American Energy Independence and Price Reduction Act

Today oil, I think, went to its highest price ever, about $140 a barrel. So all of America is now thinking about energy and oil, and I would like to start this evening's discussion by referring to some comments made in a speech 51 years ago, the 14th day of this past May, by Hyman Rickover, the father of our nuclear submarine, to a group of physicians in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

I would encourage everyone to pull this speech up, a Google search for ``Rickover'' and ``energy speech'' and it will pop up. Or you can go to our Web site, and you will find a link there to it.

Hyman Rickover was a very perceptive person, and every time I read this speech I am again amazed at how prophetic and insightful he was. He says in this speech 51 years ago, Remember now, there is nothing man can do to rebuild exhausted fossil fuel reserves. They were created, he says, by solar energy 500 million years ago and took eons to grow to their present volume. In the face of the basic fact that fossil fuel reserves are finite, the exact length of time these reserves will last is important in only one respect--and this is 51 years ago--the longer they last, the more time do we have to invent ways of living off renewable or substitute energy sources and to adjust our economy to the vast changes which we can expect from such a shift. This was counseled 51 years ago.

What he's saying is that it's obvious that oil cannot be forever. That it is finite; one day it will run out. He noted that at this time we were about 100 years into the age of oil, which he called ``this golden age,'' and he noted that how long it lasted was important in only one regard: that the longer it lasted, the more time would we have to plan an orderly transition to other sources of energy which will, of necessity, be renewable sources of energy.

Then this last little paragraph here is one that I really like. It is so perceptive and so prophetic of what our attitude has been. Fossil fuels, he says, resemble capital in the bank. A prudent and responsible parent, that is the leaders of the world's countries, will use this capital sparingly in order to pass on to his children as much as possible of his inheritance. A selfish and irresponsible parent will squander it in riotous living and not care one wit how his offspring will fare.

The next chart is an additional quote from this same speech. He says, I suggest this is a good time to think soberly about our responsibilities to our descendents. We really haven't done that, have we? I have 10 kids and 16 grandkids and two great-grandkids, and I think a lot about our responsibility to our descendents, those who will ring out the fossil fuel age. Hyman Rickover noted that in 8,000 years of recorded history that the age of oil would be but a blip in the history of man.

We might give a break to these youngsters by cutting fuel and metal consumption so as to provide a safer margin for the necessary adjustments which eventually must be made in a world without fossil fuels.

Our behavior has in no way indicated that we recognize the inevitability of reaching a maximum production of oil and then less and less and less oil until finally there is none of it left. Obviously, it is not infinite. Obviously, one day it will be gone. Where are we? Where are we in this long sequence of events from the discovery of oil, its massive use, and finally the waning use of oil until we finally transition to other fossil fuels?

The next chart shows what's happened in our country, and we need to go back 52 years ago to kind of put this in perspective because 52 years ago, the 8th day of March, in San Antonio, Texas, an oil geologist by the name of M. King Hubbert gave a speech to a group of executives and other oil people assembled there in San Antonio. And he told them that in just 14 years, the United States--which was then, I think, king of oil, producing more oil, consuming more oil, exporting more oil than any other country in the world--he said in just 14 years, our country is going to reach its maximum production of oil. And after that, no matter what we did, the production of oil was going to fall off, as you can see from the chart here which shows the production of oil in our country.

And he was predicting the lower 48, Texas and the rest of the U.S.A., and to him the rest of the U.S.A. was the rest of the 48 States. And in 1956 at this point he was predicting that in 1970, just 14 years later, that we would reach a maximum oil production. After that, it would fall off.

Now, we found a lot of oil in Alaska, and we found some oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and we learned to get more natural gas liquids; but in spite of this huge discovery in Alaska and through that 4-foot pipeline--and I've been to Dead Horse, to Prudhoe Bay and seen the beginning of that pipeline--through that for a number of years flowed 25 percent of our domestic production.

In spite of that, except for this little blip, it's been down, down, down. And now in the lower 48 we produce well less than half of the oil that we did in 1970.

We have tried very hard to make M. King Hubbert out a liar. We have drilled more oil wells than all the rest of the world put together. We are really, really good at finding oil. We're really, really good at pumping oil.

The next chart shows that another prediction M. King Hubbert made has, in fact, almost certainly come true. In 1979, that's just 9 years after we peaked in our country, using his same analysis technique, he predicted that the world would be peaking about now.

Just a word about his analysis and how he did it. It's no magic. He observed that in our country that an individual oil field increased its production until it reached a maximum production, at which time about half the oil had been pumped, and then the last half of the oil, as is reasonable, was harder to get and so less and less was pumped. So you had a little bell curve produced by that.

And he reasoned that if he knew how many little bell curves there were in our country and how many more fields we would find, that he could then predict when we would be reaching our maximum oil production. And using that technique, he predicted correctly that we would reach our maximum production in 1970, just 14 years after he made that prediction.

Using that same technique, he looked at the world and the world fields and all of the countries producing oil, and he calculated that we should be reaching the world maximum production, called ``peak oil,'' about now.

On this chart are two curves. These are data collected by the two entities in the world that probably do the best job of keeping track of the production and consumption of oil, and of course they're the same. We use what we produce. This is the IEA, it's an international organization, and the EIA, the Energy Information Administration, a part of our Department of Energy. And both of these, as you can see, have oil production essentially flat for the last 36 months.

Now, what's happened with this flat oil production for the last 36 months is

shown by this lower curve here, and obviously this is a bit old because this shows oil at only $95 a barrel. I didn't make it all that long ago, this chart. It now would be well off the top. I think it hit $140 a barrel today. Well, that's what happens when you have a static supply and an increasing demand. The price goes up and up.

The next chart, and this is a really information-filled chart, and if you had only one chart to use, this would be the chart because it has so much information in it. The bars here show the discoveries of oil and the year on the abscissa here on which they were discovered. And you see that we were finding a lot of oil back in the 1940s. By the way, I can remember when gasoline was kind of a little gas war, and it was kind of on sale. It was $6 per gallon. Another age, wasn't it?

Then we found a bunch in the 1950s, and boy, it really peaked out in about the 1970s, which is interestingly the time that M. King Hubbert said that we would reach our maximum oil production.

And then ever since then, it's been down, down, down, down, down, and that's with ever better techniques for discovering oil. We now have 3-D seismic. We have computer modeling. And still our discoveries of oil, year by year, on average have gone down, down, down.

The solid black line here represents the consumption of oil, and we're going to see this curve on several of the other charts that we're going to show. And this shows a very interesting exponential growth through the Carter years, with a stunning statistic.

Every decade up through the Carter years, we used as much oil as we had used in all of previous history. Now, think about that for a moment. Had we continued on that path, when you have used up half of your oil, you would have just 10 years of oil remaining. But fortunately, we didn't think it was so fortunate at the time. Fortunately, we had the Arab oil embargo price spike hikes in the 1970s, and a worldwide recession resulted from that, and there was actually a decrease in the use of oil. It actually fell off.

Following that, we really put some effort into efficiency. Your refrigerator is now two or three times more efficient than it was then, and most of the energy using things, your refrigerator, your air conditioner, are very much more efficient than they were then. So now the rate of growth is very much slower, as you can see. Notice what would have happened had we not had that shock and put some effort into efficiency. This curve would have gone off the top of the chart here.

Well, you know that if you integrate under a curve, the area under the curve represents, in this case, the volume used. You can understand that, if you note that, you could round off these discoveries by putting a line like so, and the area under that line would represent the totality of the discoveries. So the area under this line represents how much we have used.

From about 1980 on, we have found less and less on the average each year, and we've been using more, but we had a lot of reserves back here that we hadn't used. So now we are dipping into these reserves, and we're filling in this area here with reserves from back here.

Now, yes, here are some reserves, and we'll find some more. There's a lot of dispute about how much more we're going to find, but I will tell you that most of the world's experts believe that we have probably found about 95 percent of everything that we will find, and the new finds are really interesting. The big one in the Gulf of Mexico, for instance, was under 7,000 feet of water, 30,000 feet of rock, and they haven't yet started to exploit it with oil at $140 barrel because it's very hard to get here.

Now, what will the future look like? Well, you're going to have to make some guesses and educated guesses as to how much more we're going to find. Those who put this chart together think that on the average it will be like so, but obviously, it won't be as nice, smooth like that. It will be up and down, but on the average like that. I'd draw the line a little lower actually if I were averaging, a little lower than that.

Then we have all of these reserves back here we haven't used, and so we now, in addition to what we find in the future, we can use more because we can use them back here. And so we will be going down, down, down. If we go up, up, up, by the way, you're soon going to run out of these and fall off of a cliff, but fortunately, geology won't let us do that because we can only get it so fast, which is our problem today. We aren't able to produce oil any faster than we are now producing it. Within some limits, we can control what the future looks like with enhanced oil recovery and so forth, but one thing you cannot do is pump oil that is not there.

I'd like now to return to the next chart to another quote from Hyman Rickover. He says: Whether this golden age, this age of oil which he called the golden age, will continue depends entirely upon our ability to keep energy supplies in balance with the needs of our growing population.

That is precisely what we have not done. You saw in one of the previous charts, the demand has grown and the supply is static, and when that happens, of course, you have an increase in price, and the price has gone up from $10 a barrel a relatively few years ago to $140 a barrel today.

The next chart is from one of four studies that our government has paid for. This was the first of those four studies and the biggest. This one was done by the big SAIC corporation, Science Applications International Corporation, a huge, very well-regarded company. And the study was headed by Robert Hirsch, and so this is called the Hirsch Report, and they present a chart there which is a very interesting one.

For reasons that are difficult to understand, some, including some in our Energy Department, are predicting that we will find as much more oil as all the reserves that are yet to be pumped. And it's a really interesting story how they got there to that conclusion. But they're predicting that we will find almost as much oil as we now know exists that we can pump.

Most of the world's experts--and this number will be up and down a little bit--but most of the world's experts believe that the recoverable oil at the end of the day will be about 2 trillion barrels. This table has it at 2.248 trillion barrels, roughly 2 trillion barrels. They're predicting that we'll find enough more to represent 3 trillion barrels. That's a lot more oil to find from that previous chart we showed. You would have to reverse the trends of the last 30 years, where it's been down, down, down, and now you're going to reverse that and it's going to go up? Laherrere says that what they're proposing is absolutely implausible. Laherrere is a French expert in this area.

But I show you this chart because even if we found that much more oil, the maximum production of oil would be pushed out only, according to this chart, to 2016. That curve that I told you you would see again and again, the rapid increase in use through the Carter years, the oil price spike shocks of the 1970s, the reduced demand worldwide, and then the slower rate of growth now, they're predicting a 2 percent growth. This is 2 percent.

By the way, exponential growth, Albert Einstein was asked what the next great force in the universe was going to be after nuclear energy, and he said the greatest force in the universe is the power of compound interest. You see, 2 percent growth, and that's so small that our stock market really doesn't like that, and it begins to go negative with 2 percent growth. But 2 percent growth doubles in 35 years. It's four times bigger in 70 years. It's eight times bigger in 105 years. And it's 16 times bigger in 140 years. So even very modest growth like 2 percent, gee, that's not much, but it's 16 times bigger in 140 years. And we still expect our children's children to be around in 140 years.

Now, this chart has another illustration on it. Suppose we're able to use some enhanced oil recovery and really suck it out fast, and you now continue up to 2037. You've now pushed the peak over to 2037, and then you fall off a cliff. Again, you cannot pump what is not there.

I will tell you that this is most unlikely to happen. I do not think the technologies are there to pump the oil that fast, but the point that I wanted to make in this chart was that even if

we found as much more oil as all of the oil that's now known to be there that can be pumped, it would push the peak out--this chart says only to 2016. That's not very out. That's just around the corner.

As a matter of fact, that Hirsch Report said that unless you anticipated peak oil by two decades you would have some economic consequences. If you anticipated it by only a decade, you would have very serious economic consequences. So even if this is true, even if this is true that we find as much more oil as all the oil that we currently know is out there to be pumped, it would push it out only to 2016. So we should have started an aggressive program of renewables a couple of years ago if we're going to avoid serious economic consequences.

The next chart is just another chart showing this same phenomenon, how little additional time you get with enormously increased discoveries of oil, and you need to think about this when you're thinking about pumping the oil in ANWR and on the Outer Continental Shelf and under our public lands. If ANWR has 10 billion barrels of oil--and that's the 50 percent probability. The 95 percent probability is considerably less than that, and 95 percent is more probable obviously than 50 percent probability. But suppose it has the 50 percent probability, that oil would last the world only 120 days. Now, I say the world because under present circumstances it is impossible not to share your oil with the world, because if we use oil that we produce, then the oil we might have bought from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia or Iran, someone else can buy. So, in reality, you are sharing your oil with the world.

Well, the only way not to do that, by the way, is to own so much oil that you don't need to get any from the outside, and then to use it all for yourself, even though others may need the oil more than you. Obviously we're not going to be doing that because we have only 2 percent of the known reserves of oil, and we use 25 percent of the world's oil.

This chart shows that roughly 2 trillion again. They show it as 1.92 trillion, and they show the peak occurring about 2010 roughly now with that. But if we find, again, this huge amount of additional oil and it goes up to 2.93 trillion, roughly the 3 trillion that you saw in the previous one, that will move the peak out only to about this point. It's a little different in their calculation, how far it moves the peak out, but all of this is within the lifetime of our children. And then they think that we will find a lot of unconventional oil. In a little bit I think we'll have a chance to talk about some of that unconventional oil. We may get a lot of that. We may not get much of that.

There's another dimension in this whole discussion that I have a couple of charts on, and the next chart introduces this, and that is the geopolitical implications of where we are.

