[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 122 (Thursday, July 24, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H7135-H7137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1900
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Maryland, the 
majority leader, to tell us about next week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend, the Republican whip.
  On Monday, the House will meet in pro forma session at 11 a.m. On 
Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour and 12 p.m. 
for legislative business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On 
Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative 
business. On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative 
business.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The 
complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of 
business tomorrow, as is the custom.
  I tell the Members that we will also consider the Military 
Construction and Veterans Affairs fiscal 2009 appropriations bill; H.R. 
1338 the Paycheck Fairness Act; additional energy legislation; and any 
conference report available, possibly including the Higher Education 
conference report, the Amtrak conference report and the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission conference report.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for the information.
  On the first bill under a rule, the Military Construction and 
Veterans Affairs appropriations bill, will that be an open rule?
  Mr. HOYER. We expect it to be an open rule, but we do expect to ask 
that amendments be prefiled so that Members will have notice of 
amendments.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that.
  In the past, we've had in previous Congresses an open rule on these 
appropriations bills. I don't recall a prefiling requirement, though 
I'm sure we will talk about that in the Rules Committee. In 
appropriations, whatever the amendment is has to be paid for out of the 
bill so it has always been felt that that provides its own level of 
constraint. We would certainly argue for that kind of open rule.
  I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Our thought is that both sides should have notice of what amendments 
are going to be considered, that all Members have notice of what is 
going to be considered. Obviously, there is no constraint on what 
amendment somebody might want to offer, but we believe that it would be 
helpful if Members had notice of what the substance of the amendments 
are so they can, if they want to support it, support it on the floor, 
if they want to oppose it, have the opportunity to come here and do so. 
But I think it will be our intention to ask that there be a notice 
requirement without restriction on the amendments that are asked but 
simply to give notice as to what the amendments are going to be.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank you for that information.
  This will be the first appropriations bill on the floor this year. Do 
you anticipate other bills in September?
  I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Thank you for yielding.
  I would certainly anticipate more appropriations legislation coming 
to the floor in September, yes.
  Mr. BLUNT. On that topic of September, since at the end of next week 
we wouldn't have a chance to talk about the upcoming schedule, does the 
gentleman have a sense of some of the priority legislation that we 
might consider in September?
  Mr. HOYER. We have a number of pieces of legislation that are 
obviously pending. First of all, we are very hopeful that we will pass 
the extenders legislation which we sent to the Senate some, actually 
months ago, a couple of months ago, I think, which, as you know, 
ensures tax credits for alternative energy. Wind is particularly 
important. Boone Pickens was here, as you know, on the Hill talking to 
both Democrats and Republicans, the importance of that. Others have 
talked about that as well. As you know, they're trying to dispose of 
some of the ``Coburn holds'' as we call them. Some of those may be 
back. Obviously we will have to consider a funding resolution for 
government after we leave. My expectation is that will be a point of 
business. We're also talking about obviously, as you have read in the 
paper, and as I think, I'm not sure you and I have talked about a jobs 
bill and some continuing economic assistance to make sure our economy 
hopefully grows and does not certainly fall any deeper into recession. 
Those are some of the pieces of legislation.
  I have mentioned some of the things that we hope to get from 
conference next week, mental health parity being one of those, higher 
education, the consumer products safety. Hopefully many of those may be 
dealt with next week. But if they were not, it is my expectation we 
would do those in September as well.
  So those are some of the major things that I foresee for September. 
What we will have done next week obviously won't be on September, but 
if we haven't done them we will try to get them done in September.
  Mr. BLUNT. On the extenders package, I'm hopeful we see that bill 
back here because it is one of the things we could do that would have 
energy impact. And I hope we could even consider whatever is the 
maximum time that we would be able to do there is what we should do.
  On energy generally, yesterday, Mr. Boehner from Ohio and I, Mr. 
Cantor, Mr. Putnam and others introduced a bill, the American Energy 
Act. It's a bill that is broad based and designed to promote American 
energy, conservation and invest in the future. Is there any opportunity 
for that act or other acts that we've had discharge petitions on, other 
bills, coming to the floor? And if not, what kind of energy legislation 
do you anticipate?
  Mr. HOYER. As you know, we have considered a number of pieces of 
legislation which we were hopeful would move us in the direction of, A, 
producing more domestic energy through encouraging further drilling in 
those leaseholds already available, approximately 88 million acres that 
are currently available. We considered the Consumer Energy Supply Act 
today. Unfortunately, that didn't get sufficient votes. It got a lot of 
votes. It got a significant majority of the House. It did not get the 
two-thirds so we could move it to the Senate. We considered the DRILL 
Act which also received a majority of the votes which provided for both 
the 10.4 million acres in Alaska and the National Petroleum Reserve to 
be encouraged to be moved forward as quickly as possible to drill in 
that area, produce oil and petroleum in that area, which also 
encouraged, as you recall, the building of additional pipelines, both 
for natural gas and for petroleum products.
  Next week, we will be considering--many people are very concerned 
about the fact that the price spikes which don't seem to go down 
consistent with the price of oil by the barrel, which has reduced 
significantly, but the gasoline price hasn't reduced. There is 
significant concern about the impact of speculation. We are going to 
consider that bill, I think, next week, as I indicated.
  You say you have introduced this bill. I'm sure it will go to the 
committee. I haven't seen the bill. I will certainly talk to the 
various chairmen. I don't know how many committees will have 
jurisdiction over the bill. You say it's a comprehensive bill, maybe 
multijurisdictional, but I will certainly talk to the Chairs about the 
substance of the bill.
  Let me say, the American public is obviously very concerned. Our 
position is we ought to drill. We ought to drill where we've given 
leases that exist.

