[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 115 (Monday, July 14, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H6456-H6463]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  We are going to do something a little bit differently this evening on 
the House floor. We have a 1-hour Special Order of the minority and a 
1-hour Special Order of the majority. The minority leader and the 
Speaker have agreed to combine those two Special Orders so that both 
sides can participate in the debate about energy policy. I will be 
leading the minority side, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.

[[Page H6457]]

Altmire) is going to be leading the majority side.
  In the first hour, it is my understanding that I will control time 
for both sides, and in the second hour, the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
will control the time for both sides. We are going to try to operate in 
such a fashion of cooperation which, I think, will be refreshing in 
this Chamber so that both sides end up, at the end of the 2-hour 
period, with equal amounts of time.
  In Special Orders, you don't yield for specific amounts of time, so 
what we're going to attempt to do, between looking at the two clocks 
that are publicly visible and between the staff members who have 
clocks, is to make sure that we balance the time out.
  So, before we get started in the actual substantive debate, I'd be 
happy to yield to my good friend from Pennsylvania for whatever 
introductory remarks he wishes to make about the procedure.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
  It is my understanding that this format has not been attempted since 
the 1990s, under Speaker Gingrich. So this is a recent historical event 
that we're engaged in here, and I really to do appreciate the gentleman 
and the ability to work with him, and I appreciate the gentleman from 
Georgia and others for talking about energy prices and gas prices. That 
is what we're going to do over the course of the next 2 hours.
  Again, just to lay the ground rules, because it is a Special Order, 
all time in the first hour will flow through the gentleman from Texas. 
All time in the second hour will flow through our side, but we want 
this to be an engaging discussion where we yield back and forth and ask 
questions and inquire of each other.
  We're going to keep this above board. This is not a game of gotcha. 
This is to have a legitimate, honest discussion about energy prices, 
about the drilling issue, about the speculation issue, and about the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
  On our side, we're going to be joined by Members who have engaged on 
this issue, such as Chairman Rahall of the Natural Resources Committee. 
Chairman Rahall is going to talk about the 68 million acres of land 
that are available, an issue that we know about, and that will come up. 
Bart Stupak of Michigan, Congressman Stupak, is going to talk about the 
speculation issue along with Congressman Murphy from Connecticut. We're 
going to have Congressman Hall from New York, who is going to talk 
about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Others are welcome, who may be 
watching this as we speak, to join us throughout the evening.
  Those are generally the issues that we're going to talk about, so I 
really do appreciate the gentleman from Texas for yielding the time. 
We're going to keep this on a balanced level over the next 2 hours, 
generally an hour on our side and an hour on the Republican side. I 
look forward to the discussion.
  So, at this time, I will yield back to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank my friend from Pennsylvania.
  I am going to yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, we have before us, as we have this debate on the 
floor of the House of Representatives, a very serious situation. We 
have energy prices worldwide, certainly, but in the United States of 
America, specifically, we have energy prices that have gone up quite a 
bit in the last several years.
  If you will look here, you will see that, in February of 2007, as to 
the price of unleaded gasoline at the pump, the national average was 
$2.30 a gallon. By the end of June of this year, it was at $4.07. The 
numbers that were given to me this afternoon when I got off the 
airplane show that, today, it closed at $4.11 a gallon for gasoline, 
which is a record. For diesel, it's about $4.82 a gallon.
  If you will look at natural gas prices, which are used both in 
industry and to heat our homes in the winter and to cook our food year 
round, in February of last year, for 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 
it was $6.60. By June, it was up to, which was the average nationally, 
$10.21. We expect that, by this fall, the average national price is 
going to be $12 for 1,000 cubic feet.
  Now, if we sit here in the United States and do nothing, these prices 
are going to stay where they are and are going to go higher. The good 
news is that we have more domestic energy resources in this country 
than in any other country in the world.
  To just give a comparison, on this chart here, the purple and the 
green and the blue are the amount of oil imports on an average basis 
per day that we're importing from three of our largest sources of 
imports. You can see that, from Nigeria, we're getting approximately 1 
million barrels a day, from Venezuela, about 1,250,000 barrels a day 
and, from Saudi Arabia, about 1,500,000 barrels a day of oil.
  The orange bar, or the red bar, to the right shows the estimates from 
the Minerals Management Service, the most recent estimates of the 
amount of domestic energy supply that could be produced at today's 
prices and with today's technology. If we were to produce in the Outer 
Continental Shelf, in the areas that are currently off limits but that 
we think could be produced in terms of a drilling program, that, by 
itself, equals the amount of imports from Saudi Arabia.

