[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15782-15787]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   STOP EXCESSIVE ENERGY SPECULATION ACT OF 2008--MOTION TO PROCEED--
                               Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the Senate has engaged over the last day 
and a half or two in probably one of the most important debates and, I 
hope, series of votes and actions this Congress can take this year. For 
the future years ahead, it may be precedent setting as to whether this 
country will return to its ability to produce not only traditional 
forms of energy but will grow to expand into new and alternative 
sources of energy so we can become increasingly less dependent upon 
foreign sources.
  Great nations--and ours is a great nation--do not depend, in a way 
that they become dangerously at risk, on other nations' resources for 
their strength and their vitality. The great strength of our country 
has always been we could feed our people during a time of war and 
emergency, that we could take care of our own because we had an 
abundance of resource. It was also true of energy--all forms from 
energy--from the day we discovered the use and the effective use of 
whale oil as a form to light our houses and illuminate our worlds, to a 
progression from there to petroleum products, coal and then kerosene 
and then diesel and now, of course, gas and diesel and a myriad of 
products that flow from the hydrocarbons our Nation so abundantly 
produced.
  I came to this Congress in 1980. At that time, we were about 35 
percent dependent for our hydrocarbon needs on foreign nations. The 
rest of it we produced ourselves. As a result of that, we had 
flexibility and we had little to no liability, and, therefore, little 
risk, that we could be held hostage or that our economy and, therefore, 
our people and their will could be shaped by a foreign power. That time 
has changed because, over the last two decades, we made a concerted 
decision--a political decision--to stop producing. We began

[[Page 15783]]

