas.
  We also have to deal with speculation. The Republican leader 
mentioned that their bill talks about adding staff to the CFTC, the 
entity that controls some of the trading that takes place with oil. We 
also agree there should be something done. I am having a meeting today, 
and we are going to make a decision as to what that legislation should 
be. So we share that with our Republican friends and hopefully they 
will join us in that regard.
  One thing that is not in the Republican legislation that we think is 
so vitally important to use at this time, as did this President's 
father when he was President, is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve we 
have in America, which is 97 or 98 percent filled. Why did we fill it? 
For emergencies. I think for emergencies such as this, as was done with 
his father. Once you start tapping that, the price of gasoline goes 
down very quickly so we would hope there would be efforts made by this 
administration to start taking oil out of the reserve. I think there is 
room for us to work together; that is, Democrats and Republicans to try 
to meet the expectations of the American people.

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