This was a statement by Condoleezza Rice, our Secretary of State in 2006: We have to do something about the energy problem. I can tell you that nothing has really taken me aback more as Secretary of State than the way that the politics of energy is, I will use the word, ``warping'' diplomacy around the world. We have simply got to do something about the warping now of diplomatic effort by the all-out rush for energy supply.

And I'm sure that she had in her mind when she said that the next chart, which is a really interesting chart. And this shows the world according to oil, and this shows you what our world would look like if the size of each country was determined by the amount of oil that it had.

And you see here that Saudi Arabia really dominates the landscape, and it should because Saudi Arabia has, we believe, 22 percent of all the reserves in all the world. And notice the countries very near them: Iraq, tiny little Kuwait, Iran. These are one, two, three and four in terms of supply of oil in reserves in all the world. United Arab Emirates, you almost have to have a magnifying glass to find them on the map, and look how much oil they have. Here we are, United States, bunch up there in Canada and the Lower 48 here. We only have 2 percent of the oil in the world. This represents one-fiftieth of the land mass here.

And our biggest supplier of oil is Canada. Our third biggest supplier of oil--it was the second until a few months ago--is Mexico. And notice, they have less oil than we. As a matter of fact, together I don't know that they have any more oil than we have. They're exporters, because in Canada there aren't very many people, and in Mexico the people are too poor to buy the oil, and so they're able to export it. Now our second largest supplier is Saudi Arabia. Notice, Venezuela dwarfs everything else in this hemisphere.

Another really interesting thing to look at is the size of China and India in this ``World According to Oil.'' Here they are, China and India; about 2.3 or 4 billion people total, having less oil than the United States, with a booming economy. The economy in China, the last data I saw, growing at 11.7 percent. Japan in its heyday never grew faster than that, and notice the tiny amount of oil that they have.

Notice Russia. Russia is one of the largest exporters in the world today. They don't have the most oil by any means, but they're very aggressively pumping their oil and exporting it. And they are considerably larger, many times larger than we, and they have a much smaller population than we have. Well, very interesting map. And this points out some of the geopolitical realities in the world.

The next chart shows China's response to this reality. China has seen this ``World According to Oil,'' and this is their response to it. This shows our globe, and it shows the countries on it. And these little symbols represent who is buying the oil. Now, there are a few dollar signs, not very many, as you see. And there are a lot of these symbols that represent China. As a matter of fact, they almost bought Unocal in our country. Remember all of the hysteria over that possibility a couple of years ago?

Look what they're doing in the Middle East. Look what they're doing in northern Africa. Look what they're doing in Indonesia and in Russia. They're buying oil all over the world. At the same time, thinking about this geopolitical picture, at the same time that they are aggressively buying oil they are aggressively building a blue water navy. Why would they buy the oil when in today's world it doesn't make any difference who owns the oil? We own only 2 percent of the world's oil, but we use--and the next chart will show that. The next chart shows that we use 25 percent of the world's oil, owning only 2 percent of it. And we import almost two-thirds of what we use. And we're able to do that because he who comes to the auction block with the dollars buys the oil.

So why would China buy oil when in today's world it doesn't make any difference who owns the oil? The country that comes with the dollars buys the oil. Could it be that they're buying this oil and building this huge blue water navy because one day they may have to tell the rest of the world, gee, I'm sorry, we have 1,300,000,000 million people clamoring for the benefits of an industrialized society and we just can't share this oil. Something to think about, isn't it?

The next chart is another look at this geopolitical reality that we're in. And there are two bars here. The bar on the right shows the top 10 oil and gas companies on the basis of how much reserves they have. Well, pretty obvious from looking at that ``World According to Oil'' that most of those are going to be over in the Middle East. As a matter of fact, among the top 10, 98 percent of all the oil is owned not by companies, but by countries. And only 2 percent is owned by Luke Oil, which is kind of a company. One might argue that it had a lot of national control.

The bar on the left represents the top 10 oil and gas companies on the basis of how much they produce. Now, the really big guys that a lot of our people are concerned about because they're making big profits, they don't look big at all when you look at it from a world perspective. They own none of the oil of the top 10. They don't even count in the top 10 countries or companies that own oil. And they represent only 22 percent of the production of oil. They're pumping somebody else's oil is what that means, and not much of that relative to the oil that's produced by these countries.

The next chart is another quote from the Hirsch Report. And this came out

in `05. Our country has paid for four reports, all saying essentially the same thing. And you may ask a really legitimate question, how come I haven't heard about these? All saying essentially the same thing: ``The peaking of oil is either present or imminent, with potentially devastating consequences.''

The first report was the Hirsch Report early in '07. Later in '07 was another report by the Army Corps of Engineers saying essentially the same thing. Then last year, in '07, there were two reports, one by the Government Accountability Office, and another requested by the Secretary of Energy and the President, the National Petroleum Council. They came out last year in '07. All four of these reports say about the same thing, the peaking of oil is either present or imminent, with potentially devastating consequences. Now, how come you haven't heard about this? Why hasn't your government told you about this? And why haven't you heard about a really aggressive program to address the challenge presented by this reality?

World oil peaking is going to happen. This was in the Hirsch Report, '05. ``World production of conventional oil will reach a maximum and decline thereafter.'' It happened in our country in 1970. The same person who predicted that predicted the world would be peaking about now. I have a very simple question I've asked myself over and over again. If M. King Hubbert was right about the United States--and he was, incontrovertible evidence that he was right about the United States--and if he predicted in 1979 that the world would be peaking about now--and by the way, by 1980, we knew of a certainty that he was right about his prediction of the United States because, in looking back from 1980, we can see, gee, he was right. In 1970, we really did peak, and we're now over the peak and sliding down the other side. Shouldn't someone have said, gee, if M. King Hubbert was right about the United States, might he not be right about the world? And if, in fact, he is right about the world, shouldn't we really be doing something about this? It's an interesting question. I'm not sure I know the answer to it.

People tend to hear what they want to hear, they tend to see what they want to see. My wife tells me that I shouldn't be talking about this. She said, don't you know that in ancient Greece they killed the messenger that brought bad news. And I tell her this is really a good news story. The good news is that if we start today to fix this problem, the ride is going to be less bumpy than if we start tomorrow. And the second good news about this is that--I'm really exhilarated by this. There is no exhilaration like the exhilaration of meeting and overcoming a big challenge, and this is a huge challenge. I believe that America is up to this. If America knew what the problem was, if America knew what needed to be done to solve the problem, I think that we would do now what we did in World War II. And I lived through World War II. I was born in 1926. Yeah, you've done the arithmetic right, I'm 82 now. And I lived through World War II, and I remember how everyone was involved in that war. And I think Americans would do that again.

This maximum is called the peak. A number of competent forecasters project peaking within a decade. That was in `05. Now, 3 years later, this is within a decade, and most of them were predicting it peaking about now. Some uncertainty, and a lot of things contribute to that uncertainty, and that's what he talks about here in the rest of this paragraph.

``Oil peaking presents a unique challenge.'' And then this statement, ``The world has never faced a problem like this without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact.'' Now, if peaking is upon us, it is impossible to do this mitigation a decade before the fact. ``Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions, wood to coal and coal to oil, were gradual and evolutionary. Oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.''

The next chart is additional quotes from this Hirsch Report. ``The peaking of oil production presents the United States and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem.'' As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically.'' Wow, that's exactly what's happened in the last few months, isn't it? ``And without timely mitigation''--which we have not done--``the economic, social and political costs will be unprecedented.''

Now, these are the words of a very serious study done by one of the most prestigious organizations in our world today. ``Without timely mitigation, the economic, social and political costs will be unprecedented.''

The next chart. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, this may be worth a million, huh? Here is a guy with his huge SUV, and he's standing beside the dwarf of a pump there, ``Demand and Supply.'' And he says, ``Just why is gas so expensive?'' That's what happens when the demand exceeds the supply.

The next chart looks at U.S. energy consumption by sector. I would like to spend a few moments now looking at the gross energy picture. Energy, by the way, is a very unique entity. You use it once. You can't recycle it. All energy eventually ends up in the lowest form of energy, which is heat. And then it gets radiated to space and it's gone. If you want more energy, you've got to either get it from the sun as it comes in, or the consequences of the sun, the wind blowing and so forth, or the waves. Or you've got to find energy that was produced by the sun a very long time ago. And of course it was the shining of the sun that made the little organisms grow in these ancient, subtropical seas that then settled to the bottom and sediment came in. And we believe the Earth opened up, the tectonic plates moved and they were submerged, so they were close enough to the molten core that, under the right temperature, the right pressure, with enough time, finally became gas and oil. And there is no gas there unless there is a rock dome over it to hold the gas, otherwise it escapes, and then you have some really gummy oil that's going to be extremely difficult to get. The Saudis are now trying to exploit a field like that, the Khurais field, I think they call it. And they may get 1,000,200 million barrels a day starting next year, but it's a very technical field. They've spent billions of dollars drilling wells. They're going to inject seawater under pressure to periphery the field to try to move the oil, which is very stiff and sticky, to the center of the field where they can then move it out to the well.

But this shows the U.S. energy consumption by sector. Electric power, 40 percent; transportation, 28 percent; residential and commercial, 11 percent; and industrial, 21 percent.

The next chart shows us what we use to produce the electricity. And I wanted to look at this because I want us to remember that we have two basic kinds of energy we use today; one is electric energy and the other is liquid fuels energy. And there is some ability to use one or the other, but there is a limit to what this transferability is. But some of the energy we use to produce electricity could be used in our cars and trucks and trains and so forth.

Coal, actually, we could use that; the Germans did it, the South Africans did it when they were producing oil from coal by the Fisher Tropes method. It's a 100-year-old method, we know how to do it. And we could convert our coal into a gas or a liquid. Here is natural gas, and you see city buses running on natural gas. Nuclear, that just produces electricity. Hydro, that just produces electricity. Petroleum liquids and coke, not very much there. About 3 percent of our electricity is produced by diesel, by liquid fuels.

I just wanted to show that, by conserving in electricity or by producing a lot more of our electricity with nuclear, which now produces only about 20 percent, we could free up some of the natural gas and some of the coal that could be converted to a gas or liquid because our really big challenge in the future is liquid fuels.

I'm pretty sanguine about what we can do electricity-wise for the future, much less sanguine about what we can do for liquid fuels.

We use some renewables. The next chart shows us the renewables that we're using. And I want you to look at the scale of this. This is 1 percent. I think totally 2\1/2\ percent of all of our electricity is produced by renewables.

And we have lots of wind machines. We have lots of solar panels on the roofs of houses. And the biggest one of these is wood and then wind.

By the way, this is wood waste used by the timber industry and by the paper industry. The opportunities to massively grow this are not all that much. Waste energy is a great idea, but we need to remember that a huge waste stream is largely the result of profligate use of fossil fuels. In a fossil fuel-deficient world, that waste stream will be nowhere near as big as it is now. But for the moment, it represents an opportunity to create more electricity, and I think we ought to be exploiting it.

This is true geothermal. That's tapping into the molten core of the Earth. You go to Iceland. I didn't see a single chimney in Iceland. They get all of their energy there, as far as I know, from geothermal. We have some places in our country where we are close enough to the molten core of Earth that we could do that.

Here is solar, and I'm a big fan of solar. I have a little getaway place in the mountains of West Virginia, and I'm off the grid. All I have is solar there. But notice the trifling amount. This is 1 percent here, 1 percent, this whole thing. Notice the trifling contribution that solar is making now.

The next chart, this is an interesting one because what it does is it shows us how much of our energy we are getting from fossil fuels.

We are very much like the young couple whose grandparents have died and left them a big inheritance, and they now have established a life- style where 85 percent of all the money they spend comes from their grandparents' inheritance and only 15 percent of the money comes from their income. And the inheritance, if they live a normal life span, the inheritance is going to run out before they die, before they retire even. So, obviously, they have got to do something. They have got to either spend less or make more. That's precisely the predicament that we are in. It's the predicament that Hyman Rickover was cautioning about 51 years ago. We get 85 percent of all of our energy from coal, petroleum, and natural gas, and we get only 15 percent of it from other sources. The major part of those other sources is nuclear power, which provides 8 percent of our total energy for the country, about 20 percent of our electrical energy.

And here are the renewables. These are the things that Hyman Rickover was talking about, which we inevitably will transition to. Now, we may for a long time be able to get a lot of energy, maybe much more than this, from nuclear. But except for nuclear energy, this list, and you could make it a little bigger and include a few more things in it, but this is the kind of the things that we are going to have to be living on in the future. We will inevitably transition to renewables. Oil is not forever. It will run out. The only question is when. So we need to be doing something about this.

The next chart shows some things that I have personally been involved with to help this transition. Renewable energy and energy tax credits, I introduced a bill in the House which is a companion bill to the Senate, Senate 2821, the Cantwell-Ensign bill. And this passed the Senate, by the way, 88-8. And the House bill is 5984. What it does is to continue the tax credits for developing renewables. Without those tax credits, they are not yet competitive with oil. If we wait until they are, the challenge will be even greater and the problem even bigger. So we must get these things going now. We should have had them going a long time ago. And we really need these tax credits. They are about to expire.

Renewable domestic sources, H.R. 6107. I set up, with my good friend Tom Udall from New Mexico, the Peak Oil Caucus. And we have a resolution that we hope the Congress will vote on, recognizing the reality of peak oil and the necessity of doing something about it.