to put vast known oil reserves off-limits in the name of the 
environment, and we began to increasingly buy from foreign production 
and foreign-producing powers. Today, we stand at a near 70-percent 
dependency, and for any great nation to be 70 percent dependent on 
someone else other than themselves, that great nation is a nation at 
risk.
  Today, the United States of America is at risk because we don't 
control our energy destiny. We have to react to it. We send our 
President to foreign countries with hat in hand, asking them to produce 
because we have grown so rich and so arrogant we refuse to produce 
ourselves. That game plan or that scheme, while it wasn't working, at 
least was reasonably well accepted, until other consumers began to 
enter that world market of oil: China and India and other developing 
nations. They began to consume from that finite pool of resource from 
which we were the large takers. The price began to change.
  I remember a few years ago I thought: Well, gee, at $2, that is a 
break point. The American consumer will finally react. We went by $2 a 
gallon for gas as if it didn't exist. Well, at about $2.75, I began to 
get phone calls from some of my farmers and large consumers saying: 
Larry, it is getting pretty pricey out here. But the average consumer 
still wasn't reacting. Last year, we went by $3 a gallon as the world 
began to recognize we were consuming more and more and producing less 
and less of a very important product--crude oil. In the high dollar, 
the $3-and-some-odd-cents range, my phones began to ring. Idaho 
consumers, who are large consumers of energy--because we travel long 
distances in big, expansive, Western rural States such as Idaho--were 
saying: Larry, this is expensive stuff. We are having trouble. That was 
at $3.50 or $3.60. Then, all of a sudden, it hits four bucks and 
everybody's phones light up. America asked us--the politician, the 
public policy shaper--what happened? Why are we here? Why was this 
allowed? Why are you standing in the way of the ability of the 
marketplace to drill and produce? That is the debate we are having 
right now. It is a very important debate.
  The majority leader, the Democratic leader, Harry Reid, has brought 
S. 3268 to the floor saying: It is speculation. Somebody out there in 
the marketplace is profiteering; therefore, this is the bill that will 
fix it. Well, I am saying: Harry, that is fine. There might be some 
slight maneuvering in the market, so let's debate the bill, but we also 
know it is clearly a supply-and-demand situation and maybe we ought to 
figure out how markets work. A few of us know about that. Others try to 
deny it; that is: If you have more being consumed than you are 
producing, you create a new value to the commodity or the product being 
consumed.
  So what I am saying and what other Republicans are saying is: We will 
debate S. 3268, but we want an opportunity to add to it a production 
concept. We want to be able to produce, to turn this great Nation on to 
production. Guess what they are saying over here. No, no, no, no. We 
have built our political base on nonproduction over the last 20 years. 
We have said let's be green. Let's don't produce anymore. Let's take it 
off-limits.
  It didn't work, did it? No, it didn't. If you are paying four bucks 
today and you are angry about it, there is a clear answer why you are: 
This Nation quit producing. We didn't quit consuming. We began to 
consume what the rest of the world had, and the rest of the world wants 
it now as badly as we do. That is the reality of the problem we are in. 
This Senate ought to spend all the time it takes to produce a bill that 
deals with speculation, if it is there, and allows this Nation to 
produce once again.
  We have done it. We did it in 2005. We were responsible. We brought a 
bill to the floor, we spent 2 weeks, we had many amendments, we debated 
them up or down, they passed by 50 percent plus 1 or more votes, and 
those that didn't failed. We produced one of the better energy bills 
our Nation has seen. When we started that debate, there wasn't a 
nuclear reactor on the drawing board for design. Today, there are 33--a 
direct result of a responsible action on the part of the Senate and the 
House in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
  Then, in 2007, last year, another energy bill--because the Senate was 
somewhat awakening and public policymakers were awakening to the 
