[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 11, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2863-S2864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENERGY
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, yesterday, I spent some time on the floor
talking about the recoverable reserves in the United States of America.
I was shocked so many Senators--first of all, I was shocked that many
listened but more shocked they came up to me and said: We were not
aware we have this opportunity.
I have, from the Congressional Research Service, a breakdown of where
all of it is. I wish to share that breakdown and get it into the
Record. I applaud Senator Murkowski and others for trying to open and
fully develop the resources in the Gulf of Mexico. That is very
significant. I applaud their effort, and I join them in their effort.
We need to go further than that because in the Gulf of Mexico are--
these are figures of the Congressional Research Service--undiscovered,
technically recoverable resources. Our resources, according to CRS, are
greater than any other country in the world in oil, gas, and coal. I am
going to talk just about gas right now because one of the big issues,
of course, not just with my wife but with others, is the price of gas
at the pumps.
If we look at the undiscovered, technically recoverable resources
just onshore, in the United States--some actually would be on public
lands--it is 37.8 billion barrels of oil. Throw in Alaska and that
would be 26.6 billion barrels; the Atlantic, 3.8 billion barrels; the
Pacific, 10.5 billion barrels; the Gulf of Mexico, as I already said,
44.9 billion barrels. The total U.S. endowment--our endowment--of
technically recoverable oil is 162.9 billion barrels.
We have talked about this before and talked about the fact that we
have all these resources, but our problem is a political problem
because the politicians will not let us reach these reserves. We are
talking about the fact that they are hardly able to reach them in the
Atlantic and the Pacific, and we know what has happened on the North
Slope, ANWR. We have talked about that for a long time.
People do not realize public lands--90 percent--are off-limits, off-
limits politically.
I have to correct some of the statements some people have made that
conveniently misrepresented what our
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reserves are. Instead of using ``recoverable reserves,'' they use
``proven reserves.'' That is a technical term. In order to prove a
reserve, you have to drill and analyze and core and see how much oil
there is. Obviously, if we will not let anyone drill, they cannot prove
it.
When they say we only have 2 percent of the world's proven reserves,
that is absurd because we have to drill to determine what that is.
Other countries do not have that problem. We are the only country in
the world that does not exploit our own resources.
People are going to have to realize that if you want to do something,
it is such a simple thing to do deal with. It is supply and demand.
There is not a person here or a person listening today who has not gone
through the elementary experience in school of learning supply and
demand. We have the supply in America and we have the demand. The
politicians will not let us exploit our own resources. That is the
problem we have. You do not have to overly complicate this issue.
It is interesting--and I hate to say it; I am not pointing fingers in
a partisan way--when Democrats and the administration say: We are going
to tax big oil, they say actually they are going to do away with some
of the benefits big oil has. They are not benefits. These would be four
huge tax increases the Democrats are doing on big oil. That is not big
oil. That is oil, period. I will not go into the details of depletion
allowances and percentages. It is not important.
The point is, they have the same benefit every other manufacturer
has, and to single them out and say: We are going to punish big oil,
all that is going to do is make the price at the pumps skyrocket. It
gets right back to supply and demand.
By the way, those who are trying to use the argument that this
somehow is going to produce revenue that is going to be used, I suggest
even the White House's figures, the maximum revenue generated would be
$4 billion. Keep in mind, they lose all the benefits, so that is not a
net of $4 billion.
Take the State of Texas, for example. They do not have an income tax.
They have the oil tax that has run that State very well for a long
period of time. Senator Menendez made a statement and said taxing the
oil companies is not going to bring down the price of gas. They are not
even claiming it will. I just think that when one sees such an obvious
solution to the problem--just exploit our own resources--we are very
foolish not to do that.
We all talk about the solutions to the problem. We talk about the
spending of this administration, more debt increases in just the first
2 years of the Obama administration than the entire debt since George
Washington, in the history of this country, the huge spending, the $5
trillion in the President's three budgets of deficit--I remember coming
down and complaining in 1995, at this very podium, when the Clinton
administration came out with a budget for fiscal year 1996 and it was
$1.5 trillion. I said: We cannot sustain that level. Now it is $1.5
trillion in each of the three budgets, just the deficit. That is more
than the entire United States of America back in 1996.
I suggest that when people say there are only two solutions to this
problem, either reduce spending, which would be my choice, or increase
taxes, which I would not do, I say there is a third option. That option
is to do something about the cost of regulation. Right now, if we just
take what the EPA is doing in five--in fact, I will say three of the
major overregulations we are going over right now--people in the Senate
know we have defeated cap-and-trade legislatively by massive
percentages five times since 2003. This administration says: If we
cannot have cap and trade, we are going to do it, not legislatively, we
will do it through the EPA. That is what is going on now with
greenhouse gases.
If you add up what the administration is doing in terms of the cost
of greenhouse gas regulations, that is between $300 billion and $400
billion; on ozone, if they choose--and they said they are going to
choose--the 60-parts-per billion standard, that would be $676 billion;
the boiler MACT would be something in excess of $1 billion. Throw in
utility MACT and cement MACT, it comes to $1 trillion. This is what I
am trying to get at. I used the figure that for every 1 percent
increase in economic activity, it produces new revenue of $42 billion.
That has changed. According to the Congressional Research Service--they
are bipartisan, they are factual--for every 1 percent increase in GDP,
it produces $50 billion additional revenues.
If we just take these regulations and add them up, all the increase
of costs to GDP of the three regulations I mentioned, that is $1
trillion. If we take the fact it is $14 trillion GDP in a given year,
this would be 7 percent of that $14 trillion. For each 1 percent, it
would be $50 billion. We could generate new revenue of $350 billion
just by taking this overregulation out of our society.
One can argue: Inhofe, that is not true because these regulations
have not passed yet. That is right, so it would probably right now be
about half that. When the Obama administration came in and announced
these regulations were coming, the manufacturers, the producers, those
who are driving the economic ship were the ones who said that because
of the uncertainty of these regulations, we are going to slow down what
we are doing. If we were to lift all these regulations, I assure my
colleagues we would be approaching, at least by 1 year, $350 billion.
That is without a tax increase. That is without reducing spending.
We need to look at this realistically because this is an opportunity
we have. A lot of people remember back in the days of Ronald Reagan. I
can say the same thing back in the days of President Kennedy. Of
course, he was a Democrat. They felt overregulation and high taxation
was an inhibiting factor to slow down revenue. Of course, in the case
of Ronald Reagan, the total revenue coming from the marginal rates of
1980 was $244 billion. In 1988, it was $466 billion. That was at a time
when we had the largest reduction of taxes and regulations in this
society. It is shown to be true over the years.
My bottom line is this: People know about spending. People know about
taxes. They do not know about regulations. The people who are affected
directly--the manufacturers--understand it. The figures I am using are
actual figures we have gotten with which no one argues. The fact that
$50 billion of increased revenue comes from each 1 percent increase in
GDP is a fact that is supported by the CRS.
I offer that, along with our opportunity to become totally
independent from the Middle East, with regard to our ability to run
this machine called America.
Before I yield the floor, I see the Senator from Alaska. I hope he
was listening to what I was talking about because the opportunities in
Alaska are tremendous--26.6 billion barrels of oil. I am sure he
understands that. I wish to make sure everybody else does.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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