Wayne Allard

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I am joined on the Senate floor by my colleague from Wyoming. I ask unanimous consent that we may engage in a colloquy.

Mr. ALLARD. The figure I have seen is more than $700 billion in 1 year's time. That is a whale of a lot of money to be sending overseas, to our enemies potentially.

Mr. ALLARD. I would be delighted to talk about oil shale. First, I want to address the issue where the majority leader tried to imply that Republicans are interested in only one issue, and that is extraction of oil and gas from the ground. Republicans I talk to on this Senate floor, in my party, understand we need to have a balanced approach. We need to go after all sources of energy. The problem is that on the Democratic side, they only want to go after renewable sources. I helped to found the Renewable Energy Caucus, and so I understand how important renewable energy is to our future. But we need something to bridge us over, and that is where I think the comments of my colleague from Wyoming are so important, when we are talking about converting oil to liquids or to natural gas. It helps create that bridge. We need to create that bridge by having an opportunity to go and explore for oil and gas in the ground. One source of fuel in the ground is oil shale, and I think it is important that my colleagues here on the floor understand that oil shale is a huge resource in this country. We have oil shale in the State of Wyoming to a lesser amount than we have in Utah and Colorado, but we have lots of oil shale in Colorado. In fact, most of it is in Colorado. There is a fair amount in Utah, and then a smaller amount in Wyoming. We have different types of oil shale in Utah and Wyoming, and the extraction proposal out of those two States is a little different. We need to move forward with oil shale, and that is why I am working so hard to get the moratorium off of oil shale because Shell Oil Company and other companies have developed a technique where extraction is environmentally friendly. Utah's oil shale is closer to the surface. It is a higher quality shale which contains lots of oil in one small chunk of rock. What they do is they go ahead and grind it up, heat it, and they extract a heavy type of oil out of that product. In Colorado, what we are talking about in Mesa and Garfield Counties, for example, is a deeper oil shale. It is a good quality oil shale--not quite as good quality as we see in Utah--and we have a new technology that is being developed there that takes the ground and freezes a perimeter around the section of ground and then heat the middle of it. Basically what you have is a refinery in the ground. So what you extract out is basically a jet fuel that contains sulfur and nitrogen. Obviously, the sulfur and nitrogen has to be refined out, but it is a very good, high-quality product. It is a jet fuel. Then the heavy tarry stuff is left in the ground. There is no disruption of the surface of the ground other than the fact that you run some pipes in the ground, and you need some water. They have taken out water rights in that part of Colorado to make sure they have water. It is the type of water that can be recycled and reused. So there are lots of conservation aspects to this new technology that is being developed for oil shale. That is why I had the support for the provision that was provided for in the Gas Price Reduction Act of 2008, removing the moratorium we have on oil shale. The current law says you can't move forward with the regulatory process on oil shale, so it has stopped it dead in its tracks. In the meantime, up to 2 trillion barrels of oil in the form of oil shale is in the ground, and we think, with today's technology, that between 800 billion and 1 trillion barrels is what can be economically extracted out of the ground and made available to us. That is three times all of the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Oil shale is a huge resource, but we need to remove the moratorium that says we can't even go ahead and layout the rules and regulations. Now, why is that important? Because they tell the oil companies what the rules of the game are going to be, what they can expect the royalties to be, what they can expect the price of leasing the public lands to be, and also what remediation requirements are there for cleaning up the environment. When the President removed the moratorium on going after our natural resources through the floor of the ocean, he sent a significant message that he is willing to provide more supply for oil and gas, and that had a positive impact on the market. We need to continue that sincerity the President showed to the American people by taking some real action here on the floor of the Senate, and we need to do that by removing an additional moratorium on drilling off the coast and we need to relieve or take off the moratorium on oil shale so that resource can be developed. The technology is not going to be developed until about 3 years from now, so it would be around 2011 or later before it is ready to go. But you need to put in place the rules and regulations first. We need that now. Some of the reasons for objecting that I have heard is people will say: Well, it is going to take 10 years to develop. Maybe so. But 10 years from now, are you going to say now is the time? It will still take 10 years. My point is that the sooner you put this in place, you can begin to prepare this bridge we need to have for today's energy sources to get us to future energy sources, which are the renewables--the Sun, or photovoltaic cells, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen. That is what we are talking about, and that is what this particular piece of legislation provides for. Citizens in Colorado are being dramatically impacted by high fuel prices. We talked before about the agricultural sector and the trucking sector. Trucking is more heavily impacted than any other area, because in the West, we are big States and we have lots of land to cover to provide our goods and services. I don't know whether the Senator from Wyoming has anything to say about how his citizens in his State are feeling the impact of high fuel prices, but certainly they are being felt in the State of Colorado, and it wouldn't surprise me if they aren't very similar in the State of Wyoming.