ARPA-E, I'm a very strong supporter of ARPA-E. DARPA, after which ARPA-E is patterned, is part of our defense organization, and it has been enormously successful in pioneering envelope-pushing things. The Internet is the result of early work by DARPA. All of our unmanned aircraft wouldn't be here if it weren't for DARPA, and we think that we need something like that in energy. The government needs to be involved in this. Some of the things we need to push are not near enough term that businesses can justify investing money in it. That's why we have DARPA. It has been enormously successful for the military. And I'm a big fan of ARPA-E. We need to prioritize what's probably going to work, where we should invest our money.

CAFE standards, I have been a big fan of increasing CAFE standards.

The other day driving to work, I noticed in front of me in one lane was an SUV with one person in it. In the lane next to it was a Prius, and I drive one. I bought the first one in Congress, the first one in Maryland, as a matter of fact. But I noted that the two people riding in that Prius were getting six times the miles per gallon per person as compared to the one person riding in the SUV. We have enormous opportunities for conservation.

Let me note at this point that there's only one thing that will bring down the price of oil. For the moment drilling won't do it because that oil will not flow for years. Investing in renewables will not do it because they will not be of any moment for a while. I'm a strong fan of renewables, and I now signed on to a bill to drill in ANWR if we use all of the Federal revenues to invest in alternatives because we desperately need to accelerate the development of these alternatives. Only one thing will reduce the price of oil, and that is to use less of it. Supply and demand. Now, there is a little bit of speculation in there, but the market will eventually punish them if they are artificially increasing the price of oil. If you buy oil for $140 a month from now if, in fact, it's $130, you've got to come up with $10 a barrel for every future barrel you bought. They cannot forever inflate the market. Ultimately they will pay for their sins if, in fact, this is going on.

Farms can't produce all of their own energy and some for the people living in the city. We're really in trouble for the future.

Tax credit for hybrids, we really need to extend that. People are buying hybrids. You know, $4 gas is a big incentive. We need to accelerate that. We need to incentivize people to park their SUV, to get in this hybrid, which will get more mileage.

Fuel flexibility, neutrality. This is an interesting one, the so- called DRIVE Act, and what this would do would mandate that all of America's cars in the future will be flex-fuel cars. It costs less than $100 per car, to build a car that would burn any fuel. The only cars produced in Brazil are flex-fuel cars. They can burn gasoline. They can burn ethanol. They can burn any percentage mixture of ethanol and gasoline. And we can have flex-fuel cars that can burn any fuel. We have no idea 10 years from now what fuels will be out there to use because the average car stays in the fleet for 16 to 18 years. So we need to be making these flex-fuel cars so we will be prepared to use whatever fuels are available in the future.

The next chart, and this is kind of an expansion of the previous chart we saw. What this looks at is the energy sources that are available to us as we transition from fossil fuels ultimately to renewables. We have some finite sources and we have nuclear. We have finite sources, and these are the tar sands and the oil shales and coal. Just a word about each of those, and I need to come to the floor and spend a lot of time talking about these because there is a lot of irrational exuberance, as Alan Greenspan would say, about the potential for production from some of these sources.

Just a word. The tar sands of Canada are getting a million barrels a day. They know what they are doing is not sustainable. By the way, the world uses about 85, 86 million barrels a day; so a million barrels a day is a bit more than 1 percent of what we use. But it's not sustainable. They're using gas that will run out. They're using water that will run out. They're thinking about putting a nuclear power plant there. I understand if you think of it as a vein which is now on the surface, when that's mined, it ducks under it and overlays; so they're going to have to develop it in situ. They don't know how to do that. There's a huge amount of potential oil there, more than all the reserves of oil in all the world. But how much we can develop it and how quickly we can develop it is really very uncertain at this time.

Oil shales, the same thing can be said about those. Those are in our country out in Colorado and Wyoming and so forth, Utah. We have probably 1\1/2\ trillion barrels of potential oil there. This isn't really oil, but with some heating and so forth, it can be converted into oil. Nobody yet is exploiting any of that. A lot of money has been spent there. Shell Oil Company did a big experiment a few years ago. We may get a lot from that; we may get little or nothing from it. It is very uncertain.

Our coal, it's said we have 250 years of coal. Let me hold that discussion for just a moment because we are going to have a little chart in a moment if we have time for it.

Nuclear, I'm a big fan of nuclear. There are three ways to get nuclear power: One is the light water reactor, the fissionable uranium. That is finite. It will run out. We cannot build power plants forever and fissionable uranium. But we can go to breeder reactors, which, as the name implies, produces more fuel than they use. You borrow some trouble when you go to those, transporting fuel for enrichment, weapons-grade fuel, and so forth, but it produces really clean energy.

Then there's nuclear fusion. If we get that, we're home free. That's what the sun does, and that's what we do in the hydrogen bomb. But to control that, we have been working on it for a long while, and it's always very elusive, always way out in front of us. If you think you're going to solve our energy problems with fusion, you probably think you're going to solve your personal economic problems by winning the lottery. I think the odds are probably about the same. By the way, that doesn't keep me from enthusiastically voting for the $250 million a year we spend on fusion because if we get there, we're home free. That's all the energy we could ever need forever. But the high probability is we are going to be using a combination of these renewable sources. The next time I come to the floor, I'm going to spend a lot of time talking about realistic expectations for these renewables.

Two bubbles have already broken: the hydrogen bubble and the corn ethanol bubble. The National Academy of Sciences said if we use all of our corn for ethanol, it would displace 2.4 percent of our gasoline. All of it. And the amount we have used has now driven up the price of food around the world, as you have noted. They made a similar observation for soybeans. If we use all of our soybeans for soy diesel, it would displace 2.9 percent.

By the way, they noted that for corn ethanol, all of the corn going to ethanol, if you tuned up your car and put air in the tires, they said, you would save as much gas as using all of our corn to produce corn ethanol. We get incredible amounts of energy from these fossil fuels. The quality and quantity of energy in these fossil fuels is just incredible.

I mentioned earlier that I was excited by this. This presents a huge challenge to us. We had a huge challenge in World War II. I lived through that. And what I think we need to address this problem is a program that involves everybody in the Nation. And the last time that happened was in World War II. Everybody needs to be involved. We had a victory garden. We had daylight savings time. We saved our household grease. No new cars were built for people in 1943, 1944, and 1945. And then we need the technology focus of putting a man on the moon, and we need the urgency of the Manhattan Project. We are the most creative, innovative society in the world. I'm convinced that, properly informed, the American people can perform miracles. I think we once again can become an energy-exporting country, energy exporting in the terms of exporting the technology it takes to exploit these renewables. I'm excited about this. I think we need challenges. Our young people's lives are just too easy in this country. As I tell audiences, young people, some of them, not a majority of them, spend far too much time watching dirty movies and smoking marijuana. They wouldn't be doing that if they had a real challenge. I can imagine Americans going to sleep at night saying, ``Today I used less energy than I did yesterday and I'm okay.''

Just one last chart and then I have got to close. The last one.

Using less energy doesn't mean you have a lesser quality of life. It doesn't mean you have a lesser quality of life. This chart shows a number of the countries of the world and the amount of energy they use and how good they feel about life on the ordinate. Here we are, using more energy than anybody else in the world, but notice, there are I think 24 countries, some of them using only half the energy we use, that don't feel as good about life as we do; they feel better about life than we do.

There are lots of opportunities for efficiency and conservation. We will come to the floor and talk about realistic expectations for what we can get out of these renewables and about all of the opportunities that we have for efficiency and conservation.

I'd just like to close, Mr. Speaker, by saying that America really can respond to this. We have performed miracles in the past, we can do it again. So I am excited about this. With my wife's counsel that I shouldn't be talking about this, I think that this is a good news story because America really, really, really responds well to a challenge. We did it in World War II, we did it in putting a man on the moon. We can do it here again.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I want to begin this evening's discussion by reading a little reminisce that was written by one of my staff members, Dr. John Darnell. He's imagining that he is talking to his granddaughter at some future date, and this little reminisce is called, ``Making It Through the Energy Crisis--Future Reminiscences with my Grandchildren.''

``Grandfather, tell us the story about the men who went to the Moon and barely made it back--and how that was like when the world discovered there wasn't enough oil.

``Oh, you mean Apollo 13. Yes, that story is very much like what happened back in the energy crisis of 2008, before you were born. What those astronauts had to do to survive was very much like what the world had to do.

``Tell us the story, Grandfather!

``Apollo 13 was one of many trips to the Moon and back, some returning without landing. This trip was planned to include a landing to explore the lunar surface. When they left Earth they were on a `safe return' trajectory so that if something went wrong, their craft would have automatically looped around the Moon and returned on the proper path for a safe landing. In order to land on the lunar surface, however, they had to adjust their trajectory for a better orbit for the landing. Once they had made that adjustment, they were no longer on the `safe return' trajectory.

``And, that's when the problem happened?

``Right! A sudden, loud bang announced the problem--there had been some warning signs that something was not right for some time before, but the controllers didn't know what to make of them--and in a similar way the early symptoms of the energy crisis were misunderstood and ignored.

``So, what was the loud bang?

``One of the liquid oxygen tanks that powered the command module's fuel cell and supplied oxygen to breathe had exploded! When they finally realized what had happened, they had to quickly shut off the oxygen to the fuel cell to save what was left. That meant there was no power for the command module. Fortunately, in planning the mission, they had rehearsed what they would do if the command module lost power--they would use the lunar lander as a `lifeboat'! That's like what we called 'contingency planning' in preparing for anticipatable disruptions of the world's energy supplies.

``So, that's how they got back safely?

``Well, yes, but that wasn't all there was to it--their problems were far from over.

``First, not only could they no longer land on the Moon, but the power and oxygen they had assumed would be available were now limited to what the lunar lander could supply--only intended for two people for a few days on the surface--which now had to be stretched out to supply three people for the trip all the way back to Earth.

``How could they get by on so little?

``By purposeful conservation! By that I mean that it was not enough to just use a little less energy; they had to use a lot less.

``The astronauts not only had to save enough to make it all the way back before their supplies ran out, they also had to have enough power to spare to operate the controls of the lunar lander during two course corrections.

``The world in 2008 faced a very similar problem: availability of fossil fuels had reached a peak and could not keep growing to match exploding demand, not to mention needs of business as usual. And, not only did the world have less energy available than it could have used, but, as with the astronauts, purposeful conservation was needed to save enough extra to have resources, including energy, to spare for investing in the shift to a more sustainable energy path.

``It sounds like the astronauts almost ran out of time if they hadn't changed course to speed up their return--which used up some of their reserves! How close did they come to running out?

``Very close. Every minute and every breath used up precious supplies--the time they bought by conserving made it possible to invest in the course corrections, with very little to spare! Not only that, but they had an unanticipated complication: carbon dioxide was building up in their atmosphere--they could have returned intact, but dead from asphyxiation!

``That's spooky--the world today has the same problem--how did they solve their problem?

``It wasn't easy! It took creative, out-of-the-box thinking and collaboration among the crew and backup crew on Earth, using a duplicate capsule on the ground. Eventually they were able to improvise a makeshift device, using materials on hand, including a sock, to adapt the command module's filter to the lunar lander.

``Of course, as you point out, there has been a parallel need to curb global carbon dioxide emissions that has limited choices of technologies as the world has shifted to a more sustainable energy economy. Conservation, itself, dramatic efficiency improvements and carbon-neutral and sustainable energy resources all have helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions far below 'business as usual' projections, while homegrown businesses and jobs have flourished far in excess of the losses in traditional industries.

``They were really lucky to have overcome all those problems to make it back safely when it looked like they didn't have a prayer!

``You're right; it was pretty amazing that they made it! Maybe more than you realize--when they made their course corrections, they had to use hand calculators and steer by hand to hit a reentry 'window' that was like the thickness of a sheet of paper four feet way. If they had missed it, their reentry vehicle would have either burned up or bounced off into space!

``But, it wasn't just luck. They had prepared and rehearsed contingency plans in case of anticipatable emergencies, so they didn't panic; instead they communicated, cooperated, collaborated creatively, and rose to the challenge with determination to do what was necessary to make it, even if it meant some hardship. And some prayer probably didn't hurt!

``It has taken a similar sense of determination, worldwide, for us to make it as far as we have in the transition to a sustainable energy economy. In the past 20 years we have come a long way toward that goal but there is still a long way to go. And it was by no means inevitable or easy. There were many points where it could have gone seriously awry. In the early years there was a lot of denial, anger and blame, and an impulse to fight over control of access to the remaining oil and gas.

``But, there is still oil and gas being used today--we didn't run out--why didn't they realize that we could switch to renewable energy sources like we use today?

``A lot of people thought we could do just that--along with a slew of other things that seemed reasonable . . . But, by the time the crisis hit, fossil fuel prices were killing the economy and everything cost so much that no one had any money to spare to invest in any of the alternatives . . . And, when the shortages hit, there was nothing ready to turn to as a substitute on the scale that was needed--time had become a scarce resource as well as money and energy itself! And, every proposed solution was competing for those same scarce resources!

``Reluctantly, people came to see that only one thing could accomplish what was needed: purposeful conservation! Even in the midst of the crisis, contingency plans could be implemented rapidly at almost no cost, buying time, saving money, extending the depleting resources and further reducing costs by falling demand resulting in lower prices.

``Conservation with the purpose of investing the conserved resources in greatly improved efficiency buys still more time and lowers the level of energy needed for a comfortable standard of living--a level that can be sustainably and affordably be supplied from a variety of sources.

``I see--since even efficiency takes time, money and energy, you have to start with purposeful conservation to buy time and be able to afford it and so on. But, today everyone seems to take that for granted--what made the difference?

``International cooperation instead of confrontation. Consuming Nations committed to reducing their consumption in concert with a calculated decline in production by producing countries--faster than natural depletion rates. This had the effect of making things predictable, creating reserves and extending the resource productivity, assuring that no one is tempted to seek an unfair advantage, and reducing competition for control of dwindling resources, that is wars.