                              {time}  2015

  If we add the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, which we're going to 
talk about in some detail, that will be another approximately 750,000 
to 1 million barrels a day.
  And then one of the big ones that we really haven't done too much 
about is our shale oil reserves. We have 2 trillion barrels of shale 
oil in this country, and if we were to produce that, we think within 
the next 5 to 10 years we could have almost 2 million, maybe 3 million 
barrels of production just from that. Then if you add the tar sands, 
you add coal-to-liquids--which there's a lot of bipartisan support on 
the floor on both sides of the aisle--our heavy oil reserves, and then 
our C02 recovery with C02 injection into depleted 
oil fields, if you add all of those up, that's 10 million barrels a day 
equivalent of production that we could have in the United States of 
America.
  Unfortunately, for most of these on the red bar, our friends on the 
majority side, on the Democratic side, certainly the leadership--I'm 
not saying that everybody on their side--but the Democratic leadership 
are not only opposed, but some would say adamantly opposed. And that's 
what this debate is going to be about this evening.
  So with that as the opening statement, I would be happy to yield to 
the distinguished chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, the 
Honorable Nick Rahall of the great State of West Virginia.
  Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Barton. I appreciate your yielding, and I 
certainly want to commend you and Jason Altmire, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, for putting together this rather unique 2-hour debate, 
civilized debate, I might add, on our energy situation. It comes at a 
very appropriate time.
  As we all know, President Bush just today by executive order lifted 
the moratorium that was put into place by his father some 18 years ago, 
I guess. That moratorium being on drilling in the Outer Continental 
Shelf and in ANWR. And by a stroke of the pen, the President has lifted 
that moratorium, and I assume now that those lands are open for 
leasing; and I think that's a very important point to stress that they 
are not under lease at this time but are open for leasing.
  And as the gentleman from Texas, I'm sure, is aware, having a lease 
in hand is not quite the same as starting the process to obtain a 
lease. The latter being a rather lengthy process that can take quite a 
few number of years.
  I would think at this time an appropriate quote would be that quote 
from the Energy Information Administration. When commenting on the 
efforts to lift the moratorium on OCS and ANWR, it stated that lifting 
the current moratorium, ``would not have a significant impact on 
domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.''
  That's the year 2030, 22 years from now.
  This is the Energy Information Administration, a part of Secretary 
Bodman's Department of Energy.
  And I think it's also worthy of note that 79 percent of the oil and 
82 percent of the natural gas in Federal waters off America's coasts 
are already available

[[Page H6458]]

for leasing. That is today, now; not 22 years from now.
  So I think that old saying that a bird in the hand is better than two 
in the bush, well, an oil lease in hand is certainly--a lease, the 
actual lease in hand is certainly more preferable in terms of gaining 
production today in the near future; that is today, gaining production 
today, and bringing meaningful relief at the pump today, not 22 years 
from now, but today, would leave one to believe that opening these some 
68 million acres of Federal onshore and OCS lands that are already 
under lease that can go--the companies can go out and drill on today--
today, not 22 years from now, but today--would, I think, be preferable. 
And I'm not saying not including what the President has done today, 
that's fine. He has done what he did.
  But also I don't see--and I'm asking the gentleman from Texas this 
question since it is his time--what is wrong with requiring the oil 
companies to use this acreage, 68 million, that are already under lease 
to go out and make some, at least a due diligent effort towards 
developing those leases?
  Now, I recognize that's like a housing development. You're not going 
to find something on every acre that's under lease. You already know 
there's nothing under a few of those acres because when you build a 
housing development, you don't build a house on every inch of that 
entire development. So there are some acres where there's obviously not 
going to be anything there and not worth exploring.
  But of that 68 million, there's only about 10 million now that is 
actively under production. And if you extrapolate out the same Energy 
Administration Department figures I just quoted, if you extrapolate out 
what is being produced from that 10 million acres, then you come up 
with roughly about a 14-year supply of natural gas by extrapolating out 
those figures.
  So why can we not give some push to the industry to go out and make 
an effort to find out if there's anything in these 68 million acres or 
not? They will say, I'm sure there's not. But how do they know that 
there's not? How do we know what exists in the OCS that is now open by 
today's action of the President in lifting the moratorium? How do we 
know--I mean, the word ``potential'' is always used. The potential for 
this large find or this potential. But I just don't--I'm asking that 
question
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. If the gentleman would yield?
  Mr. RAHALL. I believe it's your time.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. But this is a debate, and then I will yield to 
my good friend from Georgia.
  First of all, I think those on the minority side would love to work 
with the distinguished chairman of the Natural Resources Committee if 
he wished to bring a bipartisan bill to the floor on permitting reform 
on the 68 million acres that are currently available for leasing.
  I think the gentleman knows that in the Energy Policy Act that passed 
in 2005, we put some permit reform measures in place on a pilot program 
basis. And in this Congress, there have been efforts made in H.R. 6 and 
then also some of the appropriation riders to put some roadblocks in 
some of those permitting process reforms. So if that's something that 
we could work together with, I would be happy to do that.