reality of the need that had not hit us full force in 2008. We passed a 
bill that had a new renewable fuels standard that allowed increased 
production in biofuels. Today, the Department of Energy said if we 
didn't have ethanol in the market, the gas at the pump would be 25 to 
40 cents more a gallon. So we have done some things there, and there 
are those who oppose it. There were some on the floor who opposed it, 
but we handled it in a responsible fashion. We brought the bill to the 
floor. We allowed it to be amended. We debated it. There was no 
filibuster. There is no filibuster today. It is simply a majority 
leader of a party that has based their politics on a nonproducing 
policy, and they can't allow the consumer to understand it or see it. 
So when we come to the floor and say: Let's amend it, let's add 
production to it, the answer is: Oh, no. Politically, we can't go 
there. There is an election out there. Let the American consumer and 
his pocketbook burn down.
  Well, if that is the policy of the day, it is the wrong policy. It 
should not be allowed. I am one who will refuse to allow it to go 
forward. We are either going to debate energy in a full-blown, 
responsible fashion; we are going to allow amendments that are going to 
be up or down, we will win or we will lose, but America deserves to see 
a robust, proproduction, proconservation, proalternative, 
antispeculation debate and bill produced on the floor of the Senate. 
Anything less isn't acceptable. I hope the American people are 
listening today. Anything less than that isn't acceptable.
  My time is nearly up, so let me conclude because others are on the 
floor to debate this important issue. Two years ago, I introduced this 
chart to the lexicon of the debate on American oil production. Then I 
called it the ``No Zone,'' and others are now using it, and I am mighty 
proud they are, because this red area was where American politics said 
you cannot drill. We called it the ``No Zone.'' Well, we know there is 
potentially billions of barrels of oil there, but oh, we dare not touch 
it, for whatever political reason, I am not sure. But guess what 
Americans are saying today and what is incorporated in the opportunity 
to debate and amend a bill here on the floor: That is to allow 
effective and responsible exploration in areas where oil is known.
  So come on, Harry Reid. Give America a chance to save some money. 
Give America a chance to get back into production. It is quite that 
simple. I will conclude by saying: How simple? Use the bill you have. 
Allow it to be amended. Allow a full debate. Allow Senators to work 
their will, and we can produce something that in time will allow 
production to flow and the American consumer to be once again 
advantaged by a robust energy market.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up 
to 4 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by suggesting that a number 
of my Republican friends who come to the floor speak under the mantra: 
Drill, drill, drill; it is going to solve all our problems. Well, you 
know what. The American people, the people in Vermont are disgusted, 
angry, and frustrated that they are paying $4.10 for a gallon of gas. 
The people in my State--the Northern part of this country--are worried 
sick about how they are going to be able to heat their homes next 
winter when the price of home heating fuel may well be double what it 
was just a few years ago. Well, you know what. Drill, drill, drill is 
not going to solve the problem because President Bush's own Energy 
Department has told us very clearly that increased drilling offshore--
what many of my Republican friends want--would have ``no significant 
impact'' on gas prices until the year 2030. Even then, its impact would 
be negligible.

[[Page 15784]]

  So if you are outraged about paying $4.10 for a gallon of gas, it is 
of no help at all for our Republican friends to say: Well, gee, maybe 
in 20-some-odd years we may be able to lower the cost of gas by a few 
cents a gallon. We must do a lot better than that. We have some folks 
who think we should drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge. Well, President Bush's own Energy Department told us in 2005:

       Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would only 
     reduce gasoline prices by a penny per gallon and only in 20 
     years when drilling is at or near peak production.