``The second profound change has been the challenge of the 'International Race to Sustainability.' Like the race to the Moon that spawned the Apollo missions, the Race to Sustainability has captured the imagination of innovators all over the world. Much of the resources that had been formerly dedicated to building military capability in anticipation of a struggle of control of fossil resources are now

being directed toward the prestigious goal of leading the Race to Sustainability.

``Now, as you know, there are ongoing competitions that demonstrate self-powered, zero energy communities, both new and retrofitted. Self- powered, net food and fuel producing farms that are now commonplace, as increasingly are self-powered manufacturing in the renewable sector. Even transportation is becoming self-powered with the increasing deployment of highly efficient, Personal Rapid Transit networks.

``Wow, Grandfather, the way you tell it, the story of the world's transition to sustainability is almost as exciting as the Apollo 13 story! We're so lucky to be alive to be a part of it!

``Yes, it is an exciting time to be alive! With new, highly efficient technologies, the energy available whenever there is access to sunshine, blowing wind, running water, the energy of the ocean or the Earth's heat, can bring prosperity! The world has never seen such widespread prosperity! Increased democracy, better education of women, health care are following close behind.

``Thank you, Grandfather,'' very much for this story.

I read this because I think it sets in perspective what we want to be talking about today, and I have a chart here that kind of tells us where we are and what's been happening recently.

This chart could go back through the 8,000 years of recorded history, and it would look just the same as it does in these last 400 years of recorded history. The amount of energy being produced would be very low, not discernible from the baseline as a matter of fact, and now we start with the Industrial Revolution using wood here, and you see the increased energy production. And then we learn to use coal, and boy, it shot up. But then when we learned to use gas and oil, it really took off. And that curve is one that we're going to see several times in the charts that we're going to see just in a few moments, and this curve is on a very compressed abscissa. So it's a very sharp curve.

It shows a couple of very dramatic things. First of all, it shows that the rate of increase in the use of gas and oil up through the Carter years was on such a trajectory that it would now be well off the top of the chart if something had not happened. That something that happened was the oil embargoes in the 1970s and the oil price spike hikes that inspired people to be more efficient. We actually had a recession.

Here you see it as a drop in the demand for oil around the world, and it's not so plain on this chart because the abscissa is so compressed. We're going to see it on subsequent charts.

The rate of increase in the use of oil is now on a very much lesser slope than it was at the beginning. It's interesting to note that the world's population essentially followed this curve. The world's population started out down here through about 8,000 years of recorded history at something like half a billion or so people around the world, and now it's increased to what, nearly 7 billion people. If we had a population on here, it would pretty much follow the rate of increase in the use of fossil fuels here, the release of energy. That's because our quality of life has been so much affected by this incredible amount and quality of energy that we've found under the ground.

The next chart takes us back a few years to show us how we got here and the warnings that we have had, that we were going to be here. Oil at $140 a barrel was not unanticipated if you had looked at the warning signs. And incredibly, most of the world and most of the leaders in our country have chosen to ignore or not look at these warning signs.

Back in 1956, it was on the 8th day of March, a very famous speech was given by M. King Hubbert to a group of oilmen in San Antonio, Texas.

And what he predicted was that by 1970 the United States would reach its maximum oil production. Now, that was preposterous when he made that prophesy because we were then king of oil, I think producing more oil, consuming more oil and exporting more oil than any other country in the world. And to suggest that in just 14 years no matter what we did we would reach our maximum capacity for producing oil was just silly to those who listened to it. But right on schedule, in the 1970s, you can see from the chart here, we reached our maximum oil production, just as M. King Hubbard had predicted. He became a legend, an icon in his own lifetime.

This chart shows us another thing, and that is the attempt by one of the groups out there who are still kind of in denial about whether or not we're reaching that point where the world has no more ability to produce an increased amount of oil. CERA, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, they use this chart to try and convince you that M. King Hubbard really didn't know what he was talking about.

The ``Hubbard curve'' was the lower 48 prediction here, and the actual oil production from the lower 48 are the green squares. And maybe a statistician could convince you that those are different curves, but I think to the average layman, gee, M. King Hubbard had it pretty right, this is what he predicted would happen, and this is what happened.

Now, if you take the total U.S. production, because we found a lot of oil in Alaska and we found a lot of oil--we have about 8,000 wells in the Gulf of Mexico--and if you add those two production sites to the lower 48, which he predicted, you see we get just a blip in the slope down the other side of Hubbard's peak.

Now, I want you to take a look at where we were in 1980. That's about here. And you're looking back and you can see, gee, M. King Hubbard was really right, wasn't he? The world did reach its maximum oil production in 1970.

And I'm going to use this time period, 28 years, because I think that we had known, of an absolute certainty, for 28 years that we were going to be here today. M. King Hubbard was right about the United States; we peaked right on schedule. I think it was in 1979 that he predicted the world would be peaking about now.

Now, if he was right about the United States--and the United States is certainly a microcosm of the world--why shouldn't he be right about the world? Essentially no attention was paid to this. Essentially no preparation was made for the inevitability that the world would reach this maximum production.

The next chart looks at where the world has been and where the world is going relative to oil production.

There are a number of bars here which show when oil was discovered and how much of it was discovered. Notice that the first discoveries were in the forties, and then, boy, some really big fields found here in the fifties. And then most of it found in the sixties and peaking about '80. But ever since the sixties it's been down, down, down. And that's in spite of ever-more incentives to find oil, in spite of ever- better techniques to discover oil, like computer modeling and 3-D seismic. And we now have a pretty good notion of the Earth's geology, and it's known that oil can exist only in certain unique geologic formations.

The solid black line here indicates the consumption, the worldwide consumption. Now, we saw that curve on the first chart we showed you. There we had really compressed the abscissa here because we have 400 years instead of 100 years on it. And remember that curve was going up very sharply and then there was the recession during the seventies? And then a much slower rate of increase because today we have much more efficient air conditioners and refrigerators and freezers and so forth. We better insulated our homes. We used to do a lot of things to conserve energy. Note where this curve would be now if this rate of increase had continued. It would be off the top of the chart, wouldn't it? So the embargoes of the seventies and the oil price hikes then were really a blessing in disguise because it encouraged us to do what we ought to have been doing even before that, and that was to become more efficient.

Now, what will the future look like? Now, that depends upon how much more oil you think we're going to find. But I would just caution that one needs to keep in mind this chart that shows what we have found. With ever-increasing incentives to find oil, it's been down, down, down.

Now, the creators of this curve kind of predict what they think the future

looks like, and they have oil peaking in production about now, which is about when M. King Hubbard said it would peak in production. Notice that since the eighties we have not been finding as much oil as we've been using, so we've filled in that difference between what we found and what we use by borrowing from the reserves back here. Everything above this line is a reserve. So we've been borrowing from these reserves.

We have a lot of these reserves left. And their projection for future discoveries--and I would have drawn the curve a little lower--but their projection for future discoveries is this curve. It's not going to be smooth like that, it's going to be up and down, but on the average, probably about that. So you've got to fill in the difference between what we discover and what we use by borrowing from the reserves back here.

Now, you can't pump what you haven't found. So if you think the future is going to be much different from what they project, then you have to believe that we're going to find a whole lot more oil than they believe.

The next chart. I mentioned the speech by M. King Hubbard that I thought was probably the most important speech of the last century. And I think that this one is the most insightful speech of the last century. This was a speech given by Hyman Rickover, the father of our nuclear submarine, to a group of physicians in St. Paul, Minnesota on the 4th day of May, 1957, just a bit, a year after M. King Hubbard had given his speech. Now, I don't know if Hyman Rickover knew of M. King Hubbard, I don't know if he had read that speech. But these are a couple of things that he said, which I think are so obvious.

``There is nothing that man can do to rebuild exhausted fossil fuel reserves. They were created by solar energy,'' he said, ``500 million years ago and took eons to grow to their present volume.

``In the face of the basic fact that fossil fuel reserves are finite, the exact length of time these reserves will last is important in only one respect: The longer they last, the more time do we have to invent ways of living off renewable or substitute energy sources and to adjust our economy to the vast changes which we can expect from such a shift.'' Wow, this was 51 years ago. We were then about 100 years into the age of oil, which he called this ``Golden Age.''

I really love this paragraph because I think it is such an apt description of where we are and who we are and what we're doing, which he felt, and I feel, is immoral.

``Fossil fuels resemble capital in the bank. A prudent and responsible parent will use his capital sparingly''--I haven't noticed that the world has been doing that with fossil fuel--``in order to pass on to his children as much as possible of his inheritance. A selfish and irresponsible parent will squander it in riotous living and care not one whit how his offspring will fare.''

I think of this statement when I hear the pleas of those who say, ``Drill now, drill more, pay less.'' And the unfinished part of that sentence is, ``We don't really care about what happens to our kids and our grand kids, we want it now.''

Another counsel in Hyman Rickover's speech--and he says this 51 years ago, I don't hear our leaders saying this today--``I suggest that this is a good time to think soberly about our responsibilities to our descendants--those who will ring out the Fossil Fuel Age.''

Hyman Rickover knew we were 100 years into the Fossil Fuel Age; he didn't know then how long it would last. Remember he said that no matter how long it lasted, the only important thing was that the longer it lasted, the more time that we have to plan an orderly transition to renewable fuels.

We might give a break to these youngsters by cutting fuel and metal consumption so as to provide a safe margin for the necessary adjustments which eventually must be made in a world without fossil fuels. How much better off would we have been as a country and as a world if 51 years ago we had listened to Hyman Rickover, who said this is a good time to think soberly about our responsibilities to our descendants. I have 10 kids, 16 grand kids and two great-grand kids, and I am genuinely concerned about what I'm going to leave to my kids.

Have we reached peak oil worldwide? This is in dispute by many people, but I just want to give you the data compiled by the two entities in the world that most effectively follow the production and consumption of oil. This is the IEA, the International Energy Association, and the EIA, the Energy Information Administration; the prior a European entity, and the latter a creature of our Department of Energy.

Here is their data, and they have pretty good concurrence. For about the last 3 years they show oil production worldwide as being flat. And what has happened in that 36 months? That oil production has been constant. Try as we might, the world has not been able to increase oil production for 3 years.

Three years ago, oil was about $52 a barrel. Today, it's $130, $140 a barrel. This is exactly what one would predict would happen with the constant supply and increasing demand. This kind of is, energy-wise, the perfect storm, because just at the time that the world has probably reached its maximum capacity to produce oil is just the time that the third world, led by India and China, are industrializing and demanding more and more oil.

Our rate of increase in the use of fossil fuels is only about 2 percent in our country, it's only been about 2 percent worldwide, but that is now increasing. The growth rate in India and China, they're not at all happy with 2 percent. The last data I saw, China's economy was growing at 11.7 percent a year, and their demand for oil was even greater than that because in this rapidly growing economy they haven't taken the time to make sure they're using these energy sources efficiently.

And it's not that we haven't been warned. We certainly knew from M. King Hubbard and what happened in 1970 in our country, and by 1980 we knew of an absolute certainty that M. King Hubbard was right about our country peaking in 1970. And by the way, we have drilled more oil wells than all the rest of the world put together. In spite of that fact, we produce only about 8 percent of the world's oil and that's because we have only about 2 percent of the world's reserves.

Your government has paid for four major studies--they've resulted in five reports because one of the studies resulted in two reports--on this issue, and two of those were in '05. This was the first big report called the Hirsch Report, for the senior investigator on it, by SC IC, a very large, prestigious international engineering science organization. The second was a report later on in '05 by the Army Corps of Engineers. Then we had two reports in '07, just last year. The Government Accountability Office did a study, and at the request of the President and the Secretary of Energy, the National Petroleum Council did a study. And all four of these studies, in different words, said that the peaking of oil is a certainty. It's not if, it's when. The peaking of oil is a certainty. And it's either present or imminent, with potentially devastating consequences.

There are some really interesting and important geopolitical considerations, and this next chart looks at those. This is really an interesting chart. This is the ``World According to Oil.'' And this is what our globe would look like if the size of the country was relative to how much oil reserves it had. And we see some very interesting things here. Saudi Arabia dominates the planet. That's because Saudi Arabia has about 22 percent of all the oil reserves in the world. We think that's what they have. You see, most of the oil reserves are held by countries like Kuwait and Iran and Saudi Arabia and Iraq. We know a little bit more about Iraq because we're there, but these other countries hold their data very close. The world community cannot look at their data. We know what they're producing because we buy it. We really don't know what the reserves are. So these are estimates as a result of what they tell us they have in reserve. We hope there is that much there.

Some interesting things about this ``World According to Oil.'' Look at the United States over here. We have 2 percent of the world's oil. We're 50 percent of the land mass of the globe in the ``World According to Oil.'' And a very interesting thing is that the country from which we get our biggest supply of oil, Canada, has about half the oil

that we have in the lower 48 and Alaska.

The country from which we get our third largest--it used to be the second until a few months ago--Mexico, has considerably less oil than the United States. Now, Canada can export oil because there are not very many Canadians. The Mexicans can export oil. Although there are a lot of them, they're so poor they can't afford to use it, and so they're exporting.

But this shows that the first and third suppliers of oil in our country are very small reserves. They have between them about the same amount of reserves that we have, that is, about 2 percent of the world's reserves.

Another very interesting thing to look at is the size of China and India. More than a third of the world's population, about 2.4 billion people out of a little bit less than the 7 billion people we have. And look at their size. You can hardly find Japan here because Japan is almost totally dependent on outside sources of energy. But these two huge countries demanding more and more energy and they are dwarfed by Russia. Russia has maybe three or four times, three times the energy that we have. They don't have all that much compared to giants like Saudi Arabia, but they, I think, may be the world's largest exporter because they are very aggressively pumping the oil that they have.

