[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12823-12829]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity. I want 
to immediately yield to my friend. There were a lot of facts thrown out 
here, and the folks who are paying attention here in the Chamber may 
want to hear the response.
  I yield to my friend from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I appreciate it.
  We are going to continue to tell the story of gas prices, what we've 
just heard. And to keep on the message and to pick up where it was left 
off with the previous speakers, we're talking about the 68 million 
acres, here's the key point--a couple of key points: One is, there's 
4.8 million barrels of oil per day every day that would be available 
underneath those 68 million acres. That's the number, 4.8 million 
barrels per day every day. And we'll talk later about that in 
comparison to ANWR and other issues, but just to keep on the message. 
These are not 68 million acres that the Federal Government just said 
we're going to give you the deserts in Arizona and we're going to give 
you a bunch of areas that are not productive. These are 68 million 
acres that are currently leased to oil and gas companies.
  Now, presumably the oil and gas companies would only choose to 
purchase a lease if there was some possibility that there was oil and 
gas underneath there. And as I've said, the estimated oil and gas--or 
oil, at least--that's under there is 4.8 million barrels per day. But 
that's the key point; these aren't just 68 million randomly chosen 
acres, these are 68 million acres that the oil and gas companies 
themselves chose to enter into a lease agreement so that they can drill 
for oil and gas. That's the key point. And they're not doing it.
  As we talked about a few nights ago, there are a variety of reasons 
why they're not doing it. One of the reasons is that they're 
stockpiling these leases to put on their balance sheet, declare them as 
assets and raise up their profits and help their stock price. That's 
part of it. Part of it is that the geological work and the surveying 
and the construction takes a lot of time. And that's being done on some 
of these acres, 68 million acres. So we're going to get there, in some 
cases, but we're not there yet, which gets to what we're going to talk 
about later.
  There really is a difference of opinion among the two groups that we 
are hearing tonight, but there is no difference of opinion that we have 
to do something about gas prices. Now, we're talking about long-term 
solutions. I would hope there's not going to be a difference of opinion 
on some of the short-term solutions. We're talking about the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve, 70 billion barrels per day beginning 2 weeks from 
today. The manipulation that takes place in the market, the commodities 
market by these commodities traders, we're going to deal with that 
issue. There are short-term solutions.
  But what is in this dispute tonight and what we're debating in a 
friendly way is the difference of opinion that we have about what we're 
going to be as a country 10 years from now and 20 years from now. Are 
we going to remain dependent on oil? And yes, we're talking in this 
case about domestic oil. About 65 percent of the oil we get in this 
country is from overseas. We import it from countries that do not have 
good will towards Americans in many cases.
  So what happens if we drill in ANWR and the 20 percent that remains 
of the oil that's known in the Outer Continental Shelf where we're not 
allowed to drill? Eighty percent is already in areas where we are 
allowed to drill, so what happens if we allow and get to peak capacity 
20 years from now? We might be down to 55 percent, we might be down to 
52 percent. We're still going to have a majority of our oil that we 
import from other countries. We're going to feed the beast for the next 
20 years and we're going to be in the same place then as we are now.
  So is that where we want to be? We have a decision to make as a 
Nation on how to spend the next 10 to 20 years. How do we want to use 
all the resources of this Nation and all the brain power of this 
Nation? Do we want to focus it on continuing our dependence on oil, or 
do we want to focus it on alternative sources of energy? We're going to 
talk about that, but I know the gentleman wants to continue along this 
track, so I will yield back to him.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And one of the issues that was brought up today by 
the President that we want to discuss--and I very much appreciate you 
making the presentation as to the other side of the debate that our 
friends made over the last hour. But a couple of the points that were 
made on the other side is that, well, if we go offshore, you go into 
the Outer Continental Shelf region, it's deep water, it's going to cost 
$2 billion just to maybe get into the well. Well, when you look into 
the profits from 2007 for the oil companies, $123 billion in profits 
last year. So the reason they give that they have to increase the price 
is because it is expensive to get into some of this deep water; no one 
is disputing that fact.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Can I talk about the $2 billion figure?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Sure.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Because I don't want you to lose the train of thought on 
that one.
  The $2 billion figure includes the surveying and the geological work 
to actually find the oil in the first place, which it's not just 
drilling, the $2 billion is from start to peak production.
  The point of the 68 million acres is we already know there's oil 
there. We already know where it is. They purchased the lease 
specifically because there is oil known to be in those lands, and 
they're making a conscious decision not to drill there. So the $2 
billion actually supports our argument. It doesn't hurt our argument, 
it supports it, that there is work that needs to be done in any new 
lands that we make available that we've already done in the current 68 
million acres that are available. That's what that $2 billion does.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Much of this money has already been spent in the 
surveying and the geological work. So now you have, last year, $123 
billion in profits. That's what you get the money for because you say 
it's expensive to get in there. So you're making all the profits and 
not necessarily going in to get the oil.
  And then another comment earlier was made, well, it may take 7 years. 
Well, if you go to ANWR, you're not going to get a drop out for 10 
years. And in 20 years--and I love how this ANWR has just become the 
silver bullet. If you go into ANWR today, or even if you did go into 
ANWR in 1995, Madam Speaker, that will only save you, after 20 years 
of, when ANWR gets to peak production, it will save 1.8 cents per 
gallon of gas, period, at peak production.
  ANWR is not a silver bullet. And if ANWR were the silver bullet, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania and I would be standing on top of this 
Capitol waving the ANWR flag saying, this is all we need to do in 
America is to go to ANWR and pull out this oil that's there. And so I 
think it's misleading, Madam Speaker, for the President to come before 
the American people and say that this ANWR is a major component of us 
reducing our dependency on foreign oil.

