[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5894-5895]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       OIL EXPORTS FROM COLOMBIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, the papers back home tell the story: 25 
firefighter jobs advertised, thousands of applicants. Bass Pro Sporting 
Goods building a new store, 300 jobs, 13,000 applicants, and the 
applications keep coming in. Yet the Bush administration last week sent 
Congress another job-killing NAFTA-like trade pact, this time for the 
South American nation of Colombia.
  But why Colombia? And why now? The answer to both questions, in a 
word, is oil. Rather than paying attention to what is happening in this 
country, again, the Bush administration is focused to a new set of 
global oil deposits.
  Why Colombia? In the big picture of global trade, Colombia is 
relatively insignificant to the United States. So why would the Bush 
administration make it a top priority in the final year of his 
presidency? Because oil represents more than half of Colombia's exports 
to the United States. And nothing drives Bush administration policy 
more than oil.
  Ten years ago, Colombia wasn't even exporting oil. It was an oil-
importing country. But with the Middle East in turmoil, the Bush 
administration, like the Clinton administration before it, is doing 
everything it can to make Colombia safe for oil exports to us. At a 
time when U.S. relations with Venezuela, South America's leading oil 
producer, have dropped to an all-time low, Colombia has emerged as the 
continent's fourth leading supplying supplier.
  A decade ago, as I mentioned, Colombia was an oil-importing nation. 
Now, multinational oil companies have made huge investments because of 
tax favorability in the area of a giant, crescent-shaped, underocean 
oil field that stretches from Colombia to Peru. This trade agreement is 
not about cocoa. It is not about coal. It is not about cut flowers. 
This is an agreement about oil.
  Buying oil from Colombia piles more oil trade deficit on top of the 
$800 billion overall trade deficit our Nation has wracked up with 
nations all over the world. We continue to export jobs at an 
accelerating rate and import more and more and more from abroad with 
oil leading the way by far the number one category in the red.
  As in Middle East, the United States government is pouring billions 
of dollars into Colombia in the form of military and foreign aid in 
order to protect the oil companies' investments.
  Why now? Because the United States is being forced by political 
realities to relocate its sole defense base in Latin America out of 
Ecuador, whose president wants it removed from there. And by contrast, 
the Uribe government in Colombia has welcomed U.S. military 
involvement, seeing an opportunity to court favor with the Bush 
administration and the military protection that aid provides for oil 
exports. Only Israel and Egypt receive more military assistance from 
the United States.
  According to Amnesty International, which opposes military aid to 
Colombia until human rights concerns are addressed, the U.S. 
contributes approximately $750 million, a quarter of $1 billion, each 
year. It is estimated that our country has sent Colombia more than $5 
billion under the guise of Plan Colombia, with most of the assistance 
going to the military and police.
  These parallels with the Middle East are troubling. In both regions, 
the United States risks its reputation with the ``people on the 
street'' by mixing economic designs on resources not belonging to us, 
and then moving defense assets to protect that interest.
  Yes, average Americans are justifiably upset over rising prices at 
the pump. A gallon of gasoline now costs as much or more than a gallon 
of milk. Think about that. But surely the answer to this predicament is 
not to increase our oil dependence on Colombia. If our citizens saw how 
our America has dedicated its military assets to back up that oil flow 
owned by private interests, they would be really enraged. In Latin 
America, the United States is viewed as anything but the ``Sweet Land 
of Liberty.''
  As in the Middle East, public opinion throughout Latin America has 
turned strongly negative toward the United States. People to our south 
view the Bush administration's policies as concerned only with the 
wealthiest segments of society or their American investment partners 
and essentially apathetic about democracy for the average person. To 
achieve the real Alliance For Progress envisioned by John F. Kennedy, 
our policies should promote democracy and cooperation, not resource 
exploitation.
  Why would our government tether itself to a regime that has tolerated 
the murder of thousands of labor leaders, more than the rest of the 
countries of the world combined? Already this year, 17 more labor 
leaders have been assassinated in Colombia. The Bush administration's 
failure to cure America's oil addiction is no reason to overlook the 
crimes of impunity that are being committed regularly against organized 
labor in Colombia.
  Once again, however, our foreign policy is being held hostage to the 
demands of an oil-based economy.

[[Page 5895]]

Haven't we moved beyond the 20th century? The issue is not the U.S. 
trade relationship with Colombia, but the failure of the Bush 
administration to make our economy more stable at home by pursuing the 
important goal of energy independence.
  Our national leaders should wake up and move us to freedom from 
imported petroleum. This is a national imperative as serious as our 
Nation has ever faced. We don't need Colombian oil now. We need energy 
independence here at home.

                          ____________________