The next chart shows us a logical consequence of this. I mentioned how small the reserves in China are; so what is China doing about that? And this chart shows what they're doing about it. This is a map of the world, and it shows where the Europeans have invested, where the Russians have invested, where we have invested, and where China has invested. Where you see a dollar sign, and I don't see very many of them, is where we have invested. This symbol you see where China has invested, and you see it all over the world. They even tried to buy Unocal in our country. But China is now buying oil all over the world, and they aren't just buying oil, they're buying goodwill. Do you need a soccer stadium, a hospital, roads? Why is China doing this? Because in today's world, it doesn't make any difference who owns the oil. It is a global commodity. He who comes with the dollars gets the oil. I hope it continues to be dollars. If it's euros or something else, our economy is even in more trouble. So why are they buying oil all around the world? Of course, you can't get inside the heads of the leaders there, but you can only guess why they are doing it from some other things that they're doing.

One of the other things they're doing is very aggressively building a blue-water navy. They're building their navy much more aggressively than we are and much faster than we. They launched--the exact number I'm not sure of, but maybe ten or so submarines last year; we launched one. Their navy will soon be bigger than ours, nowhere what our Navy is.

China this year will graduate six times as many engineers as the United States graduates, and about half of our engineers are going to be Chinese and Indian students. The Chinese will graduate more English- speaking engineers in China than we graduate the total number of engineers in our country. It is impossible for a country that is so aggressively pursuing education in these technical areas, with a huge population and a great work ethic, to not be a serious challenge to us, by and by, economically and militarily.

Is this huge navy that they're building necessary because they want to be able in the future to use their oil and not share it with the world, as now you must? In order to use their oil, they are going to have to have a navy big enough to protect the sea lanes so that they can have access to their oil.

The next chart, this chart shows the 10 companies on the basis of oil production and reserve holdings. Now, we have giants in our country, oil companies, ExxonMobil and Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell and so forth, and many people believe the price of oil is high because somehow they're gouging us. The bar on the right here shows the reserves of oil, and these are the top 10 companies or countries that hold oil reserves. And you see that 98 percent of all of the top 10 are oil countries, where oil is owned by the country. Now, that was pretty obvious from that chart we had that showed the world according to oil, but this puts it in bar chart form.

Luke Oil, which is kind of independent of Russia, has only 2 percent of the 100 percent of the oil that's owned by the largest 10.

The bar on the left here shows production. This is not who owns it but who is producing it. Now, even though these people own the oil, our oil companies might be producing it for them. But that's not true because, you see, if you take the top 10 in the production of oil, 78 percent are these companies in North Africa and the Middle East, and only 22 percent is represented by the giants: ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP. Only 22 percent represented by these giants.

The next chart shows some numbers that shocked a number of our people. And the President has a letter from at least 3 years ago now by 30 prominent Americans: Boyden Gray and McFarlane and Jim Woolsey and 27 others, including several retired four star admirals and generals, really concerned, telling the President: Mr. President, the fact that we have only 2 percent of the world's oil and use 25 percent of the world's oil and import about two-thirds of what we use is a totally unacceptable national security risk. What if we didn't have access to that oil? They said this is a problem we have really got to fix.

Now, we are really good at pumping oil. You see our little 2 percent of the oil reserves results in 8 percent of the world's production. So our oil wells are going to be pumped down quicker than the average oil well in the world, and we have actually less than 5 percent of the world's population. We have about 1 person out of 22, and this 1 person out of 22 uses a fourth of all of the oil in the world. This is not lost on other nations. They understand this, and they are watching us to see what we do.

The next chart is a chart from the first study that I mentioned, the Hirsch Report, which resulted in two publications. And this is a chart which shows us very explicitly what T. Boone Pickens is telling us in his ads, that you're not going to drill your way out of this one.

Now, this chart makes what I think and what others think is a grossly unrealistic projection, and that is that we're going to find as much more oil as all the reserves yet to be pumped in the world. Now, as LaHerrere says, this is an absolutely implausible projection. Remember that big chart showing the down, down, down, and they are suggesting that's going to turn around and produce as much more oil as all the known reserves in the world today. And even if that happened, even if that happened, it would push the peaking of oil out to only 2016, it says here. This is one of the reasons T. Boone Pickens says you're not going to drill your way out of this.

Oil consumption up through the Carter years was so great that every decade--and think about this. This is a stunning statistic. Every decade we used as much oil as had been used in all of previous history. Had that curve continued, when you've used the half the oil, which is where I think we are now, you would have 10 years of oil left. And that's not 10 years at this rate because in the future it's going to be harder and harder to get. That's what has happened in the United States, harder and harder to get, less and less of it, and because of the world's supply and demand, ever higher and higher prices.

Look what happens if you find ways to get more of it out. Then you really fall off. If you're concerned about your kids and your grandkids, you would like to leave a little something for them. But even if you did that, it pushes the peak out only to 2037, this chart says.

Now let's look at energy and how much we use and where it comes from because this will tell us what our options are for the future and what our challenges are for the future. I would like to use an analogy relative to this chart which I think is easy to understand. A young couple whose grandparents have died and left them a considerable fortune, and they have established a life-style where 86 percent of the money they spend comes from their grandparents' inheritance and only 14 percent of it comes from what they're

earning. And they look at how old they are and how long they're likely to live, and they say, ``This is going to run out before we retire. We have got to do something.'' There are only two things they can do, one or both of these. Either they can use less, spend less, or make more. And that's precisely where we are in terms of energy, that 86 percent of all of the energy we use is our grandparents' inheritance. It's fossil fuels that were placed in the ground a very long time ago over a very long time span. And we now are removing them from the ground in a very short time period. And, of course, one of the consequences of this is we are now dumping into the atmosphere CO2 that had been sequestered from the atmosphere over a very long time period in the past. We're now releasing that into the atmosphere in a very short time period. And many people are concerned about this increase in CO2 and what it's doing for global warming and climate change and so forth.

Only 14 percent of the energy we use comes from sources other than coal, natural gas, and oil. But eventually as we run down, and oil and gas and coal are not forever--that's obvious that they are finite, that they will run out. The only question is when we are going to reach the peak and how long it will take before we run down the other side of the curve of the age of oil. So ultimately we are going to be living entirely on renewable energy and nuclear energy. Now, we may add some additional renewable energies here. We're the most creative, innovative society in the world, and what we can do when we have to is just absolutely incredible.

Note that a bit more than half of all of the energy we use that's not fossil fuels comes from nuclear. It's 8 percent of our total energy used. It's about 20 percent of our electricity. If you were in France, it would be about 80 percent of your electricity. So, clearly, that could grow. I know some people that have been really opposed to nuclear, but these are bright people, and when they look at a probable alternative to not producing more nuclear, which is shivering in the dark because of lack of energy, more nuclear doesn't look like a bad alternative to shivering in the dark; so they now are more focused on the potential of renewables and nuclear.

And here we look at the present renewables, and you see hydroelectric, and that's probably not going to grow in our country. We have dammed about every river we should and maybe a few that we shouldn't have. The biomass, that can grow a little bit. That's primarily energy produced by the timber industry and the paper industry, wisely, using a byproduct that would otherwise go to the landfill.

Solar and wind here are just trifling. They are a tiny part of the 6 percent here. And they are growing. They are growing like 30 percent a year. But when you start out so small, even 30-percent-a-year growth represents a tiny, tiny percentage of our total energy.

Geothermal here is true geothermal. It's not hooking your air conditioner to ground temperature, which you really ought to do. If you don't do that, what you are trying to do in the summertime to cool your house is to heat up the outside air. If what you're trying to do is heat up the ground, which is 56 degrees, that's a whole lot easier than heating outside air, which is 100 degrees. And the reverse is true in winter, of course.

The next chart shows the U.S. energy consumption by sector. And this is important because where are we going to have our real challenges in energy production? About 40 percent of our energy is electric power, about 28 percent of our energy is transportation, 21 percent industrial, and residential and commercial is about 11 percent.

The next chart looks at where we get the energy from for electricity. Mostly we are talking about liquid fuels, but electricity is also a challenge.

And the take-away from this discussion is that the future for transitioning to renewable alternatives for electricity is a very much brighter future than transitioning to fossil fuels.

And here we look at what we're producing electricity from today. Almost half of it is from coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric. And that can't go a whole lot. Microhydro might be as big as this by the way without the impacts on the environment that this big macrohydro does by damming up rivers. Petroleum, very little petroleum produced here. Other gases and other forms of energy, pump storage and so forth you see there. Now in a fossil fuel deficient world, coal is going to go away eventually. Natural gas is going to go away eventually. And the petroleum, liquid fuels and coke will go away eventually.

The next chart is a blowup of a tiny part of that chart. And this shows renewables. Only 2\1/2\ percent of our electricity is produced by renewables. It is really small. One-thirtieth of our electricity is produced by renewables, and much of that by wood. And if we want to sustain our forests and still build houses--and we're having trouble stabilizing that now--we probably can't grow that a whole lot. Wind, boy, that can really grow. I look around and I see almost no wind machines, and I see leaves on the trees blowing everywhere. And so we could have a whole lot more wind machines and a whole lot more energy from that. Waste. That could and should grow. But I will caution that that is self-limiting. That waste stream you see go to the county landfill--and watch what is dumped in the county landfill. Almost everything dumped there is going to be the result of profligate use of fossil fuels. And in a fossil fuel deficient world, that waste stream is going to be very small. We ought to be burning it. I think that is a better alternative than putting it in a landfill. What is even better is we ought to be recycling where that is appropriate. But burning is a good idea. But that is not a solution to our problem. And it's not a true renewable. It's a sensible thing to do. But it's not a true renewable, although it's listed here because it's dependent on the use of fossil fuels for using most of it. And they're going to wind down. There will be less and less of that.

Geothermal, that could grow probably a lot because there are several places in our country where we're near enough to the molten core of the Earth, and we can tap into the heat of the Earth. And that is essentially an inexhaustible source of energy. In Iceland, I saw not a chimney in Iceland because all of their energy comes from geothermal.

Solar PV. Wow, I'm a big fan of that. China and Japan have the six largest companies in the world. We used to lead in that area. We have lost that lead. Now six of the largest producers in the world are in China and Japan. That is growing at about 30 percent a year. And wind is growing. Wind is bigger and growing very fast. But we're talking here about percentages of 2\1/2\ percent. This is 1 percent up here. Notice down there that our solar today is a tiny, tiny part of 1 percent, like 1/100th of 1 percent.

The amount of energy that we get from fossil fuels is just incredible. The world uses about 85 million barrels a day. We use a little over 21 million barrels a day, about one-fourth of that. And each barrel represents the work equivalent of 12 people working all year. It has been so cheap, such a high quality and so easy to get. When oil was $12 a barrel, in terms of life improvement by using energy, you could buy the work equivalent of one man all year long for $1. This is why Hyman Rickover referred to this as a ``Golden Age.''

About a year and a half ago, I had the privilege of leading a codel of nine of our Members to China. And I was shocked. My colleagues were shocked when we started talking about energy with China. They talked about post oil. Post oil. We have trouble in our country thinking beyond the next election or thinking beyond the next quarterly report. In China, they seem to think in terms of generations and centuries. There will be a post oil world. And they're looking at what needs to be done to get there in an orderly fashion. They have a five-point plan. And everybody we talked to there knew it. Everybody knew. No matter what sector of government we were in, they talked about the five-point plan.

Number one is conservation. Do you remember the little story I read about the grandfather telling his grandchildren the story of Apollo 13 and the analogy of that to our transition from fossil fuels to renewables, or at least 20 years of it? It all began with purposeful

conservation. That is the number one thing we have to do. That is not just riding in a Prius rather than an SUV. Coming to work the other day, I noticed in front of me was an SUV in one lane with one person in it, and a Prius in the other lane next to it with two people in it. I thought to myself, the people in that Prius are getting six times the miles per gallon per person as compared to the person riding in the

Madam Speaker, Lord, I don't even know where to start. I've sat here for the last 45 minutes and listened to the Blue Dogs. And I appreciate them very much because there's about 40 or so of them, I think, and they could do a lot to help us, Madam Speaker, with the energy problem. I just hope that they will stand fast.

I listened to my colleague from Arkansas (Mr. Ross). And I'm on his bill because it brings about more energy independence for this country, Madam Speaker. And it's interesting that the Blue Dogs talked a lot about all the things that we have done thus far, at least that the Democrats have done thus far, the majority, Madam Speaker. And I don't even know how to start to unravel some of the facts that have been laid out here tonight. There were some facts that I agree with, but there are some facts that are very, very misunderstood, and hopefully during this hour sometime, Madam Speaker, we can put some truth into it.

It's interesting that I heard some of the Blue Dogs talking about increasing oil production. And I know that in May of 2007 there was an amendment that we passed that prohibits us from drilling shale oil, where there's two trillion barrels of oil. Two of the speakers here tonight voted for that amendment to keep us locked out of that acreage out west where the shale oil is.

And Madam Speaker, if people could see this chart, May of 2007 is when the biggest spike in the oil prices happened. And I think that's a time when the speculators saw that this Congress was not going to do anything about our own oil production. We refused to do it. And I think the speculators took great advantage of this and said this is a country that's not going to look to their own resources, they're going to be totally dependent on foreign oil, so we'll do with them as we wish.

