[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18159-18160]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE AMERICAN ENERGY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Keller) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KELLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the 
problem of skyrocketing gas prices. When single moms in Orlando, 
Florida are paying $80 to fill up their minivans, this is a crisis.
  I spent my time in August touring the northern slope of Alaska to 
learn more about the oil drilling situation as well as touring the 
Florida Solar Energy Center in Central Florida where they have the 
cutting-edge solar energy technology of tomorrow.
  The straight talk is we need a comprehensive approach to address this 
energy crisis. We need more drilling here in America, in both Alaska 
and offshore. We need more renewable energy like wind and solar. We 
need more conservation like hybrids and higher fuel efficiency 
standards for our cars. We need all of the above. That is why I am 
proud to be the cosponsor of the American Energy Act. It's also why the 
American people deserve an up-or-down vote in this Congress on the 
American Energy Act.
  Now, those who say ``no'' to drilling completely ignore the facts. 
The main component of a price of gasoline is crude oil. Crude oil is a 
commodity governed by the law of supply and demand. Therefore, we must 
increase our supply of crude oil and reduce our demand. Well, where is 
the largest untapped source of crude oil in America? It's in Alaska, in 
a place called ANWR.
  The critics say three things: Don't let us drill in ANWR because it's 
only a trivial amount of oil. It will ruin the pristine wilderness, and 
it will hurt the wildlife in that area, particularly the caribou and 
the polar bears. I went there on a factfinding mission to find out the 
answers to those questions myself. Let's address each one.
  Is it a trivial amount of oil? I learned from our independent experts 
and employees of the U.S. Department of the Interior that there are 
10.4 billion barrels of crude oil under the lands in ANWR. 10.4 billion 
barrels of oil are enough to provide all of my home State of Florida 
with its energy needs for 29 years. 10.4 billion barrels of oil are 
enough to pump 1 million barrels of oil a day every single day for the 
next 30 years. Does that sound like a trivial amount of oil to you?
  The next thing I heard is it will ruin the pristine wilderness area. 
Well, I stood right here in the only village in ANWR called Kaktovik, 
and I looked south from the Arctic Ocean, and I didn't see any trees. 
It's a flat, frozen, barren tundra. It's 30 degrees in the middle of 
August, and it's 30 below in the winter. I sat there with the head 
leader from the Eskimo tribe, Mr. Fenton Rexford, and I said, ``Where 
are the trees?'' He says, ``Well, Congressman, there's not a tree 
within 100 miles of where the drilling would take place.'' So much for 
the pristine wilderness we hear about.
  The next thing we hear is that we'll hurt wildlife. I learned from 
our fish and wildlife experts that, in reality, there are over 5,000 
polar bears in Alaska and 800,000 caribou, and their numbers have 
increased every year for the past 30 years. In fact, in the current 
largest oil field in America, Prudhoe Bay, they started drilling in the 
mid-1970s. At the time, there were 3,000 caribou there. Now caribou 
have increased tenfold in Prudhoe Bay, and there are over 30,000 
caribou there. I saw them peacefully coexisting.
  So, when you take away their real arguments and you see it firsthand 
that you can drill for oil and that you can do it in an environmentally 
friendly manner, what is the bottom line for why some of these 
environmental extremists don't want us to drill? Well, we don't have to 
guess. This is what the president of the Sierra Club says. His name is 
Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club: ``We are better off 
without cheap gas.'' They don't want gas prices to go down.
  Tell the single mom in Orlando who just paid 80 bucks to fill up her

[[Page 18160]]

minivan that she is better off without cheap gas. Tell the thousands of 
airline employees who just lost their jobs because of skyrocketing fuel 
that they're better off without cheap gas. Tell the people in Orlando, 
Florida who are losing their jobs in the tourism industry because 
tourism is down that they're better off without cheap gas. Tell the 
small businessman who has just had to lay off his employees because he 
can't make the payroll anymore because of gasoline prices that he's 
better off without cheap gas. Tell the school districts that are having 
to go to 4-day-a-week school because they can't afford the gas for 
their buses that they're better off without cheap gas.
  Let's bring some sanity back into this program. Let's have a vote, up 
or down, on the American Energy Act. Let's have it right now, this 
month, before we adjourn.

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