[[Page 12824]]



                              {time}  1945

  Mr. ALTMIRE. It is instructive to look at the acreage of ANWR that we 
are talking about. We are talking about 200,000 acres of land in ANWR 
that they want to make available for drilling. So we would go from 68 
million acres that are currently available for drilling to 68.2 acres. 
That is the significance of ANWR--68 million to 68.2 acres.
  And the gentleman makes a good point about the political argument. 
Many Members of Congress are not like this, but I think it is fair to 
say there are a number of people that would draw the conclusion that 
they want to return home, and they want to give good news to their 
constituents about what they are doing on gas prices, and if there were 
a quick fix, if there were a way that we could return home to our 
constituents and say, we found the magic bullet, we are going to lower 
gas prices by 40 percent or 50 percent. I think it is pretty safe to 
say we could round up a majority in Congress if there were an immediate 
fix to this problem that we would do it. There is not an immediate fix. 
So what we have here is a discussion, a friendly debate, on what the 
future is, and again whether to stick with oil, or whether to go to 
alternative energy.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And we're not getting this information, unlike has 
been proposed in some places that this is all coming from the Sierra 
Club, that all this information is coming from the League of 
Conservation Voters or some left-wing, liberal political group that 
doesn't care about energy and wants us all to move to a commune and 
then we'll all be fine. This is coming from the Department of Energy. 
These ANWR statistics are coming from the Department of Energy. And the 
Department of Energy is the executive branch, which is run by George W. 
Bush. These are the President's own people telling us from the Energy 
Information Administration of what exactly the numbers are. We are not 
making this up.
  So on one side he comes out and says, ``We need to drill in ANWR. 
That is a major component of our energy policy.'' And his own energy 
people are saying, ``In 20 years it will save you 2 cents a gallon.'' 
Now many of our colleagues here have said, ``We are Americans. This is 
America.'' Well, the America that I know doesn't say, ``We are going to 
really do it and save 2 cents a gallon in gas 20 years from now.'' That 
is not America. That is not America. America is saying, ``We are going 
to be energy independent.''
  The problem with our friends and the disagreement that we have with 
the President and with our friends in the Republican Party is the basic 
idea that we can drill our way out of this problem. Because we can't. 
We have 1.6 percent of the known oil reserves in the world in the 
United States. And we consume 25 percent of daily oil consumption, my 
friend, and that means that no matter how much we drill, if we just 
keep drilling and drilling and drilling, we will still have to import 
oil. We will still be dependent on the Middle East. We will still be 
caught up in these political games that we are in right now in the 
Middle East. And we will still be in this tenuous web of dictatorships 
and who's got the oil and what are the supply lines and how do we keep 
it safe and how do we get to the market. We will still be involved in 
all of that.
  But what the Democrats are trying to do is to take this money and 
invest it into alternative energy research and development. This should 
have been done years ago. And some of our friends on the other side and 
the President comes out today, it was like the President hasn't been 
around for the last 7 years. You control the House. You control the 
Senate. You control the White House. Republicans were controlling the 
whole capital in Washington, D.C. when I first got down here in 2002. 
The President got here 2 years before. Why aren't we drilling in ANWR? 
They said Clinton vetoed it in 1995. Why didn't the President pass it 
through? Why didn't the President move us forward with the Republican 
leadership in the House and the Senate with Trent Lott and Tom DeLay 
and all the other leaders that were down here?
  That is failed leadership. We are here to clean up the mess. And now 
look where we are, at over $4 per gallon for gas.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. In speaking about the leadership that has been taking 
place over the last 8 years, we can talk about the impact that the low 
U.S. dollar has had on the price of oil per barrel which is a direct 
result of the economic policies of this administration and the three 
previous Congresses. Perhaps we will get to that later in the evening.
  But as we talk about what the President said today, I think it is a 
little disingenuous, to be honest, to say that it is Congress' 
responsibility to open up, after 28 years of the moratorium, to open up 
the Outer Continental Shelf when there are two things at work here. 
There is the moratorium, and there is the executive order that was put 
in place by President Bush's father, the first President Bush. Now that 
moratorium has been in place since 1990. And President Bush came before 
the Nation today and said, ``Well, I want Congress to take away the 
moratorium, do away with the moratorium.'' He could right now say, By 
executive order, I am going to allow the leases to be purchased, the 
Department of the Interior to start making available these leases in 
the remaining portions of the Outer Continental Shelf where there is no 
leasing available and has not been.
  Now in the past 28 years since the congressional moratorium has been 
in effect, we have had three Republican Presidents, one Democratic 
President, and we have had long terms of Democratic Congresses and long 
terms of Republican Congresses. And we have had times when both the 
legislative and the executive branch were the same parties on both 
sides and times where it was mixed as it is now. There have been 
opportunities in the past 28 years, no shortage of which for any 
combination of those Congresses and administrations to say, ``Let's do 
away with the moratorium.'' It has not happened.
  The Republicans seem to be the ones who now are pushing this. They 
had 6 years where they controlled the House and the White House 
uninterrupted. They did nothing, as the gentleman said, to do away with 
that moratorium. And if the President is so unhappy with the inability 
of oil and gas companies to purchase leases to begin the process of 
surveying and then eventually drilling in the remaining portions of the 
Outer Continental Shelf, this is a key point, he could, today, as we 
speak, do away with the executive order that his father put into place 
by his own executive order and begin that process. Because that is the 
first step in the process, no matter what Congress does. We can't start 
drilling until all the initial leasing has been done. And that is what 
the executive order pertains to. So I think it is disingenuous for 
someone to criticize Congress for not taking action when they 
themselves have not.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And if the President wanted to have short-term 
impact on the cost, we have got to deal with the speculation in the 
commodities market. Period. Now economists are saying anywhere from 10 
percent to 100 percent of the increase is from this speculation, so put 
that all together, and it is 40 or 50 percent of the increase. But if 
we take care of the speculation and the President would show 
Presidential leadership and come to Congress and say let's do something 
with the commodity prices and the futures speculation and Congress 
passed something on this so we can have short term, I would say, ``You 
know what--there's some leadership.'' Let's get that done. Let's get it 
through Congress. Get it through the Senate. Let's have him sign it. 
And let's try to reduce this cost by 40 or 50 percent. That would get 
us under $100 a barrel if we could reduce the increase that has 
happened because of the speculation.
  But he did not do that because a lot of what comes out of the 
executive branch today, Madam Speaker, is political. And you go back to 
the war, and you remember ``greeted as liberators,'' you remember that 
``we're going to use the oil for reconstruction,'' you remember all the 
promises that were made. That is what this administration has said. And 
then it came to the economy: ``Well, you know, as long as we