What has happened over the past, I guess, 3 or 4 weeks is people have been calling our office and calling me, Madam Speaker, and asking me if I had signed a petition; there have been several of them on the web page about ``drill here, drill now, lower prices.'' There's petitions on there from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups about not allowing people to drill. And as I got these petitions, and especially when I was at home, Madam Speaker, one day and I saw a petition on the counter of a gas station, and I guess the owner of the station had it there to give people something to do rather than talk bad to him about the price of gas, but it was a petition that said, ``Sign here if you want to lower gas prices.'' And so I came up with an idea that what I would do is start a petition, Madam Speaker, in this House where the American people could know how their Congress person felt about increasing the oil production in this country to lower their price that they were paying for gas at the pump. And so we came up with this very simple thing. In fact, there is no legislation attached to this, there is no discharge petition, there is just a simple statement where Members of Congress can make a statement to their constituents, Madam Speaker, much like our constituents have been making their thoughts known to us by signing these petitions online and at local convenience stores. This simply says, ``American energy solutions for lower gas prices. Bring onshore oil online. Bring deep water oil online. And bring new refineries online.''

And I put everybody's district, all 435 and the seven delegates that we have that represent territories of the United States. It gave people the opportunity to sign. And it simply says, ``I will vote to increase U.S. oil production to lower gas prices for Americans.'' And I don't care if it's the production of biodiesel fuel, biomass, oil, whatever it is, to make us less dependent on foreign oil.

And we've listened to a lot of the Blue Dogs tonight, but none of those Blue Dogs have signed this petition. And Madam Speaker, I have often learned in life that your walk has to match your talk. And some people say, well, this is just a political statement. It's not a political statement at all. We've had some Republicans sign it, we've had some not sign it. We've had some Democrats sign it, we've had some Democrats not sign it.

If you want to know if your Member has signed it, you can go to House.gov/westmoreland. And on that page we have those that have signed it and those that have refused to sign it. If you don't see their name in either spot, then we're going to take it that they did want to sign it, we've just not had a chance to talk to them personally, Madam Speaker.

But we believe that your walk should match your talk. And so we do have some Democrats on there, some people--Neil Abercrombie from Hawaii, a great leader, we have Mr. Cazayoux from Louisiana, Mr. Melancon from Louisiana, some from Texas--that are on here because they believe that we need to increase our oil production to lower the gas prices, and we do. That's just a fact. We heard about all these biodiesel plants, and those are great. But you know what? Until we start using our own natural resources--we see what the speculators did when we voted not to.

Now, oil came down $4 a barrel. It came down, and I understand one of the reasons it came down is because Ms. Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, Madam Speaker, sent a letter to the President saying we need to get into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a reserve of our petroleum that we have, millions of barrels of oil that we would have in an emergency, in a crisis, in a disaster. She wants to release that, which means to me, Madam Speaker, that she realizes that we need more oil, we need more production. But because of the radical environmentalists that have controlled the majority, or at least influenced the majority greatly, they cannot afford to do what we need to do politically; it's not politically correct for them.

I think that the American people, Madam Speaker, are tired of us in this body being politically correct. They just simply want us to do what's right, the things that we swore, took an oath that we would do, and that is to protect the American people.

And as the Blue Dogs said tonight, this is not just an economic policy, this is a national security interest that we have. And we've got to own up to our responsibility and make sure that we live up to the challenges that our constituents have given us by electing us to this body. We have got to act. We've got to get out of the fetal position, and we've got to act and do some things that will bring about some relief at the pump.

A lot of them in the past 45 minutes or the last hour or so have talked about all the great things we've done. Well, with all the bills that have been passed, I haven't noticed the price of gas coming down one dime. It's almost like putting lipstick on a pig. You can make it look good, but it's only going to be a pig. So we can make things look good, we can make things look like we're doing something, but all we're doing is just making a nice window for people to view at. It's time that we got down to some hard decisions. And there are some hard decisions that have got to be made.

And there are things that we are doing. We have put up discharge petitions--and I say ``we,'' I'm talking about the minority party--but they're there for everybody to sign. The week of June 9, we put a discharge petition, ``No More Excuse Energy Act of 2007.'' What that would do is it would reduce the price of gasoline by opening new American oil refineries, investing in clean energy sources such as wind, nuclear, capturing carbon dioxide, and making available more home-grown energy through environmentally sensitive exploration of the Arctic Energy Slope and America's deep-sea energy reserves. Now, what that takes is 218 Members to sign that discharge petition. We hear a lot of talk, but we don't see a walk.

The week of June 16, H.R. 2279, Madam Speaker, Expand American Refining Capability of Closed Military Installations. It would reduce the price of gasoline by streamlining the refinery application process--which in 2005 was passed by a Republican Congress and later stripped out by the new majority--and by requiring the President to open at least three closed military installations for the purpose of siting new and reliable American refineries. A lot of people, Madam Speaker, might not realize that we import refined gasoline of almost seven billion gallons a year, almost the same amount of diesel fuel, Madam Speaker, that we bring into this country because we do not have the refining capabilities. Not a refinery has been built since 1978.

The week of June 23 it was H.R. 5656, the Repeal of the Ban on Acquiring Alternative Fuels; reduce the price of gasoline by allowing the Federal Government to procure advanced alternative fuels derived from diverse sources like shale oil, tar sands, and coal-to-liquid technology.

Do you realize in the energy bill, Madam Speaker, that was passed by this majority, that Federal agencies cannot use these alternative fuels? We heard a lot tonight from the Blue Dogs about using alternative fuels, increasing alternative fuels, but yet we will not let our agencies use it.

The week of July 7, this week, H.R. 2208, Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Act, which, Madam Speaker, happens to be authored by a Democrat, reduces the price of gasoline by encouraging the use of clean coal-to-liquid technology, authorizing the Secretary of Energy to enter into loan agreements with coal-to-liquid projects that produce innovative transportation fuel.

There shouldn't be one Member of this body not on that discharge petition to say let our oil go.

The week of July 14, we are going to have H.R. 2493, Fuel Mandate Reduction Act of 2007. It will reduce the price of gasoline by removing fuel blend requirements and onerous government mandates if they contribute to unfavorable gas prices. Right now part of the problem that we have with the high gas prices in areas in California and other cities that don't meet the attainment is the boutique fuels that we have.

The week of July 21 brings H.R. 6107, the American Energy Independence and Price Reduction Act. It will reduce the price of gasoline by opening the Arctic energy slope to environmentally sensitive American energy exploration. The development footprint will be limited to 1/100 of 1 percent of the refuge, and revenue received from the new leases would be invested in a long-term alternative energy trust fund.

The week of July 28, right before we go on the August recess, H.R. 6108, Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act of 2008, reduces the price of gasoline by enabling the United States to responsibly explore its own deep ocean to produce American energy. The bill would grant coastal States the authority to keep exploration 100 miles from their coastlines, and it would also allow States to share in the revenues received. As Mr. Cazayoux said today, it helps Louisiana protect their vital coastline and all the great natural resources that they have there.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to now yield to my friend Mr. Roskam to hear his comments.

I thank you for your comments. And just a couple of points that you made about the amount of money that we give to some of the people who are not friendly to us, even in our own hemisphere, we give Hugo Chavez $170 million a day.

I hear the other side complain about what Big Oil makes, and I don't know.

Big Oil, according to the records and stuff I read, make about a 10 percent profit, and I am not saying if that's good or bad for their business. But what do they think Mr. Chavez is making off of $170 million of U.S. dollars every day? And, listen, he is not our friend.

And the other thing that the gentleman has brought up is a great point, and we heard it today and I heard it on the floor earlier today that we need to all work together. Well, I agree we do need to all work together. But when the majority party brings the energy bills to the floor, some under suspension, when there's only 20 percent of debate on each side, no amendments, no committee hearings, no subcommittee hearing, no regular process, how are we all working together, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, you know if we are going to all work together, if we're going to all be part of the process, if all the people in this country--this is a republic. It is a representative form of government. And if I don't have an opportunity to amend or give input into the process, my people are shut out of the process. If there are no amendments, nobody on this side of the aisle and many people on this side of the aisle, the people they represent are shut out of the process.

So let's do all come together. Let's have an energy bill on the floor that can work, this open rule. We can have 435 plus the 7 delegates offer changes, offer solutions, as Mr. Roskam just did, about the people that have come up with solutions in his district; as Mr. Scott did previously about the biofuel in his district. We all have good ideas, but when we are shut out of the system, you can't work together. And I don't know what part of that the majority doesn't understand.

I would like to now yield to my colleague from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.

I want to thank my colleague from Georgia. That was a great test. I think anybody, anybody in the United States should be able to pass that test, Dr. Gingrey. I am glad you put it up, because that simplified it.

This is something, this little simple petition, I will vote to increase U.S. oil production to lower gas prices for Americans; 435 lines. So far, we have 191 signatures. This is just telling the American people we are ready to do all of the above. If you want to find out if your Member has signed this simple petition, much like the petitions that many of these people have signed, Mr. Speaker, that are listening to us, have gone on the Internet and signed petitions saying, Hey, drill here, drill now, lower our prices, and bring the U.S. back to being dependent--back from being dependent on foreign oil, go to House.gov/westmoreland and you will find out if your Member has signed, refused to sign, or is in the category of not making a decision because, Mr. Speaker, I feel like the American people are going to have to make the majority party understand that they want some change.

See, in April of 2006, then minority leader, now Speaker Pelosi made a statement that the Democrats had a plan. They had a commonsense solution to the skyrocketing price of gas. Of course, gas was about $2.05 then. So we are still waiting on that solution. We are still waiting on that commonsense plan. It hasn't been unveiled yet.

Although, in January of 2007, H.R. 6, the Energy Independence and Security Act, Dr. Gingrey, was passed in this House. The Republicans called it the ``no energy'' policy. I will read you some of the key words. This was a 300-something page bill. Crude oil was mentioned five times in that bill. Mr. Speaker, gasoline was mentioned 12 times. Exploratory drilling was mentioned twice in a 316-page bill about energy independence.

Offshore drilling was mentioned zero; domestic drilling, zero; domestic oil, zero; domestic gas, zero; domestic fuel, zero; domestic petroleum, zero. Gas price or gas prices, zero. Common sense, zero.

Now what was mentioned was greenhouse, 103 times. Green building was mentioned 101 times; ecosystem, 24 times; climate change, 18 times; regulation, 98 times; environmental, 160 times; geothermal, 94 times; renewable, 333 times; swimming pool, 47 times, because there was a swimming pool safety bill in the Energy Independence and Security Act.

Lamp, CFL, the new fluorescent lamps, 350 times. Three-hundred fifty times. Contains mercury. Only produced in China. We can't even dispose of it. If you drop one, you need to put on a mask, evacuate the house, let it air out until you can clean up a broken light bulb.

This was the commonsense plan, I hope not, that then Speaker Pelosi, then Minority Leader Pelosi was talking about bringing up, because gas has almost doubled, or more; maybe doubled when this commonsense plan came out.

But I want to read you one thing before I yield to my friend from Illinois. This was a statement made on January 18, 2007, the day, Mr. Speaker, this bill was passed. It says, ``It is sad to see the Republicans come to this. Now, they laughably say that this will lead to higher prices.'' That was Mr. Peter DeFazio from Oregon on how the Democrat's 2007 energy bill would affect gas prices. ``It is sad to see the Republicans come to this. Now, they laughably say this will lead to higher prices.''

Well, Mr. Speaker, I'd hate to say this, and I hate to say this, but we were right. It has led to higher prices. It has led to oil going out the roof because now the speculators in this world know that we, as a country, are not going to become energy independent as long as the leadership continues the course that they are on right now.

I'd like to yield to my friend from Illinois, a great leader in the energy battle and somebody that I think has made some real movement in the policy here, and that's Mr. Shimkus.

If you would yield for just a minute.

When these energy bills have come to the floor, have you been able to offer an amendment for some of your ideas that you have had here to present it to see if your constituency and your ideas could possibly be heard on this floor?

So what I hear you saying is we need to take the politics out of this, and we need to put people in front of power, and we need to put process in front of politics and do something that will move this country toward energy independence, rather than just staying in the fetal position, so-to-speak, that we have been in, and being held hostage by radical environmentalists who the majority may feel is a big part of their base. I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Right now, one of the reasons we are not being held hostage by our enemies, the people that supply us with our oil, is because we have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. If it was zero, trust me, we would have a bad time getting any oil.

With a sail on the top of it.

I am going to yield now to my classmate that we came in together, my colleague from Texas, where there are thousands of jobs every day where people go to work working in oil fields, and that is my friend Mike Conaway from the great State of Texas.

If you will yield for just a second, every bill that has been passed through here has had Davis-Bacon, which is the union pay scale, attached to everything we have passed through here. So I am sure if they pass something, if they ever did about building a refinery, I am sure Davis-Bacon would be added to it.

I understand, but I am sure it would be part of what they do.

I think it is interesting, you mentioned the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the letter that Speaker Pelosi wrote to the President. It is interesting that oil came down $4 a barrel. Now, if it will come down $4 a barrel on just a letter going to the President asking him to take the crude out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, think of what it would do if we voted in this body to drill without even sticking a drill in the ground. These speculators would run for the hills. And so I think you make a great point. And trust me, if we didn't have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we would not be getting oil from our enemies because they would know that they had us down.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, we have got just a few more minutes here, let me just say this. I think what you have heard tonight is that this is an all-of-the-above solution. It is all of the above. But a very important part of this is this country producing oil, to increase our oil production.

Rahm Emanuel on TV said, yes, increasing oil production is part of the solution. The Speaker has acknowledged that increasing oil production or at least having more oil is part of the solution. But as my colleague from Texas said, we don't need to take that out of our savings account. We need to bring it out of our natural resources, out of the ground.

Senator Schumer in the Senate about 3 weeks ago said that if we could just get Saudi Arabia to increase oil production 1 million barrels a day, it would drop the price of gas 50 cents a gallon. I don't know if that is true or not, but at least on the other side of this building some of the Democratic leadership understands that increasing oil production would bring down the price of gas.