  So if we are serious about addressing the energy crisis this country 
has, and we don't want to wait another 20 or 25 years to lower gas 
prices by a few cents a gallon, we have to start looking at some other 
options. The first option we have to look at is taking a hard look at 
the excessive speculation which is now taking place in the energy 
market.
  We have heard experts, energy economists, come before one committee 
or another to tell us, in fact, that the price of a barrel of oil today 
may be 25 to 50 percent higher than it should be under normal 
processes--supply and demand and the cost of production--because of 
excessive speculation. So we have to move aggressively on the 
speculation issue.
  Second, because I know ExxonMobil feels that the public doesn't trust 
them, it is nice to see so many of my Republican friends who have such 
confidence in the oil industry, and who believe that if we allow the 
oil companies to drill offshore in areas where there has been a 
drilling moratorium, to ignore the fact that there are over 60 million 
acres of land they already have leases on, and people believe if a oil 
company is given more land to drill, then prices will go down. I am 
glad to see some people have confidence in the oil companies. I 
personally do not.
  While oil prices have been soaring, it is important to point out 
that, year after year, oil companies have been making record-breaking 
profits. Year after year, they have been paying their CEOs huge and 
excessive compensation packages. Year after year, instead of investing 
in new machinery to, in fact, drill for more oil, they have been using 
their profits to buy back stock and raise the price of the stock.
  Last year alone, ExxonMobil used $38 billion of their windfall 
profits to buy back their own stock in increased dividends to their 
shareholders. Mr. President, $38 billion is enough money to reduce gas 
prices at the pump by 27 cents a gallon for an entire year. But it is 
interesting to know that some of our Republican friends have so much 
confidence that if we gave our friends in the oil companies even more 
territory to drill on, in environmentally sensitive areas, they will 
absolutely do the right thing, that the oil companies are staying up 
nights--ExxonMobil and the others--worrying about the American 
consumer. If you believe that, I have a couple of bridges to sell you.
  I think we have to take a hard look at the continued greed of the oil 
companies. It would be a nice thing if we had a President of the United 
States who wasn't, in fact, an oilman. It would be a good thing if we 
had a Vice President who wasn't part of the oil industry. It would be 
nice if we had a President of the United States who would bring the oil 
industry into the Oval Office and say, gentlemen--and they are 
gentlemen--stop ripping off the American people. You have to start 
lowering your prices.
  Thirdly, when we deal with the myriad of problems we have in terms of 
energy, we have to be mindful not only of the greed of the oil 
companies, not only of Wall Street speculation, but we have to 
understand that right now--right now--this summer and this winter there 
are millions of Americans who need and will need immediate help to deal 
with the coming winter, as to whether they are going to be heating 
their homes, whether they are going to be going cold, and in fact we 
have to worry about people now in the southern States who are seeing 
temperatures of 110, 115 degrees, who cannot afford the rapidly 
increasing price of electricity, and are seeing their electricity 
turned off.
  If you are old and you are sick and frail, do you know what. That 115 
degree temperature is not particularly healthy for you. What we need to 
do--and I hope we can get the bill on the floor immediately--is 
substantially increase funding for LIHEAP. We have legislation that 
would double LIHEAP funding. I am proud to say this bill has 
tripartisan support. We already have 49 cosponsors, including 12 
Republicans. I have little doubt that if we can get that bill on the 
floor, if the Republicans do not continue to object to Senator Reid's 
effort to bring it up, we can get not only 60 votes but maybe a lot 
more. There is companion legislation in the House. We can move this 
quickly, while we continue the debate on energy policy, and we should 
come together. We have the votes to significantly expand LIHEAP funding 
and make sure that old people who are trying to exist in 115 degree 
temperatures in the Southwest do not get sick from heat exhaustion 
because they don't have electricity, which is a problem that LIHEAP 
could address.
  Of course, as part of this overall debate, it is very clear to many 
of us that we must, finally, in a significant way, a dramatic way, in a 
way that Vice President Gore was talking about a few days ago, break 
our dependency on fossil fuel, on foreign oil, and move this country to 
sustainable energy and energy efficiency.
  That is an outline of where we want to go. I think some of my 
Republican friends are talking about very insignificant lowering of 
prices in 20 years or 25 years. I think we have to pass the speculation 
bill that is on the floor right now.
  It is interesting to me that we have had executives of major oil 
companies who have come here to Congress--and people are saying, ``Why 
is oil $125, $130, $140 a barrel?'' Do you know what they say? The CEO 
of Royal Dutch Shell testified before Congress:

       The oil fundamentals are no problem. They are the same as 
     they were when oil was selling for $60 a barrel.