[[Page H7136]]

Your position essentially is, well, that is fine, but there are other 
places where we could drill as well. We believe that is accurate as 
well. It's been very controversial. As you know, Governor 
Schwarzenegger, the Republican Governor of California, is not too 
interested in proceeding with drilling off his shore. There are 
differences of opinion. We really do believe that we ought to drill, we 
ought to drill now and we ought to drill where there is not controversy 
and where we do have leases. I think that is the difference between us, 
apparently, not that any of us oppose drilling. It is where you drill 
first. If that proves, from my perspective, not to be fruitful, then 
perhaps at that time we ought to look at alternatives. But the 
President, of course, has indicated and made it very clear that he 
believes wherever you drill is not going to make a substantial 
difference in the next 5 to 10 years.
  So we believe we ought to start drilling right now so that we can 
move ahead as soon as possible. There are 107 billion barrels currently 
speculated to be in the identified areas of that 88 million acres to be 
available. We use about 21 million a day, about 14 billion a year. That 
is a pretty good supply, about 7\1/2\ years of supply. We would hope we 
would move ahead on that. But we haven't done that yet. We understand 
that.
  But we ought to have a legitimate debate on it. I think all of us 
want to get to the same place--energy independence for our country and 
the use of alternative and renewable energy sources to not only help 
our energy supply but also help our environment. So I will certainly 
encourage the committee to look at that bill.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that.
  We have other bills that we've started discharge petitions on, some 
sponsored by Democrats, that we think are part of the solution here. 
Clearly, based on the understood facts that some of this oil and 
natural gas gets online quicker than others, it seems to me that that 
is one of the principal reasons to get started everywhere that is 
reasonable for us to go as quickly as you can. We're the only country 
in the world that has the potential for offshore drilling, deepwater 
drilling, that doesn't do it. And I think any proposal that we've 
advanced through the Senate in previous years or anybody is making now 
involves the Governors or the State governments of the affected States 
having to agree. So if Governor Schwarzenegger and the people of 
California don't want to drill, don't want the revenue, in fact, even 
if they don't want the Federal Government to have the revenue from that 
drilling, they wouldn't have to drill. But if the people of Virginia or 
North Carolina or any other State did, they're part of that decision-
making process.
  And other countries do this. Some of that oil, particularly in the 
deep water, is going to come online quicker than others. But geologists 
believe in the deepwater drilling there is roughly an 18-year supply of 
natural gas and oil. So it doesn't all have to come online at once. 
Also, my view has been, as my friend knows, that if we just announce 
that as a country that has some of the most known and plentiful 
reserves in oil and natural gas that we were going to start in a real 
effort to go after all of it that was reasonably and safely achievable, 
that that would have impact on price.
  Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?
  Mr. BLUNT. Let me say one other thing, and then I will yield.
  The other thing I would say about a full and fair debate, these bills 
that come under suspension obviously narrow the debate. I guess I 
understand that. We have had some discussion on the floor, well, let's 
have all these ideas out there and just see who a majority is for, but 
20 minutes of debate on a side of an issue really isn't the kind of 
full and fair debate we need.
  I would like to see a bill come with plenty of debate, with plenty of 
opportunities for every Democrat that wants to make an amendment to 
make an amendment, for every Republican, it could be prefiled, it could 
be anything, and the will of the House would determine which direction 
the country goes in this real desire for energy, more American energy, 
American energy created by and producing American jobs. I hope we can 
get there. There is a real demand in the country for that.
  A Member just has to go home to know what is the number one economic 
issue in a country where people are concerned right now about what to 
do about the economy.
  I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  As my friend clearly knows, as you know, we've been operating under 
two moratoria: One has been the executive moratorium which was just 
lifted which was placed on by the first President Bush. As you know as 
well in the Interior bill year after year in the 6 years your party was 
in charge and then last year in the Interior bill, that moratorium was 
continued. So under both parties, Governor Schwarzenegger, Governor 
Bush of Florida, both very, very strong proponents effectively of not 
drilling off their shores. So this is not a Republican-Democratic 
difference. In fact, both parties were supporting--I presume, I don't 
want to speak for your party--our party was supporting drilling where 
we have current leases.