  The second answer I would give on the acreage that is currently under 
lease is some of those areas, while they are leased, they don't appear 
to have significant mineral production even at today's prices. And as 
they asked the bank robber Clyde Barrow why he robbed banks, he 
anecdotally is supposed to have answered, ``That's where the money 
is.''
  Well, some of the areas that are currently not under lease is where 
we think the significant amounts of oil and gas are. But on the current 
acreage, I think we would be very willing to do an inventory bill, if 
the gentleman wished to work on an inventory bill. We could certainly 
do an expedited permit and reform bill if the gentleman and his 
leadership wished to do that. So there could be some agreement there.
  Mr. RAHALL. Well, this gentleman is certainly no stranger to efforts 
to reform Federal onshore oil and gas leasing program. I've been 
involved in that for 20 years, I guess, through first my subcommittee 
chairman on what was then called the Interior Committee, I guess, and 
now certainly as chairman of the full Committee on Natural Resources. 
I'm not even adverse to reforming that process to make it more 
expeditious.
  But I still haven't heard, and I'm still unclear, as to the fact that 
leasing is the more difficult portion of going out and drilling on 
these lands. Is that not accurate? Obtaining a lease, it seems to me, 
is a much more difficult--and you know, even before the land is 
available for leasing, for example, the land manager has to develop a 
plan to determine whether or not an area is appropriate for oil and gas 
drilling. Then once the Interior Department has made the land available 
to leasing, then the oil and gas companies need to secure the permits 
and do some preliminary exploration.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. But somewhere in there there's an option where 
you actually bid.
  Mr. RAHALL. That was the next step I was getting to. They have to 
collect, analyze the data. Then the government has to put together an 
auction for the competitive bidding process and then award the leases.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. And then you have a specified amount of time in 
which to make improvements on the lease and determine whether it's 
commercial.
  Mr. RAHALL. Okay. Now, the 68 million already has gone through that 
process. The 68 million acres we keep referring to as use-it-or-lose-
it, that has already gone through that process we both have described.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. My understanding is it's in--various acreages 
are in various stages of that process. I think that's a true statement. 
I don't think it's all completed the entire process.
  Mr. RAHALL. In any case, years ahead of the lands made available 
today by lifting the moratorium.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. In some cases, that's a true statement. In some 
cases, it's not. There are areas that have been put under moratorium 
recently by acts of Congress that were closed to commercial production, 
especially in the eastern gulf of Mexico and the OCS.
  Mr. RAHALL. But were they under lease?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. They were, is my understanding. And we then put 
them under moratorium.
  Mr. RAHALL. Okay. I'm not clear on that whether they were.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. It's something we can certainly work together 
on.
  Mr. RAHALL. Sure. Sure.
  Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that it could take years 
and years to obtain a lease, which these lands opened up today are just 
starting on that process. The 68 million under our use-it-or-lose-it 
legislation has already gone through that process.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Certainly the area that's never been leased is 
further behind that that has been in some stages of leasing. I will 
concede that point.
  Mr. RAHALL. And in our use-it-or-lose-it legislation, we're simply 
saying current leases are generally 10 years. They vary somewhat 
depending on depth of water or where they're located. But generally, 10 
years is the current leasing term. And if a company is holding that 
lease for 10 years and not producing on it or not even making an 
effort, showing some type of good faith, due diligent effort, as I'm 
sure the gentleman knows our Federal coal is required to do, other 
minerals on Federal lands that's owned by the taxpayers are required to 
do, we say in our use-it-or-lose-it, if that due diligent effort is not 
made, then you lose the lease and it's open again to competitive 
bidding. Another company can come in and make their bid for it.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Again, we're very willing to work on some 
reforms to the current lands that are leased to expedite the permitting 
process and the leasing process, and hopefully those on your side would 
be willing to work with us to make available more lands that haven't 
yet been leased.
  Mr. RAHALL. I think the major point I want to make is in our use-it-
or-lose-it legislation, it's not an anti-drilling piece of legislation. 
It's a probe drilling.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I'm not aware that we've ever said it was anti-
drilling. What we've said is we want to do

[[Page H6459]]