Mr. ALLARD. That is very key. We need to be less dependent on foreign sources of oil, not only for our own economic well-being but also for the security of this country. If we have to rely on our enemies, or possible enemies, to provide us with fuel, that creates all sorts of security problems for this country. So we have to make sure we have plenty of sources for us to meet our military needs throughout the world if we are going to be the Nation's and this world's peacekeepers. I note that the Senator has a very busy corridor that goes through the southern part of Wyoming, and it is a big trucking corridor. I think nearly every truck going east to west has to go through Wyoming. They like to avoid the high mountains passes in Colorado, so they find it easier driving through Wyoming, and I expect you see quite an impact there in your State.

Mr. ALLARD. I don't see any solution on the Democratic side. They are talking about more taxes on oil and gas production; they are talking about more rules and regulations. I don't see any proposal that says we need to increase the supply, as we do on the Republican proposal, where we want to turn to oil shale, and to the Outer Continental Shelf, and we turn to the futures market to try to put more enforcement there, and we also work on the conservation side with the electric car. Truckers are small business people, I attended a press conference today with truckers, I was struck by how conscious they were in trying to conserve. They were maintaining their trucks. They had great safety records. They were making sure the air in their tires was optimal so they could improve the mileage on it. The trucker I heard this morning, he was saying that about a year ago he was spending somewhere around $1,200 to $1,300 to make a trip from Virginia to Texas. There are no high mountain ranges such as we are used to in the West but a relatively flat trip. This year it is up around $2,500, $2,600 to make that same trip. It is getting close to double what he was paying last year. That has to have an impact on the goods and services that are provided in this country. We need to be looking at real solutions. That is the point of this colloquy. That is the point the Republicans are trying to make. Just standing here debating on the floor of the Senate doesn't make a difference. We need to have an opportunity where Republican Senators can put their ideas forward. These need to be in the form of amendments. We need to pick our own amendments. The majority leader should not be picking our amendments. It happens he wants to dictate that process. This is the Senate. This is where we should have open and free debate. I think if we had an opportunity to debate these amendments on the floor we could change the direction of this country. I think we could change the type of legislation that is being proposed as a solution. Deep down I believe most Members of this Senate understand this is a supply-and-demand problem and we need to produce more supply and we also need to encourage more conservation. My hope is we will have an opportunity to make amendments to achieve this. I have made some of those amendments in committee and found I had bipartisan support and had commitments from both Democrats and Republicans that would help support my position on taking the moratorium off oil shale and similar moratoria. We are simply cutting off supplies to this country and we are becoming more and more dependent on foreign oil. We are sending more than $700 billion overseas to potentially our enemies--countries such as Iran and Venezuela, for example, and many of the Arab countries which are marginal friends. We have to admit, they are there one day and gone the next. We will need to make sure we have the security we need in this country, both economically and from a military standpoint. That means we need more oil and gas and not less. We need to have more energy from all over the energy spectrum and encourage the American people to conserve. I thank my friend from Wyoming for his contribution to this colloquy. I think he is doing a great job and Wyoming should be proud of him.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. No objection.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, there is no objection on this side.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, it is time this Senate begin to act on what it is going to do to increase the supply of energy. It is time to lay aside politics. It is time to begin to look for real solutions to solve this country's energy problems. What we have heard so far from the other side has nothing to do with increasing the supply of energy. We heard speeches on the Senate floor attacking speculation. Speculation works as a normal way of doing business on the futures market. What is against the law, which creates problems, is if you have manipulation of the markets. That is where somebody goes in and takes some kind of action on the market that somehow is going to artificially drive up the cost of fuel. It is manipulation. The administration has discovered a company or two that is doing that. They have been working on it for some time. This shows the regulation process is working. We heard testimony in one of the committees on which I serve and we had a discussion on the supply of energy and the manipulation of the markets, and the regulators agreed they need to do more. I agree with that. We need to make sure they have the manpower they need to adequately enforce what we already have on the books. I am looking for real solutions and my Republican colleagues, I believe, are looking for real solutions because we realize how important it is we become less dependent on foreign oil and not more. It is important for the security of this country, now and 20 to 30 years down the road, that we increase our supply of energy. So we need more energy, and we need to consume less. Increasing taxes, which has been talked about on this floor, is not the answer. We are going to have a tax proposal that will be brought up, perhaps, on the floor of the Senate that will temporarily cut taxes for renewable energy--and, by the way, I am a strong supporter of renewable energy--and put in place a permanent tax increase on business. That is not the way we should be doing business on the floor of the