[[Page 12825]]

cut taxes for the top 1 percent of the people, the domestic economy is 
going to take off. It's going to be a stimulant. We're going to take 
off. It will be good for the middle class.'' That hasn't worked.
  And then you look at the fiscal policy where he said, the 
administration said, ``Trust me.'' And we have raised the debt limit in 
this country. All of us. And the Republicans were leading the House, 
the Senate and the White House at the time, but this is America's 
money. They raised the debt limit five times and borrowed $3 trillion, 
$1 trillion of it from foreign interests including OPEC and China.
  The President said, ``Trust me.'' Now he comes out today and says, 
``If we only drill more in the United States, then we will solve this 
problem.'' But we have got to keep drilling and drilling and drilling. 
And you and I are here saying, ``Fine. Go ahead and drill.'' There are 
68 million acres. There are 8,000 leases. There is 80 percent of the 
oil that we know that we have in the United States on those 68 million 
acres. Drill and go get it. But when you only have 1.6 percent of the 
world's oil, and you consume 25 percent, you can drill until the cows 
come home. We're not going to drill our way to energy independence. 
That is just not going to happen.
  So as leaders in this Chamber and as leaders in the Congress, we have 
got to come up with a better solution. And that is what we have done. 
We took the $14 billion that was going for subsidies to the oil 
companies and moved that into alternative energy research so that we 
truly can be energy independent.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. And the two areas that we are talking about, the two 
areas that are in dispute where drilling is not allowed today are the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, those 200,000 acres that we are 
talking about, and the 85 percent of the geographical reach of the 
Outer Continental Shelf on which drilling is not allowed. So we will 
hear people on the other side say, ``Well, there's 85 percent that we 
are not drilling in that the moratorium exists and we are not allowed 
to survey and do the drilling.''
  Again, 80 percent of the known oil in the Outer Continental Shelf is 
already in areas where we are allowed to drill. So don't be swayed by 
the fact that people will throw out the geographical reach. It would be 
as if we were to say ``the entire geographical reach of the United 
States'' when we know that there are only certain areas where there is 
oil. And to that point, we talked about the 200,000 acres in ANWR.
  Now, as we move forward on drilling on those 68 million acres, if we 
get to the point where the oil and gas companies have drilled on them 
all, which is going to be a long time, and if they do the surveying 
work and they come to the conclusion that there is not going to be any 
oil or any gas there for them to take up from the ground, then that is 
fine. Then we will say, ``You've done your part.''
  But we are certainly not excited about giving them 200,000 more acres 
in Alaska and further development opportunities in the Outer 
Continental Shelf when they have those 68 million acres still 
available, there is oil underneath them, and we know that they are 
consciously making a decision not to pursue that oil.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I don't feel bad for the 
oil companies. They want to go drill here and we won't let them. There 
is a reason. Why wouldn't we want to let them go to ANWR if it were 
going to be this big major solution?
  Here are the facts of the matter. The green are areas of land that 
are open for leasing for oil offshore. Open for leasing is the green. 
What is closed is the red. They have all of this to go ahead and drill 
in. Go ahead. Drill. Drill to your heart's content. It's already open, 
the EPA permitting, you're ready, set, go. Go and do it.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. If I can clarify what this chart is, it's not quite 
accurate. It's even a more telling story. This chart shows where the 
known oil is in those 68 million acres that we are talking about. So 
that specific that they own the leases, they are able to drill there, 
and they are making a conscious decision not to do it. That is what 
that chart shows.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is not Sierra Club. This is the Minerals 
Management Service within the Department of the Interior. This is not 
us making this up. The 30 Somethings, we're big on the third-party 
validators.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Right. And the Department of the Interior is part of the 
executive branch run by President Bush.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Now here, does drilling lower gas prices? Okay. So 
the red here are drilling permits that have been issued from 1994. The 
blue are the wells that have been drilled. So you see that the permits 
have increased, especially in the last few years. The red are the 
permits. The blue are the wells that have been drilled and the wells 
that have not been drilled as to the permitting. So with all of this 
going on, the price of gas has skyrocketed, commodities issues and a 
lot of other things going on here. But what we are saying is, you have 
all of these permits to drill where the executive branch, President 
Bush's executive branch, is telling us that this is where the oil is, 
and the oil companies have found the oil there and got the permits and 
did the studies as you have pointed out earlier. And they have all this 
room here to dig, to drill, to pull the rigs up and to do everything 
that they have to do. And this is where you could pull out where these 
leases are, 4.8 million barrels of oil a day. In ANWR, it is how many 
barrels of oil a day?
  Mr. ALTMIRE. In 20 years it will be 800,000 barrels per day. In 10 
years it will be 40,000.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And that would save you 2 cents.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. In a worldwide market of 86 million barrels a day, less 
than 1 percent of the worldwide market.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It would be very little impact. I tell my 
constituents this all the time when we are chatting, if there is a 
politician that has one silver bullet, if we just do this, that all of 
these problems are going to go away, be very, very, very skeptical.