  That was the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. My friends say it is supply 
and demand. That is not what a number of executives from the oil 
industry, who presumably know something about the issue, are saying.
  The CEO of Marathon Oil recently said:

       $100 [this is back when it was $100 oil] isn't justified by 
     the physical demand in the market.

  The senior vice president of ExxonMobil, Stephen Simon, told the 
House Energy and Commerce Committee:

       The price of oil should be at $50 to $55 per barrel.

  So you have folks from the oil industry, who, I suspect, know 
something about oil fundamentals, who are telling us that the price of 
oil today is way, way, way higher than it should be. One of the reasons 
they point to is the role of speculation. By ``speculation,'' we mean 
that as a result of an action by Senator Gramm back in 2000, with the 
so-called Enron loophole, energy trading has been deregulated. We have 
seen the results in a number of areas. Some people say: You guys are 
talking about speculation; you are into conspiracy theories. You are 
pointing out the bad guys there, and you are trying to create demons.
  Let's look at recent history. Is the idea of speculation in energy 
markets a new idea? Well, in 2000 and 2001, our friends at Enron 
successfully manipulated the electricity markets, and the results, of 
course, were that in the western part of our country, electric rates 
went off the wall. I remind you that during that discussion you may 
remember that what Enron was saying was: Don't blame us; this is supply 
and demand. Well, some of those people who were telling us that, I 
suspect, are in jail now, because as everybody knows, Enron manipulated 
prices big time until they were finally uncovered. Enron collapsed, and 
some of their executives, I believe, are now in jail. That was 
manipulation of the electricity markets in 2000 and 2001.
  That is not all that has happened in the last decade. In 2004, energy 
price manipulators moved to the propane market. Many people use propane 
to heat their homes. That year, the CFTC,

