[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12813]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        RESEARCH BEFORE DRILLING

  (Mr. BURTON of Indiana asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, let me just say to the young 
lady who just spoke in the well, the new Representative, that if you 
are going to drill you have to have a geological study done that shows 
that there is oil there. Those leases are 5 to 10 years, and if there 
is no oil there, they are not going to put up a derrick.
  On the Continental Shelf, they have to do seismic studies to make 
sure there is oil down there. If they think there is oil down there, 
they drill a test well. If there is not enough oil down there, they are 
not going to build a $2 billion derrick. Those platforms cost as much 
as $2 billion.
  Unless it's profitable, they are not going to drill there. They have 
to drill where they know there is oil. That's why we need to expand 
beyond the 3 percent of the Continental Shelf we are talking about and 
get the other 97 percent involved. If we did that and they got those 
leases, we could become energy independent.
  Drilling in the ANWR, which is the size of Dulles Airport, is not 
ecologically dangerous. We should go ahead and drill there and get the 
oil. We could get 1 to 2 million barrels of oil a day.

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