                              {time}  2000

  We grow up learning, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably 
is. The oil companies are spending a lot of money, I'm sure, through 
Internet traffic, through advertising and TV about how they're going 
green. So ExxonMobil, Mr. Speaker, has spent--the industry totally--$52 
million on advertising about how they're going green and everything 
else. ExxonMobil, of their $40 billion in profits, has spent $10 
million on alternative energy research and development. That is not the 
direction. So, when we say that it is important for us to shoot the 
Moon like we did in the 1960s and get into the alternative energy, 
that's why. That's what we have to do.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I had not seen that chart before, Mr. Ryan. I knew the 
numbers, but then you see the chart graphically where it shows a very 
clear trend.
  What is amazing about this is that's the whole thing, and I'm going 
to recommend that others take a look at this chart. If there is one 
thing people who are viewing this tonight could look at it is the 
argument that we hear most often, which is simple economics: The more 
you drill, the more the supply, and the less it's going to cost; the 
numbers are going to come down.
  This chart, which is using numbers from this administration, does not 
lie. It's exactly the opposite. Gas prices continue to skyrocket 
despite the fact there has been an exponential increase in the number 
of wells that have been drilled and in the number of permits that have 
been issued. This is really an amazing chart, and I hope that the 
gentleman will leave it up there so folks can look at it while he 
talks, but it completely dispels the argument on the other side that 
this is totally about drilling for more oil and that that's going to 
guarantee that prices will come down. We are drilling for more oil. We 
are issuing more permits by the thousands. Gas prices continue to 
skyrocket and to be at an all-time high.

[[Page 12826]]


  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So that's what we're saying, and that's what the 
whole new direction of Congress has been about, which is, when you're 
making these decisions, you have to base your public policy decisions 
on the facts. When the facts say this, that no matter how much you're 
drilling and you're not keeping up for whatever reason and you only 
have not even 2 percent of the total oil in the world that is in the 
United States, 1.6 percent, and you're consuming 25 percent, any 
businessperson who is sitting in our seat here, looking at these facts, 
would say we've got a problem. We can't keep drilling.
  You know, maybe we need to drill now and do what we can in the short 
term, but this is no long-term solution. This is clearly a problem that 
we have for our country. So, nuclear, biodiesel, wind, coal to liquid, 
whatever the case may be, those are the directions in which we need to 
move.
  Now, a lot of folks are talking about refining capacity, so I think 
it's important to realize that our refineries are currently running at 
88 percent. We are not at full capacity with our refineries. Everyone 
keeps saying, ``Build more refineries. Build more refineries.'' In 
2005, there was a 50 percent tax credit for any company that wanted to 
build a new refinery, and they have not. All of the big dogs over the 
last 20 or 30 years have said we have no interest in building a new 
refinery. They're making $130 billion in profits a year. Now, all of a 
sudden, we feel bad for the oil companies?
  The President basically came out today and said I know we're running 
down a dead end, but let's run faster. Let's put the juices on. Put on 
your new tennis shoes. You know, put on two pairs of socks so you don't 
get any blisters, and keep running down the wrong road until you just 
smack your head right into the wall.
  What we're saying is we know how that movie ends. We know. We don't 
have enough oil to drill our way out of this thing. That's how that 
ends.
  So let's, please, go in another direction, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Because that was one of the prongs of the President's 
plan that he put forward today, to continue on refineries, the 
gentleman mentioned that the CEOs of the oil companies, who annually 
come before Congress and tell their stories and justify their 
exorbitant profits--and this is not a slight on them. This is just what 
they say--say they are not interested in building more refineries.
  The President and Members on the other side will say, well, we 
haven't built a new refinery in 30 years.
  That's absolutely true, but what we have done a lot is expand the 
existing capacity of current refineries because that's what these oil 
executives have said in their testimony that they're a lot more 
interested in doing. It's a lot more cost effective for them to expand 
the capacity of already existing refineries than to build new ones and 
to go through all that's necessary to do that. So we have increased 
refinery capacity in this country over the last 30 years. That has gone 
up--that has not decreased--while the number of refineries has gone 
down.
  So, for the President to say, well, we've not built a new refinery in 
30 years, there are a couple of things. One is we've increased 
capacity, but more importantly, as the gentleman has said, 88 percent 
of the current capacity of the refineries is being used. Why would we 
look at building more refineries? Why would that be such an important 
part of the plan if we're only using 88 percent of the current 
refineries' capacity? So it makes no sense for that to be the major 
part of your plan that you put forward.
  I would suggest to anyone who is listening that, if you are expanding 
the capacity of refineries and you're still not operating at full 
capacity--you're only at 88 percent--it's probably not the best time to 
talk about building more refineries. It's probably not where you want 
to go.
  So, as we continue to talk about this issue moving forward, I would 
suggest to the gentleman from Ohio that we talk about facts, because 
you hear the slogan many times: You're entitled to your own opinion. 
You're not entitled to your own facts.
  Remember the facts: There are 68 million acres where we're currently 
allowed to drill where we know there's oil. The price of gas has 
skyrocketed despite the fact that we have exponentially increased in 
the last several years both the number of drilling permits that have 
been issued and the number of wells that have been drilled. We have 
greatly expanded our drilling in this country, and gas prices continue 
to skyrocket.
  There are 200,000 acres in ANWR that we're talking about that are in 
dispute. If we made that available to come on line in order to drill 
for more oil, that would bring up the total number of acres in this 
country that are available for oil drilling from 68 million to 68.2 
million. In 10 years, we would get approximately 40,000 barrels. In 20 
years, it would be 800,000 barrels, which, according to President 
Bush's own Department of Energy, would reduce the price of gas by less 
than 2 cents. So, when you add all of these factors up, I would suggest 
that we can't drill our way out of this problem.
  I know the gentleman is going to move on to talk about the Outer 
Continental Shelf, and at this point, I would yield back to him.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, we have other illustrative charts here. This 
is the Outer Continental Shelf: The acres that have been leased and the 
acres producing. So this is in the Outer Continental Shelf already, 44 
million acres, and only 10.5 million acres are being utilized. That's 
in the Outer Continental Shelf. It just helps. You read it, but it 
helps. These are statistics that are coming from the Energy Department. 
These aren't things that we're making up.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Before the gentleman moves on and if he could keep the 
acres chart up, if the other side were here, they would certainly say, 
well, we're talking about 44 million acres, but if you're drilling dry 
holes, you're not going to continue to do that; you're only going to 
drill where there's oil.
  These are acres the oil companies and gas companies, themselves, 
purchased. Nobody forced them into it. Nobody twisted their arms. They 
sought these acres because they knew there was oil and gas underneath 
them. They're not randomly chosen. There are 44 million acres where we 
know there's oil and gas. That's why the oil and gas companies made a 
conscious decision to purchase the leases, so that they could have them 
because they know there's oil and gas underneath. These are not lands 
and parts of the Outer Continental Shelf where there is no oil or gas. 
That is simply incorrect.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I'm sure the oil companies spent a good deal of 
money to identify the area. They hired a lot of geologists whom, I'm 
sure, they have working for them. They spent a lot of money and used a 
lot of technology to identify this.
  But this is the area that is underdeveloped, and the President comes 
out and says ignore all of this, and go to ANWR or do this, which is 
not even being done now, and then go to ANWR. There are 4.8 million 
barrels of oil that would come out of this per day at maximum 
production and, in ANWR, 800,000. This is the Outer Continental Shelf 
and this is onshore. It's the same kind of situation: 47 million. Only 
13.2 acres that are actually in production right now. Again, there is 
the number of permits.
  It's interesting because we kind of went through this a few years 
back. You'd hear testimony from executives, and you'd hear about supply 
and demand. Then with the situation dealing with Enron, all of a 
sudden, it was not supply and demand. All of a sudden, it was all this 
manipulation that was going on.
  Our job here is to oversee what is going on in the markets and figure 
out how we can make sure that everything is above board, that 
everything is legal.
  Now, a few weeks ago on a Friday, the increase in the cost of a 
barrel of oil was more than a whole barrel of oil cost 10 years prior 
to. Something funny is going on here, and I think we need to move with 
the commodities issue. We've already done the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve. We've already passed