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Commodity Futures Trading Commission, found that BP artificially 
increased propane prices by purchasing enormous quantities of propane 
and withholding the fuel to drive prices higher. In other words, they 
manipulated the propane market and prices went up. By the end of 
February of 2004, BP controlled almost 90 percent of all propane 
delivered on a pipeline that stretches from Texas to Pennsylvania and 
New York. BP's cornering of the propane market caused prices to 
increase by 40 percent during the month of February 2004, which 
eventually caused them, because of their illegal manipulation of the 
propane market, to pay a $303 million fine.
  So, again, when we are talking about speculation, and people say you 
are into conspiracy theories, etc, etc, etc--we have, in 2000 and 2001, 
Enron manipulating the electric market; and, in 2004, we have BP 
manipulating the propane market.
  But it goes on. In 2006, energy price manipulators moved to the 
natural gas market. When Federal regulators discovered that the 
Amaranth hedge fund was responsible for artificially driving up natural 
gas prices--natural gas. So we had electricity, propane, and now we are 
on natural gas. Amaranth cornered the natural gas market by controlling 
as much as 75 percent of all of the natural gas futures contracts in a 
single month. The skyrocketing cost of natural gas, because of 
Amaranth's control of the market, cost American consumers an estimated 
$9 billion. Shortly after Amaranth was suspected of manipulating 
natural gas prices, the hedge fund collapsed.
  Today, there are many who believe that what happened in electricity, 
what happened in propane, and what happened in natural gas is now 
happening in oil. I think we should not be shocked by that, given the 
recent history I have mentioned. I think we have to move very 
aggressively in dealing with speculation.
  Let me take this opportunity to say a few words about the LIHEAP 
legislation. The bill we introduced would increase LIHEAP funding by 
going from $2.5 billion to over $5 billion. Basically, it is a doubling 
of funding. That, in fact, is the amount that has already been 
authorized. We should be very clear. In terms of the need to increase 
LIHEAP funding, we are literally dealing with a life-and-death 
situation. People will die. People will die of exposure to cold. People 
will die of heat exhaustion if we do not move, and if we do not move 
quickly.
  It is important to understand, because CNN cameras do not go there--
they do not go to an old person's house in Tucson, AZ, who is 
struggling with 110 and 115 degree temperatures without electricity. 
They don't go to a low or moderate income home in Vermont and Maine 
when people are trying to stay warm, when the temperature gets 20 below 
zero. The truth is that more people have died from the extreme heat and 
hypothermia since 1998 than all natural disasters in this country 
combined, including floods, fires, hurricanes and tornadoes. I know we 
all see and appreciate the pain people in the Midwest are experiencing 
today with the floods. We appreciate and want to respond to the crisis 
in California with the fires. But the fact is that more people die from 
exposure to cold and to heat than from these natural disasters, as 
terrible as they are.
  To give you an example--this is hard to believe, and many people 
don't know this--over the past decade, more than 400 people have died 
of heat exposure in Arizona. That is one State. That is 400 people in 
the last decade, including 31 people in July of 2005. All of these 
deaths could have been prevented if these people had had air 
conditioning.
  What I worry about is that electricity prices are going up because 
fuel prices are going up. Our economy is tanking, and we are seeing a 
record number of disconnects. So I ask people to be concerned about 
what happens when it gets 20 below zero in Vermont and in Maine. I also 
ask people to be concerned about what happens when people get 
disconnected from their electricity in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and 
other States.
  Let me simply conclude that, clearly, we are in the midst of a major 
energy crisis. There are a number of aspects to that crisis and they 
have to be addressed. I hope that, as a Congress, while we debate those 
issues, we come together, as I think we are, in saying that no one in 
this country this year should die of heat exposure, no one in this 
country should die through being frozen to death when the temperature 
gets very low in the northern part of our country.
  I thank, again, the 49 cosponsors of this legislation. It is 
tripartisan. Both Independents are on it. We have 12 Republicans on it. 
The rest are Democrats. I thank them all. I thank Senator Reid for 
trying his best to try to get that bill to the floor as soon as 
possible. The AARP and dozens of other national organizations know how 
important it is that we pass an increase in LIHEAP funding and do it as 
soon as possible.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I inquire, I believe the Republicans have 
13 minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, will you please let me know when 6\1/2\ 
minutes has expired.
  Mr. President, it is somewhat humorous to listen to the class warfare 
that has been coming from the other side of the aisle talking about 
trying to explain to the American people that supply and demand does 
not work. It is interesting that the other day, there was an editorial 
in the Washington Post saying even Congress can't repeal the law of 
supply and demand. Supply and demand does work, and it is a tough job 
to try to explain to people and it is going to be very difficult to 
explain to people who are buying gas at the pumps why increasing supply 
is not going to bring down the price.
  Let me clarify one point. It is always easier to find someone to 
blame for a quick fix. On this speculation bill, none of the people who 
are really well informed on this issue believe that would have anything 
to do--anything to do--with the price of gas at the pumps. Walter 
Williams, an economist at George Mason University, said:

       Congressional attacks on speculation do not alter the oil 
     market's fundamental supply and demand conditions.

  He goes on to say it wouldn't lower it at all.
  We have the International Energy Agency saying:

       Blaming speculation is an easy solution which avoids taking 
     the necessary steps to improve supply of oil and gas.

  That is what it is all about, it is supply and demand. There is not a 
person in America who has a high school education who has not already 
studied the law of supply and demand, and they know, in fact, it does 
work.
  I came down really to talk about something about which I am proud, 
and that is what T. Boone Pickens is doing right now. He is saying we 
have to continue to drill, drill, drill everywhere we can--offshore, 
ANWR, into the shales--do everything we can to produce and increase the 
supply. But in the meantime, let's try to do something that has a more 
immediate effect, and that has to do with compressed natural gas.
  Let me state to you, Mr. President, that I have introduced a bill 
that will allow us to use compressed natural gas for automobile use. It 
simply does three things.
  We now have a tax credit for alternative fuels, and we want to add 
biofuels to that. One of the problems we have currently, if you have a 
car that has been converted to natural gas, to compressed natural gas, 
it is not readily available all over. There is a machine you can get 
now which you hook up at nighttime which will compress it overnight and 
you can use it. A lot of people don't have that machine. There are some 
places you cannot buy it. So biofuels vehicles should have the same tax 
credit as the alternative-fuel vehicles have. If we can do that, then 
that is going to allow people to have an engine to run on regular 
gasoline or on compressed natural gas.
  The second thing we need to do is to have the mandatory renewable 
fuels standard include natural gas. If it does