                              {time}  1915

  I would disagree with my friend, and we may disagree on the 
definition of deep water. They are drilling now in the Gulf of Mexico, 
as you know, at depths of 1,000 feet. Additionally, there are 33 
million acres available in the gulf now on the Outer Continental Shelf 
and available for drilling right now.
  I would say further to my friend, if you wanted to drill tomorrow 
anywhere, there is not a drill available in the world. Now my 
presumption is there is not a drill available in the world that is not 
being used because they are pretty pricey items and you can make a 
pretty good profit providing those drills. My presumption is that 
people have not requested those drills be made available and have not 
asked to purchase them. As you heard me say, Exxon made $40 billion. 
These drills are pretty expensive items, and they bought no drills with 
that $40 billion.
  So as a practical matter, tomorrow, if everything were available, 
there would be no drilling because there are no drills available. My 
presumption is that the oil companies believe there is sufficient 
supply available. There are no lines at any of the gas stations that I 
go to. I have not seen any gas lines. I am old enough, I know you're 
not, but I'm old enough to remember the lines in the 1970s. They were 
long. That was an artificially created shortage by OPEC, as you recall. 
But notwithstanding that, I don't see any lines. I don't see any 
shortage of product available. What I see is a healthy price at the 
pump. And in my opinion, when you get more supply, the price comes 
down. I think some people are pretty happy with the price. None of my 
consumers are happy with the price. None of the people who pull up to 
the pumps in my district are happy with the price, but I can't believe 
that the oil companies are unhappy about the price. I don't see them 
complaining about their high profits.
  So when you say if we could drill in the deep water, I don't know 
what you mean by deep water. It could be more than 1,000 feet which is 
where we are drilling now in some places in the Gulf of Mexico. But we 
do have 33 million acres available on the Outer Continental Shelf in 
the Gulf of Mexico available for drilling right now. And if the drills 
were available and the inclination were available, I would hope that 
the companies would pursue, either the large companies or small 
companies. The problem with small companies is that it is a very 
expensive proposition, as the gentleman knows.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that observation.
  I would say in terms of deep water, I think sometimes I say that 
rather than make the point that when we talk about drilling on the 
coast, and the Atlantic and Pacific coast which is where we restrict, 
and no one else restricts their coastal drilling, I am always talking 
about something way beyond the line of sight. I can say that as well as 
deep water.
  I think there is drilling in the gulf even significantly deeper than 
the 1,000 feet to the floor and below that. But there is potential 
there. If, in fact, people of the various States don't want to drill 
well beyond their shores even though they get part of the revenue,