[[Page 12827]]

out of the House that which deals with the cartels. These are steps 
that we are taking, but if we don't move into the alternative energy 
category, we're going to be sitting here 10 years from now, dealing 
with the same, exact issue that we're dealing with today.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Because these are 10-year solutions that we're talking 
about when we're talking about creating new areas where we can drill.
  I think we've exhausted the topic about the number of acres that are 
available for current drilling. They want to increase the amount of 
acres.
  So what, I think, is instructive to look at and what we should 
discuss is how we got where we are today. Some would say, well, there's 
no point in looking back. We have to move forward and start the process 
from where we are right now because we can't do anything about the 
decisions that were made in the past. Certainly, that is true. There 
are a number of factors that affect the price of gas that have led to 
the skyrocketing prices that families all across this country are 
forced to pay. We can do nothing about the increased demand in growing 
nations like China and India. It's a huge problem. It's going to 
continue, and it's going to greatly impact the price of gas moving 
forward. There's not much we can do about that.
  The speculation in the market is something we can do something about, 
the manipulation that takes place in the commodities market, and this 
Congress is going to be bringing forth legislation to deal with that 
very complicated issue about how the oil commodities are traded and 
what the sources are of that manipulation. Congress is going to try and 
figure out a way that we can regulate that in an effective way.
  The estimation is that that will lead to a decrease in the price per 
barrel of oil of up to $30 per barrel. That's a significant chunk. It's 
not everything. It's going to have a real impact, though, for families 
all across this country.
  When you hear people discuss what the options are moving forward, I 
think it's instructive to look at the judgment of the people who are 
making those arguments and what the decisions they've made in the past 
have led to. One of the issues that has led to the increased price of 
oil and price per barrel on the worldwide market is the decrease in the 
U.S. dollar. So what is the cause for the decrease in the U.S. dollar?
  Well, two of the largest reasons are the trade deficit, that the 
gentleman talks about, where we've added $1.5 trillion in foreign-held 
debt. This is only debt held by foreign nations. $1.5 trillion. That's 
over the past 7 years. To put that in perspective, when President Bush 
took office in 2001, his 42 predecessors in the 220 years up to that 
point had accumulated a foreign-held debt in that entire time of $1 
trillion.