[[Page 15786]]

that, that is going to be another great advantage.
  The third thing is, I was talking to a man named Tom Sewell in Tulsa. 
He is the one who I believe invented the machine you can hook up to 
your gas line and compress the gas for use in automobiles. He said one 
of the major problems is, when you go to convert your car, you have EPA 
requirements that are the same--if you have one engine that would be in 
three different manufactured automobiles, such as General Motors, 
Chrysler, and Ford, and some others, they have to get the same 
certification for that engine from each source. Certification is around 
$80,000. If we can pass this legislation, this will knock down the 
additional cost of converting your car by about $2,000 for each one.
  I think this is something that has to be in the mix. I agree with T. 
Boone Pickens when he says there are some things we can do that would 
be effective, but in the meantime we have to take the natural gas we 
are using for other sources and replace it with--he is saying wind 
energy. I don't care what you replace it with, but let's use that so we 
can have compressed natural gas or liquefied natural gas. All these 
buses around Washington, DC, say ``This bus is running on clean natural 
gas.'' That is liquefied natural gas. Those technologies are here. You 
don't have to wait.
  To answer the previous speaker--he spent 30 minutes trying to explain 
to people that supply and demand does not work--just look at this and 
realize that if we were able to open the Outer Continental Shelf, 14 
billion barrels; ANWR, 10 million barrels; Rocky Mountain oil shale, 
which is the big reserve out there, 2 trillion barrels--right now 
Democrats have a moratorium, so we cannot go to those areas. They are 
trying to do the same thing with the Canadian oil sands. They already 
put a prohibition on using that for defense purposes. There are 179 
billion barrels out there. This is what we can use. If we should open 
this, the market would immediately respond. All the smart people say 
they know that would happen because they know that help would be on its 
way.
  Some of this we don't have to wait 10 years or 15 years for, as the 
previous speaker wants you to believe, because it can happen in 2 years 
or 3 years. In the meantime, the market will respond. People who say it 
would have taken 10 years for ANWR, if you remember back when President 
Clinton vetoed the bill that would have allowed us to drill in ANWR as 
well as offshore--that was 1995--we would have all of that. The next 
speaker from Alaska will tell you that would be coming down through the 
pipeline today, more than what we are importing now, not just from 
Saudi Arabia but all the Middle Eastern countries and Venezuela 
combined.
  Supply and demand still works. It is still out there, it is still 
alive and well, and Republicans want very much to increase the supply. 
There it is, right there. It is something we can do. All we need is to 
have 10 Democrats join us, and we will be able to increase the supply 
of oil and gas in America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, yesterday I had the opportunity to 
spend about half an hour on the floor talking about the leasing issues 
around the country and more particularly in Alaska. I had the 
opportunity to talk about ANWR and about the NPRA, the National 
Petroleum Reserve, and spent a fair amount of time on the facts. I was 
quite pleased this morning to come in and read e-mails from people 
around the country who said: Thank you for talking about some of the 
facts. We appreciate learning and understanding what ANWR really is, 
what the potential is in NPRA. Today, I would like to continue on that 
subject.
  In Alaska, as we know, we have been blessed with incredible 
resources. There have been some suggestions in the debate on the floor 
that perhaps there isn't enough oil and gas in this country for us to 
really make a meaningful impact with new production. So I wish to speak 
just a little bit to the production side of the energy solution.
  According to the latest estimates by the USGS and the Minerals 
Management Service, it is possible to produce nearly 24 billion barrels 
of oil and 100.6 trillion cubic feet of gas from onshore areas in 
northern Alaska--these are mean estimates--and up to another 41 billion 
barrels of oil and about another 290 trillion cubic feet of gas from 
offshore waters around Alaska. Just this afternoon, USGS came in with 
their new Arctic resource appraisal, and they forecast that the 
Beaufort and Chukchi Seas have a mean chance of containing 30 billion 
barrels of oil. From an oil perspective, Alaska's Arctic is being 
forecast to contain a third--a third--of all the undiscovered 
conventional oil in the Arctic region.
  We recognize that when we operate up there, we must protect the 
environment while we develop that energy, and we will. But Alaska 
offers a lot of energy potential. When I hear some of the comments on 
the floor that we simply do not even have enough to start, I beg to 
differ. The potential production from Alaska is triple America's 
current proven reserves of oil and would be enough oil to meet the 
Nation's total oil needs for nearly a decade. The gas reserves are 
nearly double America's current proven reserves and enough to handle 
all of America's current natural gas consumption for 18 years. These 
are not trivial reserves, if we are ever allowed to develop them. Just 
look at what we have up in ANWR, looking at opening the 1.5 million 
acres of the 1002, the Arctic Coastal Plain.
  As we talk about ANWR and its potential, what we are not really 
hearing is what ANWR's oil potential really means to the Nation at the 
current gas prices, recognizing we are right at $130 a barrel.
  Earlier this year, the EIA released its latest estimates for ANWR 
production and what it would mean. At that time, it predicted that 
ANWR's opening would save the Nation from paying up to $327 billion--
$327 billion--to buy oil from overseas over the life of the field. It 
predicted that it could reduce America's dependence on imported oil 
down to 48 percent compared to the more than 60 percent dependence we 
are at currently.
  The EIA forecast on ANWR from this winter again actually has been 
used by some on the floor to argue against opening ANWR, saying ANWR 
doesn't help the Nation enough, it is going to take too long to have an 
impact, and therefore we shouldn't be doing it. There is a Chinese 
proverb out there that says the best time to plant a tree was 10 years 
ago; the second best time is today. I think that holds true with ANWR. 
Those who make these arguments saying there is not enough and it is too 
late do not recognize this EIA forecast is based on the most 
conservative assumptions possible. We believe the benefits are likely 
to be twice to three times the amount of the official forecast. The 
reason is this: The report pegs the price of oil in 2020 at $59.49 a 
barrel in 2006 dollars. They are looking out to 2020, and they are 
saying: We figure the price of oil is going to be $59.49. Given that 
oil is more than twice that today and that few economists predict it is 
going to drop to $70 or $80 a barrel in the future, ANWR production 
could help to drive down the price at the pump by a whole lot more than 
the Government officially forecasts.
  The International Energy Agency just this week reported that it 
expects oil prices to rise even further. I know that is not something 
most Americans want to hear, but given that the era of cheap and easy-
to-find gas is over, we should acknowledge that those predictions are 
reliable.
  We all remember the Goldman Sachs comment earlier this year. They 
forecast that oil could reach $200 a barrel, particularly with the 
geopolitical tensions that are out there. So opening ANWR could help to 
lower our prices in this country.
  The myth that ANWR production is not worth doing because there is not 
much oil there is yet, again, another myth. According to EIA's January 
forecast, ANWR oil development, assuming a 50-50 chance of finding 10.4 
billion barrels of oil, is going to produce 780,000 barrels a day 
starting in 2018. We think that it can be brought on prior to 2018 and 
believe that is realistic.