more than that. But we certainly support the first steps at some pro-
leasing program on the majority side. We think that's a step in the 
right direction.
  Mr. RAHALL. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Let me yield to my good friend from Georgia (Mr. 
Westmoreland) who is responsible for, or at least partly responsible 
for the fact that we're actually having the debate. It was his idea, 
and he was able to convince Speaker Pelosi and minority leader Boehner 
to engage in this.
  I will yield him such time as he may consume.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank Mr. Barton from Texas for doing 
that, and I will have to give Mr. Altmire the credit for persuading 
Speaker Pelosi for allowing us to do that, and I want to thank the 
gentleman for his willingness that we can do this and have a good 
discussion.
  And while we're doing this, I would like to ask Mr. Rahall one 
question: Can you identify any lands which are leased and are not being 
developed and currently who is not developing lands that they had 
leased?
  Mr. RAHALL. We have that on a map on where these lands are located. 
I'm not sure I have it here or not. But it has been made a part of the 
packet of information that our Committee on Natural Resources did send 
to all Members at one point, and now as far as naming a specific 
company, I can get that information. I don't have it readily on me, but 
it's a matter of the public record because, as the gentleman from Texas 
has already said, when they go through the competitive bidding process 
to obtain the leases on the 68 million, of course, that's public 
knowledge, and these are public lands.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. I guess I may not have posed my question just 
exactly right, but my question would be to you, this is a 10-year 
process. This is a 10-year process, and I'm assuming that each acre of 
land that has been leased, by whoever leased it, is in some part of 
this process of obtaining production or getting permits in order to 
produce. And my question is, do you know of any of the 68 million acres 
that are not in some process?
  Mr. RAHALL. If they are, I cannot name a company that's not in any 
process at this point, but if they are in the process, that's due 
diligence.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Okay.
  Mr. RAHALL. Oh, I'm sorry. Here, leased land not producing is the 
red.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. I understand that they are not producing, but is 
there any----
  Mr. RAHALL. Oh, you're saying they're moving toward production?
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Yes.
  Mr. RAHALL. If they are moving toward production, that's due 
diligence; they maintain their lease.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. So I guess my question to the gentleman is that 
this 68 million that we keep hearing use-it-or-lose-it is actually in 
some stage, and I have a chart here that shows the different processes.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. A very complicated chart.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. A very complicated chart, and I'm not going to 
attempt to explain it all, but I will say that the purple is the pre-
leasing process. Your orange is the leasing process. The blue is the 
notice of staking process, and then the green is the application for 
permit to drill. And if you will notice these little red blotches on 
here, these are points of entry for people who want to start litigation 
during this process.
  In 1992, the Democratic majority extended the leasing process from, I 
believe it was either 3 or 5 years to 10 years. And so I think a 
Democrat majority realized that this was a very burdensome process and 
could not be done in the time period that these oil companies have been 
given and extended it to 10 years.
  So, you know, I just think that when we talk about 68 million acres, 
out of the 2.5 billion acres that are available that we could be 
drilling in, that it's not fair to say that, you know, use-it-or-lose-
it, when the people that have leased it are somewhere on this chart 
trying to make this land that they have leased be productive for U.S. 
oil production.
  Mr. RAHALL. Well, I would respond to the gentleman that, again, as 
I've said, if they are moving toward production, that's due diligence.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. I understand.
  Mr. RAHALL. And our legislation would not take that lease away from 
them, and you're right about the 10 years.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. But I do think if you do say the 68 million acres 
out there, that they need to either use it or lose it, and the reality 
is that they're trying to use it. They're just in some part of this 
process, and you know, even if it's the Corps of Engineers, I know 
there're several sites where the Corps is actually being sued, and 
these companies have to wait on the Corps to work through their lawsuit 
before they can get back into the permitting process. And then there's 
other stumbling blocks that they have to go through.
  But I just find it interesting that the Democrat majority in 1992 was 
the one that extended this to 10 years because they understand that the 
trouble and the amount of paperwork and filings and permitting process 
that you have to go through, and then the same party would come back 
and say, well, there's 68 million acres out there that they're not 
using and so, therefore, they need to lose it when they are actually 
within the law, within that 10-year period, and as far as I know, each 
and every one of them that have obtained the lease are in some part of 
this process.
  Mr. RAHALL. Would the gentleman from Georgia not agree, however, that 
while all of that is I'm sure accurate, that is still on these 68 
million acres of land, and that's still I'm not going to say light 
years but many, many years ahead of where we are on the lands made 
available today by lifting the moratorium?
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. I disagree with that because I feel that what the 
American people want us to do is to increase our oil production. I 
think that they want to see something like the gentleman from Texas 
talked about in 2005, that this government could come together and we 
could streamline. I mean, we've got enough smart people in our 
government that could streamline this process some to bring it about, 
and I know that the gentleman's in favor of that, and I look forward to 
working with you and Mr. Barton to be able to streamline this so we can 
get production on the ground quicker.
  Now, let me say that, you know, being from an agriculture State in 
Georgia, there's certain areas of the State that we grow apples. 
There's certain areas of the State that we grow cotton. There's areas 
of this country that produce more corn than other areas, and you 
wouldn't plant corn, let's say, in the north Georgia mountains because 
you wouldn't get near as good a yield as you would maybe in Nebraska or 
somewhere else.
  At the same time, out of 2.5 billion acres of land, and knowing the 
area that's in the ANWR, and knowing the 2 trillion barrels of shale 
that are out West that we know are there, why wouldn't we open those up 
and give companies an opportunity to go out there? And it would not 
take 22 years to increase our oil production in some of these areas, 
and later on, we'll be showing a map of how much quicker I think we 
could get this oil into our refineries, which brings up another point, 
and then I will sit down because the gentleman from Texas has been so 
kind to yield.
  But the other thing we need to talk about tonight I think is the 
increased refinery capability and the fact that, in our country, we've 
not built a refinery in 30 years. And we are right now importing almost 
7 billion barrels of refined gas into this country and about the same 
amount of refined diesel. So, with that, I will sit down.
  Mr. STUPAK. Would the gentleman from Texas yield on that point?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Stupak).
  Mr. STUPAK. I thank the gentleman.
  I just want to make a couple of points. Mr. Westmoreland seems to 
indicate that if we would just increase drilling somehow, we would 
increase supply and everything would be wonderful. But as chairman of 
Oversight and Investigations, we saw articles earlier this year which 
indicated that refineries were cutting back on their production.
  So myself and Mr. Shimkus from Illinois, the ranking member, we wrote 
to

[[Page H6460]]

the Energy Information Agency and asked them: What is our gas supply? 
Take a look at the first 3 months of 2008, compare it to previous 
years. Is it a supply-and-demand problem?
  Now, it's not a Democratic issue or Republican issue. The Energy 
Information Agency puts forth these facts, and here's what they said.
  Gasoline inventory actually peaked on March 7, 2008, of 22 million 
barrels more than March of 2007. Gasoline imports were higher than 
they've been in the last 5 years when we looked back. Gasoline demand 
in the U.S. is actually down eight-tenths of 1 percent. So you have 
more than adequate supply, the most we've ever had in this Nation's 
history, at 22 million barrels in March of 2007, more than what we're 
using, but yet the price has still skyrocketed.