I don't know why it is so hard to get a bill like that to this floor. I think the reason is strictly politics. It is strictly the radical environmental groups that has a grip or their claws into this majority.

And so I think what is happening is we are putting power above people, we are putting politics above process. Because as these gentlemen have talked tonight, with these ideas that they have shared they have not had one opportunity to offer one amendment on the energy bills because they have been brought either under suspension, under a closed rule, no committee hearings, no subcommittee hearings. The process has been broken. And so when the process is broken, the product is flawed.

Let me just close with this: www.house.gov/westmoreland. Mr. Speaker, go there, see if your Member has signed this simple petition that says I will vote to increase U.S. oil production to lower the gas prices for Americans.

Mr. Speaker, most Americans think that Members of Congress are somehow privileged and above the ordinary everyday concerns of the constituencies that we represent. I think all 434 of my House colleagues know that that's not true. By normal standards, we do get a very adequate salary, $162,500 a year, but out of that we have to pay our expenses of living in our districts and here in Washington, D.C. We have the same expenses that every other American family has.

This morning, before I left to fly to Washington, DC, I opened our credit card bill. We have a MasterCard. And on that bill we put most of our gasoline expenses and our routine living expenses. And my wife, Terry, has been working very, very hard this year to minimize the amount of expenses on that credit card. And we've both made an effort to make sure we only put things that we have to put on the credit card. So the vast majority of our MasterCard is now for gasoline.

And I just happened to look down the list of all the gasoline expenses from the early part of last month to right now, and it added up to over $600. Now, $600 is not an extraordinary amount, but a year ago that same amount of gasoline would have been about $300, maybe $350, and 2 or 3 years ago, it would have been about $150. And now it's over $600. And that's not taking any trips. That's not driving to see our families. That is my wife and my step-daughter and my day-to-day drive to work, drive to school, drive to the grocery store, do all the things that we do in everyday living in central Texas.

Now, as I said earlier, I make a very adequate salary and my wife makes an adequate salary. And it pinches us, but we can afford it. But what if my wife and I were on an income of, say, $4,000 a month, $48,000 a year? Having to spend $600 a month for gasoline just to go back and forth to work and to go to school and to go to church and to go to the grocery store would be a real struggle.

So we have a situation today where the new Democratic majority in the House has come in promising to bring energy prices down and a new commonsense plan for energy. Here we are, with approximately 5 months to go in this session of Congress, at least through the election in November, and energy prices are up almost 200 percent, gasoline prices, since the day that our Speaker, Mrs. Pelosi, took the gavel from Mr. Hastert.

And the response to the higher energy prices, at least so far, has been, at best, symbolic. We passed a bill giving the right to sue OPEC. OPEC supplies about 40 percent right now of our energy, our oil, so we're going to sue OPEC if that bill were to become law.

Several weeks ago we passed a bill suspending shipments of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; that's about 60 to 70 thousand barrels of oil a day. There were great predictions that day that passage of that one bill would bring prices down $25 a barrel, and I think one Member said 50 cents a gallon. Well, the day the bill passed, oil prices went up almost $2 a barrel. And a week after that, they hit an all-time high of $135 a barrel. They have now come down a little bit, but they're still, I believe today's price is about $127 a barrel.

So I think it's fair to ask my friends in the majority, where is our energy policy to really bring energy prices down for America? I'm not happy that in my little part of America I'm having to spend over $600 this month when we pay our MasterCard bill just for gasoline. And if the projections are true, later this summer I may have to spend seven, eight, even nine hundred dollars a month just for basic transportation in Arlington, Texas.

Most people think that we're helpless, that we can't do anything about these high energy prices, that they're almost like one of the Ten Commandments. Luckily, and hopefully, the truth is not that; we have tremendous energy resources in this country that have yet to be developed.

We can do something about these energy prices, and we can do it with made-in-America energy. We've been debating whether we should drill up in Alaska and ANWR for the last 20 years. We actually passed a bill and sent it to the President that would have allowed that in 1996. The President at the time, President Clinton, vetoed that bill. Had he not vetoed that bill or had we been able to override his veto, projections are that ANWR would probably be producing in the neighborhood of two to three million barrels of oil per day right now. I say projections because you never know until you actually drill the wells and start to produce the oil. But there are huge oil reserves in ANWR. And the minimum assumption would be half a million barrels a day within 3 to 4 years of the go-ahead to begin production. And that's just one oil field.

If we want to go off the coast of California where we drilled the original offshore oil wells, where you still have oil seeps that naturally come to the surface, where you do have some producing platforms that were in existence prior to 1968, it's estimated that we probably have three to five billion barrels of oil available right there, and that we could produce another half a million to a million barrels just off the coast of California.

If you want to go to the east coast, where we've done almost no exploration at all because of various moratoria, if the Gulf of Mexico is any indication, we probably have billions and billions of barrels of oil reserves and natural gas reserves off of that coast.

We know that there is oil and gas off the coast of Florida that's not being drilled right now because of a moratorium. Interestingly, the communist Chinese are drilling off the coast of Florida through a lease arrangement with Mr. Castro and the Cuban dictatorship in Cuba. It would be ironic if the communist Chinese ended up getting more oil and gas off the coast of Florida than Americans do.

If you don't want to drill offshore, what about onshore lower 48? We have probably two trillion--trillion is a thousand billion--we have two trillion barrels of shale oil reserves in Wyoming and Colorado. In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, we passed a procedure to inventory those and to do an expedited permitting process of the Minerals Management Service so that they could perhaps come into production, but on the floor of the House last year this Congress put a moratorium on implementing those rules. So we're putting our shale oil reserves off limits.

So it comes as no surprise, if you look at all these areas where we've put the stop sign up, that oil production in the United States is going down. At our peek, we produced over 10 million barrels of oil per day in the United States of America. At one time we were the number one producer of oil in the world. That's down to a little less than six million barrels a day. We use the equivalent of nine to ten million barrels of oil per day just for mobility purposes. We're only producing in the neighborhood of six million barrels.

We have tremendous energy reserves in this country. And if we want to bring these prices down, we don't have to look overseas to the Middle East, we don't have to beg OPEC, we don't have to sue OPEC, we do have to take our energy future into our own hands and begin to produce more American energy.

It's more than just oil and gas, obviously. We have tremendous coal resources in the United States. We have somewhere between 250 and 400 years of coal reserves. We've got lots of research being done to convert that coal to a liquid, a diesel-like fuel that we could use to fuel our transportation fleet.

When we had the debate on the so-called energy bill last year in this Congress, the rules were set up so that no amendment on coal-to-liquids was made in order in the Energy and Commerce Committee, the committee of principal jurisdiction, nor in the Rules Committee, nor on the floor of the House of Representatives. So we passed an energy bill which I voted against because there really wasn't any energy in it. It had no coal in it. It certainly had no oil or gas drilling in it. It was basically a mandatory conservation bill.

So my statement to the American people this evening, Mr. Speaker, is pretty straightforward. We've got tremendous energy resources in this great Nation of ours. We've got the ability, within a reasonably short period of time, and I would say that would be 2 to 4 years, maybe 2 to 5 years, if we made a decision in this Congress to produce some of the energy reserves that we know we have, we could, in all probability, double the amount of oil

that we're producing right now. We could certainly increase it by three to four million barrels a day, if not double it. And if we did that, energy prices would come down.

On the world market, oil is a fungible product, which means it can move anywhere, it's a commodity. We have the ability, worldwide, to produce on an average day around 85, 86 million barrels of oil. Unfortunately, the demand for oil is about 85 or 86 million barrels per day, give or take a million barrels or so. So we have a situation where you don't have a cushion, you don't have a capacity cushion. And the econometric models have shown that if you don't have about a 5 percent cushion, which would be about four or five million barrels a day, that price is going to tend to spike upwards. And that's what we have today.

We have a demand-driven price because we do not have on the world markets enough cushion to dampen the speculation, so the American consumers are having to pay right now on average right at $4 a gallon. I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I don't think American voters and the American citizens are going to be really happy if, in the face of these higher prices, our decision as a Congress is to just shake our fists and say we have the ability to sue the foreign cartel which we call OPEC.

So I have the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee. I have been working for the last 6 months with a group of Republicans both on and off the committee. Several weeks ago, we put in a package of 15 bills. These bills, taken together, would produce more American-made energy for American workers and energy consumers. They run the gamut. I'm not going to go through every bill right now, but we look at the oil and gas industry, the coal industry, the nuclear power industry, the alternative energy industry. You name it. We take a look at it, and do something to bring into play American-made resources for American energy consumption.

I would encourage all of our Members of Congress to take a look at these bills. We are going to try to get them to the floor as quickly as possible. I certainly think that if we are naming post offices and are commending watermelon festivals and things of this sort that we certainly can find room to have some real energy bills on the floor and to have a debate and to, hopefully, pass those bills to the other body.

At this point in time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my good friend from Ohio, Congressman Latta. Congressman Latta comes from a distinguished family of congressmen. His father was the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee when I was a young pup. Our current Congressman Latta has come to Washington with the same common sense that his father exhibited 20 years ago.

So I would yield as much time as he may consume to Mr. Latta of Ohio.

I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio's insightful comments.

As he has pointed out, it's not a lack of American energy; it's a lack of willpower on this floor to develop that energy. What we need is American-made energy for America's families and factories.

To talk a little bit more about that, I want to recognize the distinguished conference secretary of the Republican Conference, the gentleman from Williamson County, Round Rock, Texas, Congressman Carter, for such time as he may consume.

I thank the gentleman from Round Rock.

Mr. Speaker, can I inquire how much time we have remaining in our Special Order, please?

Thank you. I would now like to yield such time as he may consume to Mr. Gingrey of Georgia, a physician, who, before he became a Member of Congress, was a baby doctor and delivered over 5,000 American lives into our great Nation, and is concerned about their future and wants to make sure they have affordable energy.

Dr. Gingrey.

I thank the gentleman. I want to point out he needs to change his sign. He has his ``9'' upside down. If you subtract 5 cents from $3.98, you get $3.94 or $3.93. You don't get $3.63. He has his ``6'' and ``9'' down there.

Mr. Speaker, I think you begin to get the point we are trying to put across this evening. America has got great energy resources. We are not using those resources right now. For various political reasons, we have put them off limits.

We are not allowing any exploration or production in ANWR in Alaska. We are not allowing any exploration or production off the West Coast of the United States. We are not allowing any exploration or production off the East Coast of the United States. We are not allowing our shale oil resources to be developed in the interior of the United States. We are not developing our coal resources with the clean coal technology that the gentleman from Ohio spoke about. So we are a victim of self- inflicted wounds in this country.

I would like to say that it can't get any worse, but it can. I was just on a congressional delegation that visited Europe. We went to Slovenia and to Italy to interact with the European parliament and then toured some NATO bases in Italy. They are paying the equivalent of $9 a gallon for gasoline, $9. So even though we think $4 a gallon is way too high, there are other parts of the world that are paying double what we are paying.

If our energy prices continue to go up, there will be consequences. General Motors just announced yesterday they are closing four of their automobile assembly plants in this country. Ford Motor Company, one of the icons of American industry, their stock is selling at almost an all-time low, at least a modern era all-time low. They just divested part of their company. They sold it to an Indian automobile company. The higher prices go, the more uncompetitive America is in world markets and the more Americans are thrown out of work. It is kind of a self-propelling cycle.

We need to do something about it. The good news is that we can do something about it. We have the ability more than any other Nation in the world to produce our own energy for consumption here in the United States. American-made energy for American families and factories is a doable deal. It is not a pipe dream. But we have to start in this Congress.

Now, we have a package of 15 energy bills that have been introduced at various times in this Congress. They are active. They have bill numbers. The Speaker of the House and the majority leader and the chairwoman of the Rules Committee and the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee could schedule these bills for committee action, could schedule these bills for floor action and bring them to the floor.

It wouldn't bother me a bit if the Speaker wanted to bring these to the floor under an open rule; let Members of both political parties go to the Rules Committee and have amendments made in order. Let's have a full, fair, open debate in committee, the Rules Committee and on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Some of these bills would probably pass on a suspension calendar if they were brought to the floor. Some of the bills would be very controversial. The access bill, opening up ANWR, H.R. 6107, would be a close vote, no question about that, but I think a majority of the House of Representatives would vote in the affirmative to let us develop an energy resource that could have as much as 10 billion barrels of oil in it. On a daily basis that would be somewhere between 1 and 2 million barrels per day with existing technology, if we were to make the decision to let that go and to start producing it.

We have a shale oil reserve bill. We have an alternative fuel for defense and aviation bill. Mr. Gingrey talked about that. We have a- coal-to-liquids bill that is Mr. Shimkus' bill that has a Democrat sponsor, Mr. Boucher, the subcommittee chairman of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee. We have a renewable fuel standard bill that would take the renewable fuel standard back to the 2005 Energy Policy Act. We have a bill to encourage new refineries, Congresswoman Heather Wilson's bill. We have a bill on speculation that was introduced by myself. We have a boutique fuels bill, H.R. 2493, introduced by our Republican whip, Mr. Blunt. We have a bill that provides for some tax provisions by Mr. Terry of Nebraska. We have some bills on nuclear energy. We have an Outer

Continental Shelf bill that has been introduced by Congresswoman Myrick of North Carolina.

I could go on and on. The point I am trying to make is we have American energy resources that could be developed and I think should be developed. We are not hopeless, we are not helpless, but right now we have a majority that, for some reason, has decided that it is okay for American citizens to pay these high energy prices, and, as I said earlier, if we sit here on our hands and do nothing, the prices are going to go up and up and up, which is not a good thing for our economy.

