[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 116 (Tuesday, July 15, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H6549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        NIGERIAN SWEET CRUDE OIL

  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. Mr. Speaker, I think everybody in America 
knows that we import an exorbitant amount of the oil that we use in 
this country. We are dependent on oil from the Middle East. We are 
dependent on oil from South America, from Venezuela and elsewhere. And 
as a result, we are at the mercy of these countries if they decide to 
cut back on the amount of oil that they are selling to this country or 
if OPEC decides to raise the price per barrel of oil.
  As a result of our dependency on foreign oil, we now see gasoline at 
the pump of between $4 and $5 per gallon. And everybody in this 
country, in fact, almost everybody, about 70 percent of people in 
recent polls, have said they want America to move towards energy 
independence. They want us to drill here in the United States. They 
want us to drill offshore on the continental shelf. They want us to 
drill in ANWR up in Alaska. They want us to use coal share converted 
into oil for energy. And they want us to drill for natural gas. But 
unfortunately, we are not going to do it because we can't get the votes 
in the House or the Senate to get this job done.
  Now today we had a meeting. And we found out that in addition to our 
dependency on foreign oil from sources like Saudi Arabia or Venezuela 
or elsewhere in the world, we find out that from Nigeria we import 
almost 37 percent of our sweet crude oil, which is the preferable kind 
of oil you want for many of the refineries on the east coast because 
they can convert that in an easier way into gasoline to be sold at the 
pump. Now if they have to rely on heavier crude oil, as I understand 
it, they won't be able to convert that because they are not geared up 
for that. They are used to using, and the refineries are geared to 
using the sweet crude oil.
  So as a result, we see 37 percent of the sweet crude oil coming from 
Nigeria and almost 1 million barrels of oil a day coming from that 
country. And they have problems over there right now we found out 
today, Mr. Speaker. They have rebel groups that are stealing as much as 
500,000 barrels of oil a day and selling it on the world market to put 
into their own pockets. And if they decide to go further into the 
pockets of Nigeria, they can dig into the 1 million barrels of oil that 
we receive from Nigeria a day. And that is about 9 percent of the oil 
that we get from around the world.
  The reason I'm bringing all this up is that we are dependent on Saudi 
Arabia. We are dependent on Venezuela. We are dependent on Canada. And 
we are dependent on Mexico. And now I find that we are dependent on 
Nigeria for about 9 percent of the oil we have, which is about 37 
percent of the sweet crude oil we get, which is the preferable kind of 
oil that we need for refining on the east coast of this country.
  We are dependent on the rest of the world. And the price of gasoline 
at the pump is between $4 and $4.50 a gallon. And if there is a 
disruption because of OPEC or what goes on in Nigeria, we could see the 
cost of gasoline per gallon go to $5, $6 or $7 a gallon. And the 
American people and our economy cannot stand that kind of a price for 
gasoline. People are spending $70, $80 or $90 for one tank of gasoline. 
And seniors and people that live in rural areas and business people 
trying to get to and from work cannot afford that. We can't afford the 
cost of getting food to the marketplace and for us to buy it without 
raising the price of these products. Everything is going up because of 
the price of oil.
  And we find that we can be energy independent in this country. We can 
move rapidly toward energy independence if we drill off the continental 
shelf and Alaska, and drill for natural gas and convert coal shale into 
oil. We can be energy independent, and we don't have to depend on the 
rest of the world.
  And the American people, Mr. Speaker, need to contact their 
Congressmen and their Senators and tell them that we need to move 
toward energy independence. We need to drill here in America. We can 
get the job done. We're a can-do country. And we need to get with it 
right away.

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