  Now, I think all of us, Democrats, Republicans, we're all willing to 
put more supply forward, trying to increase production, and in the 2005 
Energy Policy Act, that Mr. Barton led that Energy Policy Act, I was a 
conferee on, we streamlined a way for refineries to produce more if 
they wanted to.
  But you see from the Energy Information Agency, the first 3 months of 
this year, there's more than adequate supply. When it comes to diesel, 
we actually exported 335,000 barrels out of this country to Western 
Europe and Latin America.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. You do realize that we changed the EPA or the clean 
air requirements for diesel. This diesel that we are exporting to 
Central American countries, our government will not let us burn in this 
country.
  Mr. STUPAK. I think the gentleman misunderstood. The diesel is 
produced here in this country. We could have used it here in this 
country because home heating oil took off. Home heating oil took off 
for the east coast. We could have used it, but to keep that price, to 
artificially inflate the price of home heating oil, we exported 335,000 
barrels: 93,000 to Western Europe and 182,000 barrels per day to Latin 
America.
  So, I mean, we refined it, we produced it, we had it all right here. 
But what did we say? We can get a bigger buck overseas than to provide 
a service to the American people. That's what happened, according to 
the Energy Information Agency, not me, Energy Information Agency.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, we need to get with those folks and see if we 
both can't get the same answer because the answer we're getting is 
these refineries are only set up to refine this diesel to a certain 
point, and because of the new standards implemented on diesel fuel for 
this country, that these fuels were exported to countries that can use 
that.
  Mr. STUPAK. Let me keep saying, could you articulate these new diesel 
standards which made diesel not usable in this country? What are those 
new diesel standards?
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, there are new standards, of course.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Low sulfur content. The sulfur content of 
diesel.
  Mr. STUPAK. And when did those standards come in?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. They've been in place, and this is a guess, but 
about 18 months, 2 years. Don't hold me to that specifically.
  Mr. STUPAK. So, well, when the Republican Party was in control then, 
in other words? There's nothing I can think of we did recently, and as 
the former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee knows, Mr. 
Barton and I have done a lot of work on this issue in the last 3 years. 
That's why I was surprised when you're saying new diesel standards. I 
wasn't aware of any so it must have been something that came back a 
couple of years ago when you-all were in charge.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I think they're being phased in, but they were 
put into place several years ago. Again, I'm not an expert on when they 
kicked in, but it's a very low sulfur diesel content. Now we have the 
cleanest diesel standards in the world.
  Mr. STUPAK. I know Western Europe is very concerned about their 
diesel standards. In fact, they have the clean diesel, as we like to 
call it, here in Europe and that's why they rely more on diesel than 
gasoline. So when we export 92,000 barrels a day to Western Europe, 
obviously that diesel is meeting their standards, which are probably 
higher than ours. I'm making that assumption.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Their standards allow more sulfur content than 
our standards do.
  Mr. STUPAK. Very good. But the point being, on supply and demand, at 
least when we look back at least the first 3 months of this year, 
according to the Energy Information Agency, we had more than enough 
gasoline, we had more than enough diesel, and it was just that we had 
to get that price up so we exported it.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. You said that our inventory of finished gasoline 
peaked at 22 million barrels; is that correct?
  Mr. STUPAK. More than the previous year, more than March 2007, that's 
correct.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Again, I could be corrected, and if we were all 
on the Internet, somebody could blog in and tell us because there's 
somebody out there that knows exactly, but we use approximately 12 
million barrels of oil equivalent today for transportation purposes, 
which would include gasoline and diesel and I think aviation fuel. So 
22 million barrels is not quite 2 days' supply.

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. STUPAK. Sure.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. And that sounds like a huge number.
  Mr. STUPAK. And when you take a look at it, what we expect our 
refineries to do is refine enough for each day as we go along. And they 
did, and we had more than the previous 5 years ever. So if this supply 
crisis, as you seem to indicate there was, 5 years ago we should have 
seen it--4 years, 3 years, 2 years, 1 year. This is the most we've ever 
had, and they're claiming there's a supply problem?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, if the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. STUPAK. Sure.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. The gentleman has kind of outlined the problem, 
but I don't think he has really quite explained it.
  As he pointed out, demand for gasoline in the United States is going 
down--you said eight-tenths of 1 percent, I accept that as a number. In 
terms of barrels a day, it's about a half a million barrels a day it's 
gone down.
  Mr. STUPAK. Sure.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. The price of raw material product has gone up, 
as you well know, because of all of the hearings you've done on the 
Oversight Subcommittee that you chair so well.
  Mr. STUPAK. Sure.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. So what you've done is put our refineries in a 
squeeze. The price they can get in the market is going down because 
demand is going down, and yet the price they have to pay for the raw 
material is going up. So that has really squeezed their margin. And 
because we've developed this almost-just-in-time refinery system in the 
United States--again, using your numbers, even though it's at a 5-year 
high, and I accept that as a good number--it's really only a two or 
three day supply.
  Mr. STUPAK. Sure. And I thank the gentleman for his comments because 
he's absolutely right. The refineries are getting squeezed. In fact, 
some of the smaller refineries are actually refining diesel and 
gasoline at a loss because the base price of crude has skyrocketed. And 
as the gentleman is well aware because he has attended the hearings 
we've held jointly when you were Chair, and now as I'm the Chair of 
O&I, it's the excessive speculation. I know that's the second half of 
our comments here tonight, so I look forward--but the gentleman is 
right. And that's why so many of the refineries and the Members who 
represent the oil patch parts of our Nation have supported my 
legislation, the PUMP Act, Prevent the Unfair Manipulation of Prices, 
that take out the excess speculation which is causing the base product, 
crude oil, to just skyrocket.
  So I thank the gentleman for his comments. He's right. I would agree 
with him. And later on we'll get to talk about speculation, and I look 
forward to the comments.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Would the gentleman from Texas just yield for one 
minute?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Sure. And then I want to yield to Dr. Gingrey of 
Georgia, but we'll yield to Mr. Westmoreland.