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, we are planning a series of special orders. We are going to continue to try to educate the American people on the energy situation. But we are not just out here complaining and whining and bemoaning our fate. We have a positive solution that, if implemented and sent to the President and signed into law, would begin to bring immediate results in the terms of additional energy resources and lower energy prices.

Let's work together. As Daniel Webster says in the saying above the Speaker's rostrum, let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote its great interests, and see whether we also in our day and our generation can do something that will be seemed worthy to be remembered by future generations.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

And just to make sure that my constituents know that I have not changed States, it's Michigan. It starts with an ``M,'' it's up north, it's cold, generally. I can understand that. But I'm sure proud to represent Michigan, and more importantly, the Seventh District of Michigan in this great House of Representatives.

Tonight I am committed to talking about an issue that is of extreme importance to my constituents, and in fact from what we read, constituents of all of our districts all over this great United States because we are in a time and place and setting right now that, frankly, we aren't used to.

And may I submit tonight to all who would listen that, frankly, I don't think we should ever get used to it for America is too great of a Nation and has been the ambassador of great blessing to the rest of the world in many cases. It has set the course, has charted the way toward greater economic achievement, standard of living, advances in technology, business, industry, education, medicine, and transportation.

I happen to come from the district where Henry Ford had his home, made homes and schools for his employees in a great part of my district, used the resources from that district, including during some wartimes some Sassafras trees just three miles from my house that were used to make a light but strong frame for his motor cars with the absence of steel at that point in time because of the war effort.

I come from the State that has been known as the Motor Capital of the World, Michigan. Detroit has set the standard that the rest of the world has followed, emulated, copied, and sometimes even expanded upon, and yet still America, Michigan, the Motor Capital, charts the way.

Just the other day--I tell this story for a purpose, but just the other day I had something of an experience happen to me that has never happened before, nor did I expect it to happen. I filled the tank of my Harley Davidson motorcycle, which has a 5-gallon tank, and it cost me over $20. Now, for those of you that have ridden motorcycles, it is almost unbelievable to think that a vehicle that gets great gas mileage, that has a small tank like that would ever cost double digits, let alone over $20 to fill. But that's the place we're in right now with gas today on average across the United States at $4.04 a gallon. My Harley happens to take premium. So I paid $4.27 a gallon for that 5- gallon tank fill.

Less than 2 years ago, very seldom, if ever, would I double-digit fill my tank, even if it were on empty. Now, I don't ride my Harley Davidson for transportation anymore.

It's primarily for recreation, but 38 years ago when I started riding my first motorcycle it was for transportation, to get to and from my work.

Over the course of successive years, I would use my motorcycle in the better seasons of the year, the warmer time, to ride to work and enjoy that experience but also as commuting. I don't do that anymore, but we're paying gas prices now that should not be part and parcel of what America is.

We talk a lot about energy independence and being willing to compete and make sure that the rest of the world has to compete with us, as opposed to the other way around. And yet, up to this very day, in the outcome of what has gone on in Congress, it has been just talk and no action.

Last week, I heard the governor of our great State of Michigan announce on a major radio talk show that she was now riding a bicycle to the Capitol from her governor's residence each day, and when the host expressed concern about her safety, she said, oh, no problem, my security detail are following me on their bicycles as well.

Now, that's a nice story. I don't give any negatives toward our governor for being efficient in her use of energy resources, but you've got to understand that, when I heard that, it shocked me. And in fact, if not angered, it frustrated me to think that the governor of the motor capital of the world was riding a bicycle to work, even though she has an energy efficient, flex-fuel vehicle that I've seen her use and seen her actually fill the gas tank with fuel.

Right now, more importantly, getting to the real world of real people, people who pay those gas prices each day, people who pay their taxes, that includes supporting this Congress in what we do, right now most Michigan families that I know of, as I go back to my district each weekend, are giving up things like nights out eating at restaurants or family vacations or traveling to family events in order to cover the rising cost of gasoline. If Congress does not take action soon, families will be giving up much more than that. They will be giving up very specific needs, necessities in their life. And in fact, what I've heard in many town hall meetings, some are already giving up even necessities of their life in order to pay for the gasoline to get to their workplace the next day in order to sometime hopefully pay for some of these necessities.

Just this past weekend, AAA announced that the nationwide average gas price finally reached over $4 per gallon. It's been much higher in Michigan for several weeks. High gas prices are affecting families, truckers, farmers, small business owners. I met a small business owner in my office today who said the cost of transporting copy machines, office equipment to and from her client is getting almost prohibitive. Emergency services, public safety, and numerous other entities in Michigan's Seventh District and all over this U.S. are being negatively affected by the high cost, and I say the unnecessarily high cost, of fuel.

Despite fuel costs at levels previously only seen in Europe, leadership in this Congress refuses to increase American energy production. Instead, Speaker Pelosi and leading House Democrats would rather increase taxes on domestic energy production and increase our reliance on OPEC or, as suggested last week, sue OPEC for what all that's worth.

On a related note, the United States Department of Commerce recently announced the U.S. trade deficit reached its highest level in 13 months in April. Our trade deficit also increased by $4.1 billion between February 2007 and February 2008.

This is why our country is facing a rising trade deficit, even though American-made exports grew by 12 percent in 2007. The issue related to energy and the cost of energy has a direct influence on this. This is why we need to provide incentives to increase America's investment in alternative energy and overall production of energy.

The United States imports around 12 million barrels of oil a day, and a barrel of oil has gone from $70 to $140 over the last year, dramatically increasing our trade deficit. Our reliance on imported oil and increased oil prices means we are sending even more money to foreign countries and some that don't like us very much at all and certainly don't share our interests.

For both economic and national security purposes, and again, I want to reiterate that, national security purposes, Congress needs to finally get serious about an energy plan that truly lowers prices at the pump, reduces our dependence on foreign oil, and makes real progress towards energy independence. Instead of increasing our dependence on OPEC, America needs to return energy production to the United States. Doing so will create American jobs and provide needed economic stability and transportation that's efficient and usable to our American taxpayer.

The answer to our current energy crisis must be multi-pronged, and I have cosponsored legislation to provide incentives along those lines for solar, wind, cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel and other green alternatives. We must increase domestic energy production through carbon-free nuclear power and clean coal technology as well. I'm also cosponsoring legislation that would encourage conservation with tax credits for green buildings and legislation that would spark a revolution in clean hydrogen technology.

There are many sources where we can move toward if we're willing to dig down deep and do what's necessary and walk away from those unnecessarily strong, critical, excessive environmental forces that don't speak to the welfare of this great country.

Today, I introduced a discharge petition, something that isn't done regularly in Congress, something that isn't successful regularly but has been. I trust that this discharge motion will be. As of this point in time, with just a few hours with that discharge motion being on the floor, 93 of my colleagues have signed on, moving toward the 218 that are necessary.

This petition, if effective with 218 signatures, will force a vote on Congressman Mac Thornberry's No More Excuses Energy Act, an Act suitably entitled, legislation to increase U.S. energy production and invest in alternative sources of energy as well.

This appropriately named legislation would impact the price at the pump and lower electric bills. It would encourage the construction of new refineries, boost alternative energy, supplemental energy development by extending the wind production tax credit for 10 years, giving some certainty that if I were to invest in wind energy production, I would have a reasonable amount of time to see a return on my investment.

It would increase American oil production by allowing environmentally sound drilling in Alaska, the Outer Continental Shelf and the Gulf of Mexico, and it would help increase our supply of electricity by encouraging the construction of new nuclear power plants. Even leaders, in fact, one of the founders of Greenpeace, have come out strongly encouraging the use of nuclear power as being clean, green energy, not given over to continuing production of greenhouse gases.

Rather than increase taxes on domestic energy production, as some in Congress have proposed, I'm working to pass sound legislation that will bring down the price of gas and reduce our dependence on Middle East oil. Legislation like the No More Excuses Energy Act of Mac Thornberry would increase the supply of American energy and increase the number of good paying jobs in this country and in my district, the Seventh District of Michigan.

Policies such as a 23-year moratorium on exploring and developing offshore production of clean and green natural gas need to be lifted in order to lower prices and reduce our dependence on foreign gas. Natural gas provides 23 percent of our Nation's energy. It should be more. And America is the only developed Nation that prohibits offshore production and exploration of this clean, green, clean burning resource, and Americans are paying higher electricity and heating bills as a result of this.

Like all of you, I'm tired of paying these high prices. Whether it's for my motorcycle, whether it's for my car or whether it's for my pick- up truck, I'm tired of paying this because it's unnecessary, as we've done nothing to change that except talk, and it's time to put action into place.

I know high prices are affecting all of us. This is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for America to put up with this. The good people of south central Michigan, the good people of Michigan, the good people of the rest of the States in this wonderful country who depend on gasoline or diesel to get to work, drive their kids to baseball practice and visit family members deserve better.

The volunteers who offer to drive veterans to VA hospitals in my district and other districts in other States deserve better.

The volunteers who offer to drive Meals on Wheels to needy senior citizens deserve better than this.

Our churches and synagogues, our places of worship all across this great country that will be looking at looming fuel bills that many will be unable to pay this coming heating season deserve better than this because America doesn't need to be in this situation.

So I'm delighted that tonight I'm joined by a number of my colleagues who will add to what has been stated already, probably more eloquently, with points of experience that come from all over this country. I appreciate their commitment to doing something more than talking about energy independence, doing something more than talking about resuming America's position of leading the world in all areas, including the area of energy production and usage.

We have blessed the world with our standard of living, with our technology and with our energy, and it is time to get about that project again.

So at this time, I would like to ask my good friend and colleague from Georgia, Dr. Paul Broun, to add to what has been said. I appreciate you taking the time to be with us this evening.

Well, Congressman Broun, I think we want to do that. And I think you've brought up some points that are interesting to think about. Not only do we have a governor riding a bicycle to the Capitol, we are exploring for ice on Mars, but not doing exploration for oil-- that we know is there----

In Alaska, in ANWR.

And for those nations that love America and appreciate America, we're not standing in a

strengthened position that we can afford to them the assurance that America will be there when necessary because we can take care of ourselves, we're independent. And I think those are issues you bring up.

I'm delighted that we have the Dean of the Michigan delegation here, Congressman Fred Upton, who has been here through a lot and I'm sure has taken a lot of grief on this issue.

And Congressman Upton, before I turn to you, let me just, for the record, state, as you and some of my longer serving Republican colleagues are chastised for not getting this done in the House, you have attempted to get it done on numerous occasions. If we look back at the last decade, by the numbers, votes on ANWR exploration: House Republicans, 91 percent support it; House Democrats, 86 percent opposed.

Coal-to-liquid: House Republicans, 97 percent support it; House Democrats, 78 percent opposed. Oil shale exploration: House Republicans, 90 percent supported every vote on that in the House; House Democrats, 86 percent opposed.

Moving to the Outer Continental Shelf exploration, where right now foreign countries like Japan, China and Mexico are within 44-50 miles of our shores, and they are drilling and taking out natural gas and oil. On these votes, House Republicans, 81 percent support it; House Democrats, 83 percent opposed.

And then finally, refinery increased capacity, and now that we're offering the ``no-more-excuses'' Energy Act, the opportunity to put them on abandoned military facilities, government lands, House Republicans, 97 percent support it; House Democrats, 96 percent opposed.

Who is willing to take action? Who has evidenced that by their votes in this great body, this House of Representatives? Republicans, 91 percent, when you put it all together, of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of American-made oil and gas while 86 percent of House Democrats have historically voted against increasing the production of American-made oil and gas.

And so why do we see an ``energy-less'' energy bill that you talked about that gives incentives for bicycle riding and not energy? I think we have to say it's a leadership problem. So I thank you for bringing up those points.

Congressman Upton, from my home State of Michigan, I want to turn it over to you as well for a little perspective.

As long as my colleagues don't yield and sing them the theme song.

If my colleague could yield just a moment here on one point that ties into that. We heard yesterday from one of our Senate colleagues from a northern State, a northeastern State, say that what we ought to do is buy one million barrels a day from Saudi Arabia. That would reduce the cost at the pump by about 50 cents. Well 50 cents right now would be great. But why not take that from ANWR? We can get one million barrels per day from ANWR right now, we are told, at least that, if we are to take it from there, and not have to buy it from any other foreign country, have it shipped to us from any other foreign country, and use it exactly like you said down here to make this great country run on its own fuel as opposed to buying from someplace else.

I thank you for that and the points you make so clear.

I would like to yield back for a moment to my good friend from Georgia, since we have two Michiganders here and two Georgians now speaking, Dr. Paul Broun, for some additional comments, I know you have a point to make, before I go on to my good friend from Oklahoma.

Congressman Broun, you point out the fact that we have all sorts of energy sources. And we ought to be using them and developing them.

I want to move to a good friend, colleague and leader in our conference from Oklahoma. Congressman Cole, I appreciate your joining us tonight. I know you have taken some ribbing already about Oklahoma. I know you can handle it, but certainly I know our people would like to hear what you have to say about this issue.

I thank you for sharing that history. It is a good point to know what has been attempted and what hasn't been accomplished. But it would also give the opportunity for our constituents to voice their concerns now with factual information to say there are things you can do. Now get it done.

In the time remaining, I would like to turn a portion of that over to my good friend and colleague from Texas, bringing the southern States in now, Congressman Randy Neugebauer.

I thank my good friend and colleague from Texas for ending it on a point that is poignant, that reminds us what this really costs. I wish we could go on and on tonight to bring out more points like this. This is critical. It is a security issue, as well as a point of life, and you made it very clear. I don't want to write a check for $170 million to Hugo Chavez. Let's get it done.