[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1327]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1910
                          ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

  (Mr. BURTON of Indiana asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, as a follow-up to what was just 
said by my colleague from Pennsylvania, we all know about the problems 
in the Middle East. There's a real problem in Egypt. We don't know 
about that government, how it's going to turn out. There's problems in 
the gulf states, there's problems in other parts of the Middle East, 
and we get at least 30 percent of our energy from that area. We also 
get about 20 percent of our energy from Venezuela, and the President 
down there, Mr. Chavez, is no friend of ours.
  If we don't move toward energy independence and there's a real 
problem in the Middle East, we've got problems here in this country. 
Can you imagine what would happen if we had 30 percent of our energy 
cut off because there was a blockage of the Suez Canal or the Straits 
of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf? We must move toward energy independence.
  The President is blocking us from getting permits to drill in the 
gulf, we can't drill in the ANWR, we can't drill off the continental 
shelf, we can't use coal shale to produce oil. We have enough energy in 
this country to move to energy independence in 10 years with natural 
gas and these other fossil fuels. But the President will not move.
  We're not going to solve this problem with windmills and solar 
energy. We've got to solve it with the energy that we have before us 
right now. It's in our national security and our economic security that 
we ought to do this.

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