[[Page H6461]]

  Mr. WESTMORELAND. I just want to point out to my friend that this 
cause is not, you know, the spike that we usually see is not some type 
of temporary disruption, but it's a demand from all over the world, not 
just this country, our demand has gone down some. It's not just this 
country. But if you look at China and Asia and India, their demand for 
this oil is going up every day. And if you look at where the world's 
supply of these imports that come into this country, if you look at 
Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and then if you look at our ability 
and all the different types of untapped domestic resources that we 
have, we could get over and help ourselves by producing this.
  And so, just like you said, it's not just the supply and demand, it's 
the fact that we have to import all of this when we have these untapped 
domestic resources at our hand right here for us to use. And I think 
that's the reason 73 percent of the American people are saying, hey, 
look, use some of this stuff.
  And with that, I yield back.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield to Dr. Gingrey--or I would be happy to 
yield to Mr. Stupak for a brief comment if he wanted to make a comment.
  Mr. STUPAK. I don't disagree with Mr. Westmoreland, what he had to 
say there. The only thing I would say is that's why we are saying we've 
got 68 million acres, let's drill or not.
  You know, I come from northern Michigan; we have no oil, we have a 
lot of trees. And when you get a contract to cut timber on the Federal 
forest, you get your current year plus 5, if not, you lose that right. 
Because in order to grow our trees and have a prosperous forest, you've 
got to prune it out and we have to cut. Same thing with oil. If we want 
to access U.S. oil, why are they sitting on these leases when the 
leases have been approved for drilling and all the environmental 
standards have been met? And if supply is the problem, as you claim--
and I'll grant you, that's part of it--then let's do it. No more 
excuses, let's drill.
  You've got 22.8 million acres in Alaska that can be drilled on right 
now, but instead we seem to be focused on ANWR. I'm not even talking 
about ANWR, I'm talking about the Alaska Petroleum Reserve area, the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve area, National Petroleum Reserve area. In 
Alaska, 22.8 million acres we could actually drill on right now today, 
permits are approved, everything is ready to go. Do it. Use it or lose 
it.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. With that, I would like to yield to the 
gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.
  Mr. GINGREY. I thank my colleague for yielding.
  I just want to refer back to the statement the gentleman from 
Michigan just made in regard to the 22 million acres in Alaska that you 
could now drill on, yet our Democratic colleagues, our friends, are 
denying the opportunity to drill on 2,000 acres--not 22 million--2,000 
acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, and to obtain an equal 
amount, an equal amount of petroleum from that area without harming the 
environment. It makes no sense to destroy 22 million acres for the same 
amount of oil that you could get out of 2,000. But that's another 
subject, and I look forward as well to later in the hour, when the 
gentleman is going to talk about hedging and speculation and, in his 
opinion, what effect that has on the price of petroleum that we're 
paying.
  The gentleman from West Virginia, the distinguished chairman of the 
Natural Resources Committee, was talking earlier in his opening 
comments about the fact that drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, 
which we had been prohibited from doing--thank God the President lifted 
that Presidential moratorium, and now the only thing that is holding us 
back from going after those 20 billion barrels of petroleum and 
trillions of cubic feet of natural gas is inaction on the part of this 
Congress.
  Now, earlier the discussion was about this use it or lose it. The 
gentleman from West Virginia talked about that a lot and said, well, 
you know, you've got these 68 million acres leased from the Bureau of 
Land Management--by the way, that's out of 750 million acres under the 
jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management. These oil companies, my 
colleagues, they pay for those leases, they're not free. And so they're 
kind of betting on the come, they're hoping that their geologists will 
then tell them that, yes, indeed, there is a certain amount of oil in 
that area of land that they have leased. And if it's true, then they're 
going to go after it. If there is no oil there or if there is an 
insufficient amount of oil there and it's not going to be productive to 
spend that kind of money for a little amount of oil, then maybe they 
will sit on those leases. And I would think that they would probably 
gladly yield it back to the Federal Government--especially if they got 
a refund on their money, they probably wouldn't.
  But these same people that realize that right off the Outer 
Continental Shelf, whether it's the eastern seaboard or the Atlantic or 
the Pacific or the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico where there are 
trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and billions of barrels of 
petroleum, that's the leases that they want, that's the leases that 
they need. And it just is beyond my comprehension to understand why the 
leader of this House, Speaker Pelosi, would say that is a nonstarter.
  Now, we could stand here on the Republican side of the aisle and say 
to the gentleman from Michigan and others who are concerned about 
noncommercial speculators and what effect that might have on the price 
of a barrel of petroleum, we could say, well, you know, for us that's a 
nonstarter; or you're interfering with the free market. Are you going 
to do the same thing with pork bellies and wheat and corn and all these 
other things that are traded on the commodities market and regulated by 
NYMEX? Are you going to force them offshore by overregulating and 
interfering with the natural flow of market? So, you know, we have 
concerns about that.
  But I don't think that our side of the aisle has said, my colleagues, 
that that's a nonstarter, that we won't even discuss that. And yet your 
leadership, Ms. Pelosi, the majority leader of the Senate, Mr. Reid, 
has said drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, where we know there 
are trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and billions of barrels of 
oil, is a nonstarter. I think that's just totally wrong, that the 
American people don't want that. They want bipartisanship like we're 
having here tonight in this discussion, this colloquy between the two 
sides. And I think we can and should get together.
  Mr. RAHALL. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GINGREY. I would be glad to yield to the distinguished gentleman.
  Mr. RAHALL. I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia yielding.
  You've mentioned ANWR and how much is available from that pristine 
environmental area. And again, I'm going to quote from that infamous 
Energy Information Administration of which I've quoted earlier.
  First, this is a quote from President Bush June 9 of this year, 
``I've proposed to Congress that they open up ANWR, open up the 
Continental Shelf and give this country a chance to help us through 
this difficult period by finding more supplies of crude oil which will 
take the pressure off the price of gasoline. That was the President's 
statement on June 9. And his own Energy Information Administration 
predicts that the savings from drilling in ANWR would equal 1.8 cents 
per gallon in the year 2025. And that, coupled with what I said 
earlier--I think you were here--about the fact that these areas that 
the President has lifted the moratorium on today would not produce any 
major savings or even produce any oil until 22 years from now, it is 
not going to give us the relief we need.
  And let's not kid ourselves. I think we all know in this body, both 
sides of this debate--or all sides of this debate I should say--that 
what we do in this body is not going to bring down the price tomorrow, 
next month, perhaps not next year. It takes not just increasing the 
supply side like you want to do, like we want to do in our ``use it or 
lose it'' legislation--that's a pro-drilling piece of legislation--but 
it has to be followed with follow-up efforts in developing all, 
renewable and alternative, fuels, which includes coal to liquid----
  Mr. GINGREY. Well, reclaiming my time from the chairman--and I don't 
disagree with his last statement, it will certainly require a 
comprehensive approach; there is no doubt about that.