                              {time}  2015

  So the President has gone $1.5 trillion in 7 years, equaled, and then 
by half again what his 42 predecessors did.
  The $3.5 trillion in debt that has been rolled up over the past 7\1/
2\ years, $3.5 trillion debt that this country simply cannot afford, so 
I think it's instructive to take a walk down memory lane for what the 
economy looked like, what the debt looked like when President Bush took 
office. The 10-year projection was for a $5.5 trillion surplus over 10 
years, $5.5 trillion surplus. That's what we were supposed to see.
  Well, it's not what we saw. We saw a $3.5 trillion deficit over only 
7\1/2\ years with more to come, unfortunately, because we can't dig 
ourselves out overnight from the huge hole that we've been given.
  Now, what does that do to the price of the dollar? Well, we have seen 
what that does to the price of the dollar. It's almost at historic lows 
and oil is traded by the dollar in the worldwide market. That has had 
an enormous impact on the price of oil, and that has had an enormous 
impact on the price of gas at the pump.
  So when you hear people give their opinion of where to go from here, 
what are the strategies we can use in both the short-term and the long 
term, I do think it's instructive to look at some of the ideas that 
those individuals had and those groups had in years leading up to the 
crisis that we now face.
  The gentleman from Ohio may want to continue along these lines. I 
would yield back to him.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think it's important that we realize that this is 
not going to be some kind of very narrow solution to the problems that 
the country is in now. The point is that when President Bush came into 
office, there was a pretty good economic forecast, a lot of things were 
stable, it was time to make some key investments. That did not happen, 
and the situation got dramatically worse.
  The middle class has continued to get squeezed, whether it was energy 
costs, health care costs, tuition costs, everything in the 6 years in 
which the President was pushing all of his agendas. I've said this more 
than one time on this House floor. There is no need to wonder about 
what the neoconservative Republican agenda would look like, because we 
are living in it today.
  All you have to do is go to the gas pump, get your health care bill, 
pay your kids' college tuition, deal with the global environment, look 
at the foreign policy of this country, the destabilization of the 
Middle East, unable to deal with China. We deal with a lot of trade 
issues, with China, with Wheatland Tube that has a facility in my 
district, a facility in your district, in imports coming in from China.
  It's tough for us to advocate the administration to be hard on China, 
to take a firm stance on China, because the administration at the same 
time is borrowing money from China to finance the $12 billion a month 
for the war in Iraq.
  So the foreign policy of the United States has destabilized the 
region where a lot of the oil is, and that has not helped the 
situation. Our domestic problems continue to exist because we are 
living under the President's current economic policies. The debt burden 
that has been placed on our children and grandchildren over the next 
generation was put in place, the $3 trillion borrowed, this is the 
conservative Republican agenda currently implemented.
  We are trying now to take the Congress in a new direction and to move 
into alternative energy so we don't have this dependency which would 
relieve the pressure for a lot of the foreign policy issues that we are 
dealing with, to use PAYGO to pay for what we are spending here in 
Washington D.C., to try to repair this debt and eventually pare down 
the debt so that we can have a firm negotiating stance with China, 
these all fit together. We can't continue to go down this same road. At 
every instance, the New Direction Congress has changed course from the 
current administration.
  But that did not stop the President from coming before the American 
people today and asking the American people to continue to go down a 
road that is a dead end, and that's drilling.
  It's amazing to me, whether we are dealing with the supplemental, or 
dealing with the regular order of business here in Congress, when we 
try to push an agenda of helping the soldiers, for example, we are 
trying to get the GI Bill, which would pay for 4 years of college for 
our soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, for free. They 
have served this country. We need an economic recovery, we need brain 
power. These young men and young women should have 3, 4 years of 
college.
  But the President says, we don't have the money and turns around and 
asks for $140 billion in the supplemental to continue the war at $12 
billion a month.
  Now, I don't think anyone is saying tomorrow, we are going to be able 
to pull out of Iraq. I think everyone knows that this would be a 
process. But what we are saying is why do we always have money for war, 
and then when our soldiers come back and we want to put them through 
college and reward the effort, all of a sudden the President says we 
don't have the money when he has just got done borrowing $3 trillion.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. The gentleman is correct. For those who may be entering 
the chamber at this point or joining the debate, it may seem like this 
is a

[[Page 12828]]

