[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 20, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H1395]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ENDING OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, everyone in Washington is trying to arrive 
at the same destination. We seek to end our dependence on foreign oil, 
a dependence that endangers our environment, hurts our economy, and 
weakens our national security.
  Importantly, there is a right way to get there. That includes 
cracking down on oil speculators, ending Big Oil handouts, investing in 
public transportation and green energy, and increasing corporate 
average fuel economy standards.
  There's also a wrong way: ransacking our coastlines for oil. But you 
don't have to take my word for it. You can take a page from the history 
books on this one. For 8 years under the previous administration, the 
number of oil leases on public lands almost tripled. It didn't help gas 
prices, which doubled in 2008, and it didn't make us energy 
independent.
  Why not?
  The simple fact is the U.S. has less than 3 percent of the world's 
oil reserves. No matter how much we drill in the U.S., that number is 
not expected to change. We will never have enough oil to satisfy 
domestic demand for energy. After all, we currently use 25 percent of 
the world's oil, and we will never have enough to sufficiently impact 
prices on the world market.
  The U.S. Energy Information Administration has said as much, noting 
that increases in U.S. domestic production could be neutralized by a 
corresponding decrease in production among international oil producers, 
namely, OPEC.
  What's really to blame for high gas prices? Is it a lack of domestic 
production of oil?
  Ken Green, a resident scholar with the conservative American 
Enterprise Institute, doesn't think so. Ken said:

       The world price is the world price. Even if we were 
     producing 100 percent of our oil, we probably couldn't 
     produce enough to affect the world price of oil.

  Well then, who's really to blame for high gas prices? Is it this 
administration?
  Michael Canes, the former chief economist for the oil industry's 
American Petroleum Institute, says otherwise:

       It's not credible to blame the Obama administration's 
     drilling policies for today's high prices.

  What's really to blame for high gas prices is excessive speculation 
by entities that have no consumption interest in the underlying 
commodities and that profit by doing nothing more than forecasting 
price trends.
  Our primary focus should be on countering the growing impact of 
energy speculation rather than simply promoting the oil industry's 
priorities of increasing domestic drilling.
  Experts, including oil industry officials and investment firms, 
estimate that excessive oil speculation could be inflating prices by up 
to 30 percent. But increasing domestic drilling would impact prices by 
only about 1 percent, and that would happen only after a decade or 
more.
  So then where do we go from here?
  We learn from those who are reaping the economic benefits of 
transitioning to development within a booming green industry, countries 
like India and China.
  Right now, in this Chamber, we neglect to consider a host of 
incentives for international and domestic investment in renewable 
energy production. Just last week a measure failed to pass the Senate 
that would have extended production tax credits for wind, solar, and 
the like.

                              {time}  1020

  At a time when we're rolling back, governments in Southeast Asia are 
refining targets for renewable energy expansion, extending subsidies, 
and dangling tax breaks. This does not a domestic competitive advantage 
make, and, frankly, we're better than that.
  Gas prices are still below the peak they reached under the previous 
administration in 2008; crude oil is at $107 a barrel today compared to 
$145 a barrel back then. But listening to the news, you'd have a hard 
time believing these cold, hard facts.
  Even if we were to drill a hole everywhere in the country we know to 
have oil and drain out every drop of proved reserves, we would have 
just enough to last us 1,094 days, just 3 years. That trickle won't 
ease gas prices.
  Raising average fuel efficiency for cars to 60 miles per gallon by 
2025 would reduce gasoline consumption by 2.8 million barrels per day 
by 2030. A combined investment in more efficient cars and trucks, 
cleaner fuels, and more transportation options for Americans could cut 
our oil imports in half by 2030. The administration is currently 
developing the next phase of standards covering vehicles sold through 
the model year 2025, a strong and laudable goal.
  We can and must end our dependence on foreign oil, a dependence that 
endangers our environment, hurts our economy, and weakens our national 
security. We can and must do better.

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