Senate. That does not increase the production of oil. Now, making it more difficult to produce more energy through more regulations is certainly not the answer. But we have heard proposal after proposal on the Senate floor claiming they are going to increase the supply of energy by increasing the regulatory environment, making it more difficult to go out and produce energy. One of the things, in my view, that would produce more energy is utilizing capped wells, we have a lot of capped wells out there. These are existing wells that do not have to be drilled. They were shut down because at one point the economics were such that they could not make a profit with these wells. So they capped them and said: We are going to quit wasting our money on that one and go on to new areas where we can provide more oil for this country--oil and gas. Well, the cost of the market is such that now it is feasible to begin to open these capped mines. We need to make sure we do not pass a regulation in this body that is going to make it more difficult for them to uncap those wells. That is a ready resource of energy. We also heard comment on this floor about the fact that we have all this leased land out here. Leasing land does not equal more oil and gas. Many times, when you go onto a parcel of land and lease it, you have no idea whether there is oil or gas underneath there until you begin to put in some test wells and test the area. Just because you talk about all of this land that is available for leasing doesn't mean there is oil and gas on it. Leasing land doesn't mean there is oil and gas on there. What happens with many of those leases is they may have found they are not productive. The leases are let out for 5 years or they may be let out for 8 years or 10 years. Then, if they are not producing, they put them back on the market and see if anybody else is interested in using the technology they have to try to discover if there is a source of energy under the surface of that land. The important point to make is that just because you have land available doesn't mean there is oil and gas underneath it. So my view is--and I think the view of many Republicans--we need to increase the production of energy, whether it is natural gas or whether it is oil shale, in order to bridge the gap to develop technology that is going to produce more energy in the future. I happen to feel that nuclear power is something we have ignored, and we need to do more in the way of nuclear power to meet the needs of providing adequate energy supply to our businesses and to our homes. Let's talk about the pain at the pump. Throughout this great Nation, people are struggling with high gas prices. I am looking for some renewables to deal with cars. A lot of the renewables happen to deal with wind, solar, happen to deal with geothermal, biofuels. Now, there is something that might be able to be used with cars, but most of these renewables we are talking about can't be used in the car world. People are feeling the pain. It is when you pull up to the gas tank and put your credit card in there and you fill up the tank, and when you look at the total at the end is when you really begin to hurt. High gas prices not only affect our ability to get around but increasingly are affecting each facet of our everyday life. Americans are feeling pain at the pump due to high gas prices, and increasingly they feel pain at the kitchen table too. As gas prices go up, so do food prices. Food prices go up because it costs a lot to produce those food products that will end up on the table. America's farmers and ranchers produce the safest, most affordable food in the world, but rising energy prices have affected almost every level of agriculture. It has caused everything from fertilizer costs to processing costs to increase. The high cost of diesel and other types of energy are forcing food prices up. My home State of Colorado produces some of the best tasting produce in the world, including potatoes. In Colorado's San Luis Valley last year, it cost a farmer about $90 an acre for starter fertilizer. This year, the cost is up to almost $300. Imagine that. In 1 year, it has gone from $90 an acre to $300 an acre. Suppose you have a farm of 100 acres. That is a huge cost, a huge impact on the bottom line. That is right, in 1 year those costs have more than tripled. Weld County, another agriculture-producing county in Colorado, is one of the Nation's top-producing ag counties. Even in an area that produces as much food as Weld County, people are fighting high food costs. Higher food costs are affecting all Americans, but they are especially damaging to people dealing with food insecurity. Food banks are struggling to stretch dollars so they can keep food on their shelves. This is food that goes to our most vulnerable populations-- impoverished individuals and their families. In Weld County, 32 percent of the individuals served by our local food bank are children. Recently, oil hit $145 per barrel, and from the beltway to Middle America, $4-a-gallon gas is the frightening norm. In the face of these challenges to the American economy and consumers, we have failed to take the steps necessary to address this problem either in the short term or in the long term. This Congress has been ignoring one of the fundamental rules of economics; that is, supply and demand. Currently, worldwide supply of energy is being outpaced by growing demand. That is not only worldwide but here in this country. I saw on the TV a report which said that it is everything we can do to keep up with current demand. So if we were to implement any of the policies we are talking about here to increase supply, we would barely be able to keep up with current demand at the current levels. This is a huge challenge for Americans, and we shouldn't be backing away from that challenge here on the Senate floor. If we take steps to increase supply, prices will go down. The day after President Bush lifted the Presidential moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, oil prices fell nearly $7 a barrel. Let me say that again: a drop of almost $7 per barrel in 24 hours because action was taken that got us closer to putting additional supply on the market. This translates eventually into cheaper gas. One of the best ways to drive down fuel prices