partisan argument. It's not. What we are discussing here are simply the 
facts of how we got to where we are today.
  I won't dwell on that argument. I think we have talked about it, but 
it is definitely something to consider, as we move forward, that the 
reason we are where we are today is the direct result of the decisions 
that were made in public policy over the last several years.
  When you hear people advocating ways to dig us out of the enormous 
hole that we are in, I would suggest it is worthwhile to look at what 
the outcomes have been of the policies that they have put forward over 
the years.
  Lastly, and then we can move on to the GI Bill, because I think 
that's a very important discussion as well, we talk about the facts of 
the gas price issue. I would hope, maybe it would be helpful for us to 
get together with our friends on the other side and do one of these 
Special Orders one night.
  I am sure Mr. Peterson from Pennsylvania would love to join us that 
night. I have a world of respect for him and his knowledge on this 
issue, and he certainly knows it as well as anybody. Maybe we could get 
together one day with a group and have a debate, not a debate, a 
discussion on the issue and let the American people hear the arguments 
on both sides.
  I think we certainly would be willing to do that on our side.
  But when you hear the discussion, I think we need to look at the 
facts. You can have your own opinion. You can't have your own facts. We 
talked about the fact, the chart that is next to the gentleman.
  As the number of wells and the number of drilling permits have gone 
up, gas prices have gone up right up along with it. It is incorrect, it 
is false, and don't let anybody get away with saying that as you 
increase the amount of oil that we are drilling for in this country, 
the price of oil is going to go down. That simply has not happened. We 
have experience over the past 4 and 5 years, as you can see on that 
chart.
  But another fact that came up time and again, over the last couple of 
years, I heard it in the 2006 election from people in the State of 
Pennsylvania where I am from, I continued to hear it over the past 
couple of years, that China was drilling off the coast of Cuba in 
waters that were 60 miles from the shores of this country in Florida. I 
heard it time and again. China is drilling 60 miles from our shores, 
and that is alarming. That's an alarming fact. Or is it a fact?
  What we found out is that China is not drilling off the coast of 
Cuba, and those on the other side who had been making that claim, some 
who hold extremely high office in this country, had to retract what 
they said and acknowledge that, in fact, they were mistaken on that. It 
may be an honest mistake in some cases.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I would.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I just want to share, because this is third-party 
validation.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask to have this submitted for the Record, all 
these quotes in order.
  Vice President Dick Cheney:
  ``Oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. 
We're not doing it. The Chinese are in cooperation with the Cuban 
government.'' That was June 12.
  Minority Leader Boehner:
  ``Right at this moment, some 60 miles or less off the coast of Key 
West, Florida, China has the green light to drill for oil in order to 
lower energy costs in that country. Do Congressional Democrats really 
trust the Chinese that much more than Americans?'' That was from June 
11 of this year.
  Minority Whip Roy Blunt:
  ``Even China recognizes that oil and natural gas is readily available 
off our shores; thanks to Fidel Castro, they've been given a permit to 
drill for oil 45 miles from the Florida Keys. U.S. energy producers 
can't go there, and that's because our Congress won't let them.'' That 
was also on June 11.
  But then, as you stated earlier, Congressional Research Service says, 
facts, third-party validator, nonpartisan Congressional Research 
Service:
  ``While there has been some concern about China's potential 
involvement in offshore deepwater oil projects, to date its involvement 
in Cuba's oil sector has been focused on onshore extraction in Pinar 
del Rio province through its state-run China Petroleum and Chemical 
Corporation (Sinopec).''
  From the Miami Herald, they had a quote from Jorge Pinon, an energy 
expert at the University of Miami:
  ``China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period.'' 
This gentleman, from Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy, who 
supports oil and gas exploration, said he met with several 
congressional offices Wednesday about the China-Cuba connection. He 
said he told them: ``If you guys want to use this as a scare tactic to 
lift the moratorium on drilling off the west coast of Florida, at least 
be factual, be correct. They didn't do their homework.''

                             June 12, 2008

Republicans Use Scare Tactics To Promote Failed ``Drill & Veto'' Energy 
    Policies of the Past; GOP Claims China Is Drilling for Oil Off 
                      Florida's Coast Proven False

       American families and businesses are struggling to keep up 
     with skyrocketing gas prices--now averaging a record high of 
     $4.06 per gallon across the country. Instead of working with 
     Democrats to pass legislation addressing high energy costs 
     and moving America to energy independence, Congressional 
     Republicans are spreading scare tactics and proven falsehoods 
     to push their failed ``drill and veto'' energy policies of 
     the past.
       Republican leaders--including Vice President Cheney--have 
     recently claimed that China is drilling for oil off the coast 
     of Cuba ``60 miles off the coast of Florida.'' But the facts 
     show China does not have a deepwater drilling contract in 
     Cuba.

     From the Congressional Research Service:
       ``While there has been some concern about China's potential 
     involvement in offshore deepwater oil projects, to date its 
     involvement in Cuba's oil sector has been focused on onshore 
     oil extraction in Pinar del Rio province through its state-
     run China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation. (Sinopec)'' 
     [CRS, 2/29/08]
     From today's Miami Herald:
       ``China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, 
     period. . . .,'' said Jorge Pinon, an energy expert at the 
     University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy. . . .
       ``Pinon, who supports oil and gas exploration, said he met 
     with several congressional offices Wednesday about the China-
     Cuba connection. He said he told them: `If you guys want to 
     use this as a scare tactic to lift the moratorium on drilling 
     off the west coast of Florida, at least be factual, be 
     correct.' They didn't do their homework.'' [6/12/08]

       The New Direction Congress is committed to bringing real 
     relief to those feeling the pinch from high gas and diesel 
     prices and ensuring the needs of families and businesses are 
     put before the interests of Big Oil. The American people 
     deserve the truth and a cleaner, greener, more energy 
     efficient future.
     Republican Scare Quotes:

     Vice President Dick Cheney:
       ``[O]il is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast 
     of Florida. We're not doing it. The Chinese are in 
     cooperation with the Cuban government.'' [6/12/08]

     Minority Leader John Boehner:
       ``Right at this moment, some 60 miles or less off the coast 
     of Key West, Florida, China has the green light to drill for 
     oil in order to lower energy costs in that country . . . Do 
     congressional Democrats really trust the Chinese that much 
     more than Americans?'' [6/11/08]

     Minority Whip Roy Blunt:
       ``Even China recognizes that oil and natural gas is readily 
     available off our shores; thanks to Fidel Castro, they've 
     been given a permit to drill for oil 45 miles from the 
     Florida Keys. U.S. energy producers can't go there, and 
     that's because our Congress won't let them.'' [6/11/08]

     Rep. George Radanovich (R-California):
       ``Florida, for example, has objected to U.S. oil 
     exploration off its coast. But China, thanks to a lease 
     issued by Cuba, is drilling for oil just 50 miles off 
     Florida's coast. America's offshore drilling policy amounts 
     to a government handout of U.S. natural resources to foreign 
     countries in the name of environmental protection.'' [6/10/
     08]

  Mr. ALTMIRE. That's the point that we are talking about. We are 
talking about facts. We can have a debate. We can have a discussion. 
There are clear differences of opinion. We are all on the same side. We 
all want to see gas prices lowered both in the short term and the long 
term. There is no animosity. This is not a game of gotcha.