[[Page H7137]]

that is a decision they'd get to make. I do think that is an issue that 
is dramatically changing.
  I also believe firmly, and every economist that I have read on this 
topic agrees, that if we announced we were going to drill, it wouldn't 
matter if anybody had a drill or not. That one signal from the United 
States where we have at least twice as much readily available oil shale 
in the Rockies as Saudi Arabia has in its known reserves, readily 
available, not to count the other amounts that could be available 
later, just if we were to announce that we were going after that 
supply, it would have an impact on price.
  We had a hearing a couple of weeks ago where we had people from 
Interior talk about that particular supply, a lot of supply well off 
the coast on the Atlantic and Pacific coast. And if there is 
speculation here, I think the best way to deal with speculators would 
be to get them caught on the wrong side of a market that is going the 
other way because the United States of America has announced it is 
going to go after its own resources in a more dramatic way.
  There are two prohibitions on the appropriations bill. One is coastal 
drilling on the Atlantic and Pacific coast, no money can be used to 
issue a lease, which is another way that legislators say you are not 
going to get a lease, and one in the oil shale in the Rockies. Removing 
both of those prohibitions would have a huge impact on price. It would 
start us in the right direction. The idea that some of this oil won't 
be available for 3 years, some of it for 5, some of it for 10, we are 
still going to need oil 10 years from now. Oil that is not available 
for 10 years is not an unacceptable goal because we know we are going 
to need oil 10 years from now.
  I am convinced, I will tell my good friend, and we are good friends, 
I am convinced that if we just announced we were going to take those 
steps, it would have an immediate impact on price at the pump. We both 
know the reason there is no line at the pump. I went to 12 gas stations 
in my district on Friday and Saturday. There was no line anywhere, but 
every person that I talked to, whether they were traveling to Branson, 
Missouri, on vacation, or filling their car up in Andersonville or 
Neosho, Missouri, they all had a story as to how these gas prices were 
affecting their lives in other ways. Members have those stories. We can 
do something about them. But to do that, it is going to take more than 
a 20-minute debate on whether we release oil that we have already 
bought in the short term. If supply matters, long term going after that 
supply really matters.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. HOYER. We agreed with your premise, and we offered a bill to have 
that happen, and it was Use It or Lose It which said we have 107 
billion barrels identified, speculated to be available on presently 
held leases, a 14-year supply in the United States of America. And what 
we wanted to direct the administration to do was start leasing that 
land right now because we agreed with your premise that the 
psychological effect would be that those who have the petroleum and are 
frankly selling it very dear, and many of our consumers are being 
really hurt, we understand that, our premise was either by drilling in 
the National Petroleum Reserve now or drilling in the 68 million acres 
available in the lower 48, including 33 million in the gulf now, that 
it would have exactly the effect that you projected.
  Unfortunately, we also believe that releasing oil from the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve, which in 1991 and two other years, I don't have the 
exact years, we have done it three times, including once under this 
administration after Hurricane Katrina, in 1991 price went down 33 
percent. It went down less when SPR was released after Hurricane 
Katrina.
  Our view is you are correct. Psychologically, that would have a real 
effect on the market. Unfortunately, we couldn't pass that. We wanted 
to pass it as quickly as possible. How do you pass something as quickly 
as possible? You put it on suspension and give it to the Senate. 
Unfortunately, large numbers on your side of the aisle determined that 
was not a policy that they wanted to pursue. So they had no 
psychological effect, which we thought would have been, as you do, a 
psychological effect and may well have had an immediate impact on 
pricing by the barrel, and hopefully then would be converted to price 
at the pump.
  Mr. BLUNT. I just advance the idea that the moment we are in right 
now is not a Katrina-analogous moment. There is no temporary disruption 
of supply that you need to do something about. There is a long-term 
problem that needs to be solved. In fact, you mentioned those gas 
lines. Those gas lines in the seventies, the embargo in the seventies, 
that led us to this idea of a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And at the 
time we set the reserve up, it is the same size it is now, or when 
Congress set it up, before many of us were here, at least, at the time 
Congress set it up, it had a 117-day supply. That same amount of oil is 
now a 56-day supply because of the amount we now use.
  Taking 3 days out of that 56-day supply only postpones, in the view 
of many of us, the reality of dealing with the long-term challenge that 
we face. We would like to have a debate on that.
  You could bring that bill back to the floor next week under a rule. 
If a majority wanted to send it to the Senate, they could. But the 
chance you take is that others with another idea would get at least one 
amendment on the floor, and that's why we are here with suspension 
bills as opposed to rule bills because it's a take-it-or-leave-it-this-
is-all-of-the-debate kind of approach.
  I yield back.

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