is by finding more and using less. Embracing renewable energy is an excellent way to increase supply. As a founder and cochair of the Renewable Energy Caucus, I know the importance of using renewable energy, but we are not at a point yet where renewable energy can meet all of our energy needs. We still need fossil fuels. One of the most promising sources of domestic energy is found in the West, much of it in my home State of Colorado. We have lots of natural gas available on the western side of our State. We also have oil shale which is found not only in Colorado but in Utah and Wyoming that will yield somewhere between 800 billion to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. This is more than the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia and certainly enough to help drive down gas prices and bring us closer to energy independence. However, we cannot delay. Some people say it is going to take 10 years to develop this resource. Well, are we going to wait another 10 years before we start developing a resource that is going to take 10 years to develop? We can't continue to delay these kinds of policies; we need to act now so we can begin to give the American people some relief. We aren't taking the steps necessary to utilize the resources we have and to cut back on the $700-plus billion we send overseas annually for fuel because the Democrats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives have prevented the Department of the Interior from even issuing proposed regulations under which oil shale, for example, could be moved forward. My position is that we need to put the regulations in place so that then the leases can be let. If you expect oil companies to go and begin to lease all of the land that is apparently available and that they thought was available for lease, if you want them to do that, they have to know the rules of the game. They have to know what is going to be their return on their investment. They have to know what the lease rates are going to be. They have to understand the market forces. They need to understand what the remediation is that might be required. They need to understand what environmental laws they have to deal with if they go ahead and happen to put in place a project to extract oil shale. By the way, the technology in oil shale has changed significantly. We have moved that basically from a mining operation in Colorado to an in situ process where you leave the rock in the ground, you heat the ground and extract basically a high-quality jet fuel that needs further refinement with nitrogen sulfur. So that is how far the technology has come. It has gone from a mining operation to where you have in situ technology where you leave all the heavy, tarry stuff in the ground, you extract a good-quality fuel, and it has a lot of environmental advantages when you use that process. So it is time for us to move forward. It is time for us to quit bickering about profits that are made by oil companies. It is time for us to stop blaming the President. It is time for us to recognize that it is a supply-and-demand issue. We need to supply more, we need to encourage less consumption through conservation, and we need to begin to move forward on this Senate floor and pass some meaningful legislation. Mr. President, I now yield the floor.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, when I first ran for the Senate in 1996, my position was that we needed to have a broad-based supply of energy for the State of Colorado and that Colorado had the resources and the technology which could help contribute to the energy needs of this country. I said that because we have lots of renewable energy and we have lots of natural resources. NREL, a Federal research laboratory located in Golden, CO, does splendid work and it is their sole purpose to move the technology and the science of renewable energy to the marketplace. In addition, they did some basic research. We also have universities in the State of Colorado that have contributed a lot to helping develop the technology we use in renewable energy. We look at the resource side in the State of Colorado. We have abundant sources of wind. There is a wind area that goes through the central part of the United States, down through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and hits parts of Nebraska and Oklahoma, then goes into Texas. We are known for that resource. Coloradans have been willing to utilize wind energy, and we see now wind generators developing and growing throughout the State of Colorado. Our tourist boards brag about the fact that 97 percent of the days we have in the State of Colorado you can see the Sun. So we have lots of sun in the State of Colorado. We have it at a higher altitude. It means you can have some pretty efficient solar panels. I was one of the first ones to use the new technology. We have had passive solar, but now we have the more active solar, which is the solar panel. In Colorado, we have opportunity for biofuels. Agriculture is a strong part of our economy in the State of Colorado. We have geothermal. We have parts of the State of Colorado that provide an opportunity to use the ground to heat or to even cool your home or your business. I know the environmental community doesn't like to recognize this renewable source, but we have hydroelectric dams in Colorado because of our altitude and the steep drop we get through our streams. It is a very practical source of energy within the State. In addition to that, we have a rich source of natural resources that come out of the ground. Obviously, there is oil and gas in the solid and liquid form. We have an abundant source of natural gas along the western slope of Colorado--probably one of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world. And today we have many oil and gas companies that are very active in the western part of Colorado to provide this valuable resource. We are a good source of uranium. So if we go to nuclear power, Colorado is going to play a role in that. We have coal. But it is not just plain coal, it is clean coal. It is coal that frequently gets sold to communities in the East, which have soft coal, which tends to be more polluting. So they come to buy Colorado and Wyoming coal because it is hard and it will help them meet the clean air