[[Page H6462]]

  But the gentleman from West Virginia has said repeatedly tonight that 
opening up these reserves, whether it's the Arctic National Wildlife 
Reserve, where we estimate that 1.5 million barrels a day increased 
production, increased domestic production--I mentioned the numbers for 
the Outer Continental Shelf in regard to natural gas and petroleum, and 
your response, your statement earlier was that, well, if you did that 
tomorrow, if you started that tomorrow, it would be 2030--I think you 
used that date--before any production of oil would be seen, and 
therefore, that's not going to solve the problem. Yet your colleague 
from Michigan is going to tell us in a little while how important it is 
to rein in these noncommercial speculators because just the 
anticipation causes the price of oil to go up or down.
  And what I want to say to my colleagues is that it might take 5 
years, 10 years, possibly 15 years, depending on where you're going 
after the source. Certainly, mining shale out in the west, where we 
could get 1.5 trillion barrels of petroleum, may take a while. But just 
the fact that we're doing these things in a comprehensive way and we're 
increasing the domestic supply, I will almost guarantee you that 
overnight the price of a barrel of crude would drop by 20 percent.
  Mr. RAHALL. Would the gentleman yield on that point?
  Mr. GINGREY. I would be glad to yield.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. It's really time to let the Democrats have some 
time. I think it's the gentleman from New York's turn.
  Mr. RAHALL. Just very quickly I would say to the gentleman from 
Georgia about causing the speculation to end and go the other way, all 
these efforts would help, I don't deny that, but I think the most 
immediate efforts, what the gentleman from New York is going to get 
into now, Mr. Hall, and that is releasing from the SPR. We have it, 
let's use it. This is an emergency. And I think that is going to show 
the speculators we're serious and that's going to stop the speculation.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan briefly 
and then the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. STUPAK. Very briefly, I would just ask, whether it's ANWR or the 
National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, would the other side, would the 
minority side agree and put into the legislation that all oil or gas 
discovered there or produced there would come strictly to the United 
States? Because what we see in ANWR and Prudhoe Bay, that oil goes 
around Laotian islands, it goes to Japan and China because it's 
actually closer and they get a higher price.
  So will you say that the oil in Alaska will come for U.S. citizens to 
be used for American energy?