[[Page 15787]]

  We can do more in the State of Alaska. We are ready and standing by 
to do more, but we need the permission from the Congress to go into 
ANWR.
  I know I just spoke strictly to production. I don't typically like to 
do that. I like to talk about other efforts, including conservation and 
renewables. Tonight, it is just the facts on ANWR.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I hope that what is happening on the 
floor today is visible to people across our country. They have to see 
what is happening on the Senate floor as they pay through the nose, to 
use the expression, for higher prices for gasoline. Our Republican 
colleagues are blocking our efforts to eliminate harmful oil 
speculation and to provide some relief at the gas pump for hard-working 
Americans everywhere. They are holding up our speculation bill with a 
reckless plan to let oil companies drill along our shores.
  We do not have to look any further than what happened just this 
morning on the Mississippi River to understand why this planning is so 
reckless.
  Two boats collided--one was a chemical tanker and the other an oil 
barge--dumping 400,000 gallons of oil into the Mississippi River. Now, 
these numbers, 400,000 gallons, may not really reach the senses of 
people because it is so far removed, but this collision covered more 
than 12 miles of the river with thick, tar-like fuel oil, and it closed 
down almost--closed down the Mississippi River for about 30 miles. This 
spill shut down water supplies to the area, and there is a frantic 
effort going on right now to try to contain the spill and the damage it 
is causing to nearby wetlands. This incident highlights the danger and 
the serious risks of transporting oil from rigs and refineries to other 
places.
  Many of my colleagues have come down to the Senate floor over the 
last several days to urge more drilling off our coasts, more drilling 
across our country, but in particular we know the danger to coastlines. 
We see today that it is clearly not as safe as some would like us to 
believe.
  It is a sad commentary, though, that regardless of the reality, there 
are those who are carelessly suggesting that drilling will solve our 
problems with the outrageous price of high gasoline, prices that are 
robbing our families of their ability to stay financially afloat. For 
lots of people, these increases in gas prices destroy any reserve that 
families had because we are, by and large, a commuting nation, and 
people pay enormous prices for the ability to get to work or to places 
of necessity.
  But there is something happening here. There is an advantage that 
accrues gigantically, I might add, to the big oil companies and 
speculators. Big oil has fared incredibly well during the last 7\1/2\ 
years. That is thanks to their friends and cohorts at the White House. 
There was a point in time when the energy policy was being written that 
heads of major oil companies were invited to a secret meeting with the 
Vice President of the United States to design a program.
  Who do you think they were going to take care of? They weren't 
worried about the average working family, not at all. They were looking 
at the companies and their ability to price gouge.
  In fact, hard to believe, these oil companies have earned--pocketed 
is a better expression--more than $600 billion in profits over the last 
7\1/2\ years. For instance, ExxonMobil made over $10 billion in a 
single calendar quarter, and their profits have been coming out of our 
pockets and going into theirs.
  President Bush's latest plan is to give the industry more public land 
on which to drill. But this is nothing more than a parting gift, his 
parting gift to the oil companies.
  I want to make one thing clear. More drilling now cannot lower gas 
prices for American consumers. In the amount of time that it takes to 
get it to the gasoline pump, we could be witnessing a financial 
calamity in our country. More offshore drilling will not impact prices 
until, at the very earliest, the year 2030.
  We all recognize the importance of reducing gas prices to stabilize 
this country's economy and to ease this terrible burden on America's 
families, but the plan for new drilling along our coasts could be a 
disaster. It will do nothing to solve our energy crisis, nothing to 
lower gas prices, nothing to fight inflation, and nothing to help 
America's families.
  Here is another reason lifting the ban on offshore drilling is a bad 
idea. It will endanger our environment which for coastal communities is 
a huge source of revenue from tourism and recreation. Just imagine if 
one of these proposed drilling rigs or, as happened today, a boat had 
an accident and spread thick sludge along our beaches and coastlines. 
It would create a disaster culturally, financially, and recreationally. 
We would see the same kind of economic catastrophe that we had in New 
Jersey in 1988 after sewage and medical waste washed up on our beaches. 
The tourism industry, our biggest source of revenue, collapsed for 2 
years.
  It is clear the oil companies are hoping they can get as many leases 
as they can out of the Bush administration before this President's term 
comes to an end. But when it is giving the oil companies new leases, we 
have nothing to gain and everything to lose. We must not cater to the 
oil companies, but we can do something to lower gas prices quickly and 
start easing the burden on the American people, and my Democratic 
colleagues and I have offered a solution.
  I hope my colleagues will step up to their responsibilities and 
permit us to act on this solution, the Stop Excessive Speculation Act, 
aimed at combating harmful oil speculation at the expense of the 
American people in every State in this country.
  The price of oil has doubled in the last 12 months, and many point to 
speculation as the problem.
  The top analyst at the Oppenheimer--when talking about speculation--
said the commodities market was ``the world's largest gambling hall.'' 
And the CEOs of Continental, Delta, Jet Blue and other airlines, which 
are struggling to cope with crushing oil prices, have joined together 
to create the Web site Stop Oil Speculation Now Dot Com.
  The fact is, you don't have to be an airline CEO or even a financial 
analyst to realize that we must ring out excess speculation from the 
market. And that is exactly what our bill does.
  It fixes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which oversees the 
oil futures markets but is currently both underfunded and broken.
  It gives the commission more staff and power to police the market and 
stop speculators from grossly distorting the price of oil.
  And it closes a major loophole that allows traders to conduct 
transactions on foreign exchanges and outside the watchful eyes of U.S. 
regulators.
  For months, my colleagues and I have been working to solve this 
energy crisis. But the Republicans have blocked our efforts a half 
dozen times.
  American families and American businesses are suffering because 
Republicans--working on behalf of the oil companies--continue to block 
our efforts. The Republican tactic of blocking good energy legislation 
must stop for the good of the economy, the good of businesses and the 
good of families across this country.
  I plead with my Republican colleagues to stop focusing only on giving 
gifts to Big Oil in the form of a public land grab and to focus instead 
on ending excessive oil speculation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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