requirements the Congress has passed. We have oil shale, and it is a developing resource we have in the State of Colorado. It shows lots of promise. In fact, oil shale at one time was in the State of Colorado but it was promoted purely by the Federal Government. Now, without taxpayer dollars going into it, the industry said: Look, there is enough opportunity in oil shale that we are going to put in our resources. So we have companies in Colorado that are putting in millions and millions of their own resources to develop this particular source of energy in the State of Colorado. Of course, I have always felt that conservation was a viable solution that everybody should look at, and Colorado is particularly sensitive to the need to conserve energy. I was one of the cofounders of the Renewable Energy Caucus here in the Senate and have encouraged Members to join that and get their staffs involved so we can better understand how to develop renewable energy. My position all along has been that we need to have a broad base of energy not only to meet the needs of my State but to meet the needs of this country. So when we get into this debate, I am flabbergasted that we have Members in the Senate who feel we can only come up with one solution to our energy problems. I think we need to come up with a multitude of solutions for our energy, and that means we shouldn't take anything off the table and that all those sources of energy I mentioned from the State of Colorado are viable resources. We need to be sure we make those resources available in order to meet the needs of this country in an environmentally sensitive way. And Coloradans, obviously, take a lot of pride in their environment, so these technologies have been developed in the State of Colorado in a way that has minimal impact on our environment. I was very pleased when the minority leader stood up this evening and mentioned that oil shale should be an important part of our consideration when looking for solutions to the energy problems we have in this country, where we have $4 a gallon gas at the pump. I was struck also by the argument that 20 to 50 percent of our problems with energy is speculation. That is contrary to testimony from experts I have heard in committee. Now, I don't know where those experts came from, but let me tell you about the experts I heard testifying in committee. There was a witness representing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. They deal with futures markets. They regulate the futures markets and they monitor the futures markets for the very thing we are talking about here, which is manipulation of the markets, and manipulation of the market is a Federal crime. You can go to jail for that. So that is part of their mission. We heard from the SEC--the Securities and Exchange Commission-- experts from their organization talking about whether there was manipulation of the market. These are the experts we have who monitor what is going on. We also heard from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. They all agreed on one thing: They did not see any indication in the figures and the facts they had which suggested there was a manipulation of the market. They said: Yes, there is speculation, because you have to have some degree of speculation for the futures markets to happen and for the stock markets, and the Senator from New York made that point in her comments a few minutes ago. But they also said we need to monitor the situation closely, because we don't feel as though we have gathered all the facts, and I would agree with that. I think we do need to be very concerned in today's market about the possibility of manipulation, but to say it is 20 to 50 percent of the problem? I don't believe that is going to hold water. Our problem, in my view, is supply. We need to deal with issues where we think we can increase supply. I was pleased the minority leader mentioned looking at increasing our supplies from offshore, on the Outer Continental Shelf, and from oil shale, and from conservation issues, such as electric cars. Also, we need to be sensitive about speculation. These are issues we could bring together a consensus on the Republican side. We have some people who are pushing hard for nuclear power and pushing hard for drilling in ANWR, but they didn't develop a consensus. I am proud to be helping, to be a part of the solution, and I fail to see how the package that has been produced by the Democratic side of the aisle addresses the supply problem. Raising taxes on companies has an adverse impact on the market. It doesn't increase supplies. Dealing with things such as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has a minimal impact on the total market and the total world supply. It is minimal. After we had our votes here on the strategic petroleum supply and everything, guess what. Prices continued to climb. We weren't able to have any effect on that. Price gouging? Obviously, we need to take a look at that. But one of the things I have noticed that has made a difference is when this President said: Look, we need to take the moratorium off drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf. That action alone by the executive branch was enough to make investors look out in the future and think that maybe the price of oil and gas is going to go down. So now what we have been seeing since that announcement is the price of oil and gas is going down. I am here today to actually address some of the myths regarding oil shale regulation moratoriums. The very first myth is that oil shale is a myth. It is not. It is a reality. We have been spending years in the State of Colorado developing technologies to be able to, in an environmentally sensitive way, extract that valuable resource out of the ground. It has incredible potential to help the United States during a time of energy need. Oil shale in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming could yield 800 billion barrels of oil for the global market. Some estimates have gone as high as 2 trillion, but we are looking at 8 to a little over 1 trillion that they think has a legitimate chance of being extracted out of the ground, and at a much lower price than we are getting at today's prices on a barrel of oil. That is more than the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia and would clearly help drive down prices in America. Other countries are developing their oil shale. It can be done in Australia, China, Estonia, and Brazil. All these countries produce oil shale. The United States is behind these countries because we require cleaner, more efficient, and better regulated development. But we are prevented from even beginning to plan how we can utilize this resource by stopping the regulation process dead in its tracks. Despite attempts to assign motives, proponents of oil shale do not see it as a quick fix. I fully understand we are at the beginning stages in the process of utilizing and benefiting from our oil shale reserves. But I must point out that we won't even be able to use our 800 billion barrels of oil potential as a slow fix if we don't get started, and we need to get started now. Since December of last year, the Department of the Interior has been prevented by Congress from even issuing the proposed regulations under which oil shale development could eventually move forward. Instigators of this prohibition want to continue the delay for another year at least. We have heard claims that the Department is under a frenzied rush to organize a fire sale of development leases. I think it is ridiculous to consider the multiyear oil shale effort as frenzied. The recent efforts started in 2004, and included congressional debate and passage of the 2005 Energy Act, years of planning and years of studies, research and development, and a draft environmental impact statement issued last December. This has not been a frenzied rush and there hasn't been any attempt to organize a fire sale. When attempting to sensationalize this process, opponents never make it clear we are simply trying to lay the groundwork on how to offer this resource for development. When those who are trying to stop oil shale say we are not ready to move forward with commercial oil shale leasing, and point out that Chevron believes a full-scale commercial leasing program should not proceed, I have to say: True, and completely irrelevant. In that vein, I heard my friend and colleague from Colorado earlier today read excerpts from the BLM draft oil shale regulation report. Quote after quote seemed to suggest that oil shale requires more work, but he did not mention that we aren't even trying to lease yet. The Secretary of the Interior, a former Member of this body, said this week it would be 2015 before we have a full-scale production. Assistant Secretary Allred said this week that ``commercial development of oil shale will not begin until technologically viable.'' So the point is we need to have the rules and regulations to get started. Then we can phase in for the development phase. But right now we have stopped everything dead in its tracks. You can't even move forward because of the current policies of this Congress. The fact is the moratorium is, at this point, stopping the way forward whereby industry, local officials, affected communities, and the world market would assess and prepare for the upcoming development of this massive resource. We are not proposing a full-scale leasing program for this year or this decade. We are not there yet, and the moratorium is not stopping a full-scale commercial leasing program. The reality is it has stopped an administrative process that will allow us to see how our energy resources can be best utilized. Before I finish here, I feel I must point out how strange it is that developing regulations for oil shale, a technology we have been exploring for decades, can be labeled as unproven and harmful by many of the same people who supported the absurdly complicated, wholly bureaucratic scheme of cap and trade for greenhouse gas emissions. This straitjacket on the entire U.S. economy would cost billions and billions of dollars and had no workable examples, antecedents, or precedents. Yet allowing western land managers to move forward with the regulations for how to utilize oil shale is too dangerous? Let me relate to my friends here on the floor an experience I had in the Interior Committee as the top Republican. I worked with the chairman of the Interior Subcommittee on Appropriations. We had a bill put forward and we worked out our differences. It was ready to go--it was yesterday. Then after our meeting, 4 or 5 hours later, maybe 3 hours later, I was notified that we were not going to have any more appropriations this year. It was not Republicans who were stopping the process in the committee. It was not the Republicans on the House side who stopped the process over there when they tried to propose amendments in their Appropriations Committee to provide more supply. This issue needs to come to the floor. We need to have open debate. We need to have an opportunity to produce amendments to support supply. It is not Republicans who are stopping the process. I can tell you from personal experience as an appropriator that it was not Republicans who stopped that process in committee. That was a directive that came down from higher up. I have to say here that what I see happening on the floor today is nothing more than an attempt to confuse the issue, to confuse the listeners to this debate as to how important supply is to the welfare of this country. I think we need to drill more and we need to use less. That would have been reflected in the Republican package of amendments we talked about. I encourage the Democratic leadership on the floor to rethink their current policies because I think the American people want to see us move forward. They want to see us put partisanship aside. They want to see something done about what they are paying at the gas pump. They are feeling the pain at $4 a gallon. Mr. President, I thank you for granting me an opportunity to spout here on the floor, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue that is in the forefront of every American's mind. Americans nationwide are struggling with high gas prices. I attended a press conference the other day with people who administer programs that provide for the poor, they talked about how the poor are being disproportionately affected by high fuel prices. The part of the American population being most severely affected is those who operate on the margins, such as our poor, such as small business people, who