[[Page 12829]]

  It's unfortunate what happened to some of the individuals that you 
mentioned who put forward with great confidence a fact that turned out 
not to be true. But the point we are making is not gotcha. The point we 
are making is consider the history of the commentary that you hear from 
people, consider the factual basis which does not support their 
argument and consider the outcomes of the policies that they have put 
forward over the past 7 and 8 years, and that's leading us to where we 
are today. That's what we are talking about.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. That's exactly correct. That lets the facts speak 
for themselves. That's why we always have third-party validators and, 
as we stated earlier, go back to the war. Now you have the President's 
former press secretary talking about what really happened:
  ``We're going to be able to use the oil for reconstruction.''
  ``We're going to be greeted as liberators.''
  ``We had nothing to do with outing a CIA agent.''
  ``If we just keep cutting taxes for rich people, the middle class 
will at some point benefit, and we will stimulate the whole economy.''
  ``The tax cuts lead to more revenue.''
  Is that why we borrowed $3 trillion over the last 3 years?
  And now it's if we just drill more, we're going to reduce the cost of 
gas, which is not the case. Or if we just drill in ANWR, we're going to 
significantly reduce the cost of gas. Then it was in the last week or 
two, China's right off the coast of Cuba stealing it from us. We should 
be there. Not true.
  All of these have not been true, and now the same gentlemen who 
provided all of those arguments and used the bully pulpit to provide 
all those arguments are now saying, let's just keep going down the 
wrong road.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Well, that's it. I think the gentleman hit the nail on 
the head. I don't know what more we could add on this issue.
  Could I inquire to the Chair how much time we have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Space). The gentleman has 8 minutes.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. Well, if we could talk for a minute about the GI Bill, 
as the gentleman mentioned, there is no group that should stand ahead 
of our Nation's veterans when it comes time to making policy decisions, 
plain and simple. I think most people in this Chamber would agree with 
that.
  So what has this Congress done recently to help our Nation's 
veterans? Well, last year we had the largest increase in the 77-year 
history of the VA, health system funding increase. We have increased 
screening and treatment of traumatic brain injuries at every VA health 
care facility.
  We have extended family and medical leave to cover our military Guard 
and Reserve. We have covered small business entrepreneurship 
opportunities for returning veterans. We have increased the capital and 
the grants and loans that are available to small business owners who 
served, themselves, in the Guard and Reserve. We have a tremendous 
record of achievement on veterans in this Congress.
  What we are taking up this week, probably, is the GI Bill. As the 
gentleman said, the GI Bill has not been updated since 1944 and not 
modernized.

                              {time}  2030

  So we are talking about more than 60 years since the GI bill has been 
modernized. This Congress took a step to say if you serve in the 
military for 3 or more years since September 11, you will qualify for 
the new GI bill which says you will be allowed to attend a State 
institution, State university in your State and we will pay for it 
because we want to thank you for what you have done for this country. 
You have earned that benefit. We can never thank you enough for putting 
your life on the line and the sacrifice that you have made and that 
your family made. So we are going to offer you something in the long 
run that will benefit all of us, educating people.
  There is a continuing benefit to society of educating our veterans 
and giving them a step up so they can get out into society and continue 
their own careers, which helps everybody. And so we took that step in 
this Congress of modernizing the GI bill because it had been less than 
$10,000 that were available under the current GI bill.
  I think anyone who has kids who are going to college or had to pay 
for their college themselves realizes $10,000 in today's world doesn't 
get you very far with regard to higher education.
  We not only pay for the tuition at the State university rate in the 
State where the veteran lives, we also have a stipend for housing costs 
and ancillary things like books. We will not pay for everything, but we 
will help. And certainly the veterans who have earned that benefit 
deserve every penny of that, and I am sure the gentleman agrees.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely. One of the issues is we have in this 
country only 300 million people. We are now competing in a globalized 
economy with China and India and a variety of other rising economic 
countries. So we have to make a point that all of our 300 million 
citizens, a major disadvantage in human capital, are educated.
  You've probably had a similar experience as I have had dealing with 
interns and staff members and people you have met back in the district. 
The benefits that a soldier brings to your organization, because of the 
discipline, the focus and the organizational skills, the ability to 
deal with situations that are very challenging, and you add to that a 
college degree or a master's degree or a Ph.D. or a law degree, you are 
talking about someone who is prepared to really contribute value to 
whatever organization they are joining, whether it is government or 
business. There can't be a better investment to make.
  And why is it that we have enough wherewithal to borrow the money for 
the $12 billion a month, but when these soldiers come back, the 
President says I'm going to veto that bill. We don't have the money for 
that bill.
  I think of all of the issues that you mentioned earlier, it is 
important for us to recognize that last year under a Democratic 
Congress, led by Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid, we made the largest 
increase for veterans' benefits in the 77-year history of the VA 
because as Democrats, we are committed to the soldiers. Whether you are 
on one side of the war issue or another, we all say we are behind the 
soldier. And when the soldier comes home, you will have the health care 
and the benefits you deserve. And we want to add onto that this GI 
bill. So we have made that commitment and will continue to push for 
that commitment for this GI bill so we can reward the soldiers. It is 
important for us to deal with this issue.
  All of these posters with all of the information can be found on the 
Speaker's Website, the 30-Something Website that we have. You will be 
able to find, you will be able to get all of these. All of these are 
available for Members to look at and analyze and to get a visual of 
what we have been talking about over the last few minutes.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. We will close it out now, and we want to thank the 
Speaker for the opportunity to address the Chamber tonight.
  Any of the charts that we have talked about, and I really would 
encourage Members to take a look at them, can be found on 
www.speaker.gov/30somethings.

                          ____________________