                              {time}  2100

  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Reclaiming my time, if the gentleman from 
Michigan can get our distinguished Speaker to put an ANWR bill on the 
floor and let everybody have a free vote, I think I can guarantee you 
that we are willing to restrict that oil and gas to be used in the 
Continental United States or at least Canada and the United States and 
Mexico, at least in the North American Continent. If you can get us to 
get a vote on the drilling, I would bet we can get a restriction that 
meets your requirement.
  Mr. RAHALL. I'd vote for that.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. We will be happy to take that deal.
  And now, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to the distinguished gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Hall).
  Mr. HALL of New York. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Just briefly, I trust that you would offer a motion to recommit to do 
just that.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Let's get to that point, and we'll work. We'll 
talk.
  Mr. HALL of New York. But I would just point out, going back a little 
bit, this map that I was holding up for Chairman Rahall, the more 
interesting thing about this map, and I hope it shows up on the 
cameras, is that the purple sections here are all Federal land that may 
be leased and has not been offered to lease. Now, I suggest that the 
Department of Interior ought to take that--that's most of these areas. 
The red is the part that is actually producing. The yellow or orange is 
the part that has been leased but is not yet producing. But the purple, 
most of this lower 48 or western half of the lower 48 on this map, land 
available currently for leasing that has not been leased; so I would 
just urge that it be leased. No Democrats that I know are opposed to 
leasing, counter to whatever may have been implied out there.
  I just want to mention that the one thing we can do that will have an 
immediate impact, and we're talking 5, 10, 15 years, maybe 20 years out 
before ANWR or OCS has an impact, depending on whom you listen to, but 
the one tool we have, that the President has, which was used by the 
first President Bush in 1991 and again by President Clinton in 2000, is 
the SPR, releasing oil from the SPR to increase supply. In 1991 it 
resulted in a price drop of $8 per barrel, and in the year 2000, it 
brought down the price of oil by nearly 20 percent in a week. So I'm 
not saying it's the answer. I'm saying that it's a temporary thing and 
it's a tool that was given to the President by the Congress to deal 
with crises, which I believe were in one now, as our people are telling 
us.
  All of us at home are hearing the same thing, I think, be it from 
parents driving their kids to school, commuters going to work, school 
systems that are barely able to afford to keep their school buses 
running, whatever it is, we need to provide immediate interim and long-
term solutions. And one immediate thing that I think we should consider 
is releasing some amount of oil from the SPR.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to the 
distinguished doctor from Georgia, Dr. Tom Price.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  And I want to thank all of my colleagues for working together to 
bring this evening to reality because I think it's what the American 
people want, and that is a discussion about what's going on.
  Mr. Speaker, we have talked about the need for increasing supply, and 
I appreciate my friend from New York's saying that the SPR ought to be 
released because what that argument signifies is an appreciation that 
supply is important. And supply is important. And that's what the 
American people understand and appreciate. They know that when there's 
an increase in supply that there's a decrease in price.
  We have talked about how much of the Outer Continental Shelf has been 
utilized, and different maps and different charts do different things 
and demonstrate different things. This is a pie chart that demonstrates 
that the dark purple area is the portion of the Outer Continental Shelf 
that is able to be leased. And 97 percent is not, 97 percent is not 
right now.
  And that's what the American people see. They see that we have got 
all sorts of wonderful resources that we ought to be utilizing, 
American energy for Americans, that we're not. The same can be said for 
on-land areas that ought to be leased or could be available for 
leasing. Onshore, the dark purple, 6 percent is that area that is able 
to be leased right now for oil and gas development, and 94 percent is 
not. And I think that it's imperative that we concentrate on that area 
that could be utilized by Americans. Americans are frustrated because 
they understand and appreciate that we're not using the resources that 
we have.
  My friend from Michigan talks about the fact that we have got more 
than enough supply. I would suggest to my friend that Americans don't 
believe we ought to be gaining 70 percent of our supply from foreign 
sources. I would suggest to my friend that Americans want to utilize 
American resources for Americans and that that's the kind of work that 
they would appreciate our doing together on this floor, as we're 
discussing tonight.
  So I hope that as we move forward this evening and talk about these 
issues that we identify that available energy, the resources that we 
have that are available to Americans. We don't have to worry about Hugo 
Chavez. We don't have to worry about folks in the Middle East. We don't 
have to be held prisoner of folks that, frankly, don't like us very 
much. We can utilize American resources for Americans. And I hope that 
as we move forward in this discussion over the next couple of weeks 
that we'll concentrate on that and have that as the hallmark for our 
solutions.

[[Page H6463]]

  And I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I think my friends on the majority need more 
time. I would be happy to yield to my friend from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
  We're about to enter the transition, and I would just like to enter 
into a colloquy with the gentleman to clarify what subject matter those 
who are here--I see some new faces. Mr. Burton from Indiana has come. 
We have Mr. Murphy from Connecticut, who is going to speak next for us. 
Are we going to continue talking about the drilling issue and continue 
along this vein?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I didn't know that we had a specific agenda, but 
certainly----
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I just want to make sure the Members that are here get 
to talk about what they're here to talk about.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. It's going to be energy focused. You're about to 
control the time; so you will be able to set that agenda. But we're 
willing to talk about anything.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. It's our intention to continue this discussion. If we're 
able to transition, we certainly want to get into the speculation issue 
with Mr. Stupak and Mr. Murphy. And then Mr. Hall, I know, wants to 
talk about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. We are willing to talk about all those subjects.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. For the next hour, that's generally what we have in 
mind.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. If I could use these last few minutes to kind of 
straighten out a few points, at least my opinion.
  Mr. Rahall mentioned that the ``use it or lose it'' legislation was 
pro-drilling. And I had the chart up, and I thought we were in complete 
agreement that the 68 million acres that are leased are in some process 
of permitting. So that is not a pro-drilling bill. If it was a pro-
drilling bill, then what we have done would have been to reduce the 
regulations to allow this to speed up.
  And let me say this. We have not exported any Alaskan oil in 8 years. 
And what this brings to highlight, and I hope the gentlemen from 
Michigan and Pennsylvania will take note of this and the fact that we 
have had so many conflicting facts here. This is a good reason that we 
need to have committee hearings, subcommittee hearings, committee 
hearings, and open debate on this floor. The energy bills that we have 
passed so far have come under suspension. So there have not been any 
committee hearings on it.
  Speaker Pelosi said, ``We are trying to get the job done around 
here.'' This is her defending the use of suspensions. ``And we work 
very hard to build consensus, and when we get it, we like to just move 
forward with it, as we did on the Medicare bill,'' which was a 
suspension bill we don't even need to talk about. But this is not about 
a tool; it's about the legislative process and how we get a job done.
  We have seen tonight and, Mr. Speaker, I think the American people 
have seen tonight that there are so many conflicting reports that we 
need to have committee hearings. We need to go through regular process 
so we can debate these bills on the floor.
  The last comment I will make, in 1995 President Clinton vetoed 
drilling in ANWR. By today's projections from Energy, they said that we 
would be getting 1 million barrels of oil a day today. That was 13 
years ago. We would be getting 1 million barrels of oil. And quoting 
Senator Schumer, from the other side of the aisle, he said an 
additional 1 million barrels of oil a day produced in this country 
would lower gas 50 cents a gallon.
  So the gentleman from Texas sees these things, that we need to go 
through regular order and let your Committee on Resources have some 
input.

                          ____________________