traditionally contribute a huge amount to our economy. Many times they do not have the ability to store their resources for when the economy turns down, so these small businesses, and these poor Americans, are being impacted disproportionately. Higher gas prices not only affect our ability to get around, but increasingly they are affecting each facet of our everyday life. Energy builds into our economy from the natural resource level right on up to the final product that goes out to the market and is utilized by the consumer. Fuel costs are making transportation, construction, and food costs rise. Recently, oil hit $145 per barrel and, from the beltway to Middle America, $4 a gallon gas is the frightening norm. In the face of these challenges to the American economy and consumer, we have failed to take the steps that are necessary to address this problem either in the short term or the long term. Unfortunately, the legislation we are considering today would do little to change that. The legislation before us today would do little if anything to reduce oil prices. Blaming investors misses the primary cause of high fuel prices: Nearly 2 years of failed congressional energy policy that has done little to increase availability of fuel resources. That is the cause, and time and time again, we have looked at legislation that tries to disrupt the market--the market that provides an opportunity for the businesses of this country to supply energy to its consumers. This Congress has been ignoring one of the fundamental rules of economics: Supply and demand. Instituting policies that disrupt the free market does not increase supply. Worldwide supply for energy is being outpaced by a growing demand. President Bush is doing his part by removing the Executive order that limited the drilling for oil and gas off the Outer Continental Shelf. The majority party now wants to shift blame from this Chamber to investors, who they would have you believe are robber baron speculators. If only it were so simple. There is no nefarious fiend sitting in a dark room waxing his black mustache playing the market like a mandolin. So who is investing then? Pension funds are, for one. They are making an investment in the growing strength of energy stocks and bonds. In Colorado, the Public Employees' Retirement Association--we refer to it as PERA--has seen oil companies as an attractive place to invest their members' money. Their 2007 investment overview listed two oil companies in their top 10 stock holdings, including their No. 1 valued stock. Is their greater interest in investing? Sure there is. But it is primarily because short supply of oil has caused its value to increase. This would happen with any commodity in a similar situation. Conversely, when we take steps to increase supply, prices will go down. If I remember correctly, there is a guidance principle that applies to the Public Employees' Retirement Association of Colorado that says you are going to invest members' money in that part of the stock market that is going to, in a safe way, give you the best return. Energy stocks match that criteria. The day after President Bush lifted the Presidential moratorium on drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, oil prices fell nearly $7 a barrel. Let me say that again. We experienced a drop of almost $7 per barrel in 24 hours because action was taken that got us closer to putting additional supply on the market. This translates into cheaper gas. The national average price for gas yesterday was almost 5 cents less per gallon than it was before the Presidential moratorium was lifted. This shows that instead of blaming investors, we need to look for ways to increase supply. We do this by finding more sources of energy and using less. One of the most promising sources of domestic energy is found in the West, much in my home State of Colorado. The oil shale found in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming could yield between 800 billion to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. This is more than the proven reserves of the entire country of Saudi Arabia and certainly enough to help drive down gas prices and bring us closer to energy independence. Making us less dependent on foreign oil. We in the United States cannot currently begin to plan how to utilize this resource because of an ill-advised moratorium. Why aren't we taking steps to utilize this resource and cut back on the $700 billion we send overseas annually for fuel? Because the Democrats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives have prevented the Department of the Interior from even issuing the proposed regulation under which oil shale development could move forward. How do they try to correct this misguided policy? By blaming investors and proposing a piece of legislation that will potentially make things worse by increasing oil market volatility and eliminating investment opportunities. I support some CFTC reform, such as providing them resources to improve current oversight and get more cops on the beat. I do, however, have major concerns with efforts that would impede the free market with additional regulations. This is especially important now that financial markets are global in scale. Attempts to regulate the market would only apply in the United States. This could cause economic activity to move offshore and help build foreign capital markets that compete against the United States, making us less competitive. This would cause us to lose jobs. Instead of focusing on blame, we should be focusing on our resources, finding more domestic resources, such as oil shale and using less through conservation. We need more supply and less demand. As we move forward in this debate I hope the Senate will accept amendments, like the ones I hope to offer, that will do just that. Thank you, and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, first of all, I wish to thank the Senator from Iowa for his graciousness in allowing me to speak. He is a tremendous leader for us on issues of tax policy and health care, and I appreciate my relationship with him a lot. He is a wonderful American. He is a wonderful Iowan. He does a great job for the people of Iowa in the Senate. We all know we are experiencing a time of dramatically increased energy costs. The price of gas sets new highs almost every day, and the price of oil continues to climb. In the face of this, the Democrats in this body think the proper response is to increase taxes and regulations on the energy industry. It reminds me of a saying from the Reagan era: If it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it; and if it stops moving, subsidize it. Well, the bill the Democrats are trying to force on the American people would do at least two of those things. Increasing taxes and regulations do nothing to bring down the increase in fixed costs that result from high energy prices. It is not the right solution. Conventional wisdom dictates that in times when fixed costs are high, discretionary spending must decrease. As the last budget showed, we certainly do not follow conventional wisdom in DC. But families all over America have to. In plain and simple language: Spending more on what we need generally means we have less to spend on what we want. Now, make no mistake, we are spending more on what we need. Americans are feeling the pain at the pump due to high gas prices, but increasingly they are feeling pain at the kitchen table too. As gas prices go up, so do food prices. America's farmers and ranchers produce the safest and most affordable food in the world. But rising energy prices have affected almost every level of agriculture. It has caused the cost of everything from fertilizer to processing to increase. The high price of diesel and other types of energy are forcing up production costs, which also forces up food prices. My home State of Colorado produces some of the best-tasting produce in the world, including potatoes. It is not putting fuel in the tractor that is hurting our farmers. Last year, in Colorado's San Luis Valley, it cost a farmer about $90 an acre for starter fertilizer for a potato crop. This year, the cost is up almost $300, from $90. You heard that right, in 1 year, starter fertilizer costs have more than tripled. Weld County, CO, is one of the Nation's top-producing agricultural counties. But even in an area that produces as much food as Weld County, people there are fighting high food costs. Higher food costs hurt all Americans, but they are especially damaging to people dealing with food insecurity. Food banks are struggling to stretch dollars so they can keep food on their shelves. That is food that goes to our most vulnerable populations, impoverished individuals and their families. In Weld County, 32 percent of the individuals served by the local food bank are children. The price of food, and indeed all goods that need to be moved any distance, is also increased by the transportation costs. Listen to this. The trucking industry has been especially hard hit by the increases in diesel prices. In January of 2007, when the Democrats took control of Congress, diesel was $2.53 a gallon. Today the national average for diesel is $4.69 a gallon. That is an increase of $2.16 in the 18 months of Democratic control of Congress. In the 6 years preceding Democratic control of the Congress, the price of diesel rose about $1. That is right, $1 dollar for over 6 years, and $2.16 in 18 months. I think the evidence is clear that the antiproduction Democrats in Congress are ignoring the needs of rural Americans in favor of liberal environmental elitists. Gasoline prices are also changing families' plans for their leisure time. In times such as these, we see an industry such as tourism both helped and hurt by families having more limited funds. Local tourism in places such as Colorado is helped because people stay closer to home. For example, a family from southeast Colorado might choose to forgo their planned week-long trip to Yellowstone Park and instead spend 3 or 4 days at Rocky Mountain National Park. This is good for Rocky Mountain National Park because that family might not have visited if they could afford the gas necessary to go to Yellowstone. But it is bad for Yellowstone because they lost visitors. Businesses in the surrounding communities around Yellowstone also lost the opportunity to feed and house that family and to sell them their souvenir T-shirts. Unfortunately, though, tourism in a State such as Colorado is likely to be hurt by families' needs to visit locally, because although Rocky Mountain National Park will play host to a southeastern Colorado family, they are likely to lose visitation from families who have to travel farther to get there. Now, the Rocky Mountain National Park is a destination tourist area. So that people from all over the country, when they plan their weeks for a week vacation, they plan on making Rocky Mountain National Park their main focal point of that vacation. So families have to travel farther, and when they travel farther, they do not often want to spend more, and so it hurts destination tourist spots such as Rocky Mountain National Park. But it is not just families who plan to drive who are affected. According to the Air Transportation Association only 8 years ago, 15 percent of the price of an airline ticket went to pay for fuel. Now that number has risen to 40 percent. Fuel prices for airlines are up 84 percent over last year, forcing them to raise fares and add surcharges and fees to recoup costs. Airlines will continue serving their best markets but may be forced to reduce flight frequencies and the number of cities they can serve altogether. Small cities may keep service with a flight or two a day but only at much higher prices aimed at business travelers, while leisure travelers will have to drive to bigger cities to get more reasonable fears. U.S. airlines are projected to spend $61 billion on fuel this year; that is $20 billion more than in 2007, an increase equivalent to the compensation and benefits of 267,000 airline workers or the acquisition of 286 new jets. The rapid increase in jet fuel will add substantially to airline costs at a time when a weakening U.S. economy will make it more difficult to offset those costs with higher fares. While oil prices are soaring, the airline industry and Denver-based Frontier Airlines has been forced to analyze every facet of their business in an effort to combat the enormous financial strain fuel costs are having on them. Airlines have been resorting to carrying less water per flight, removing bulky, unneeded carts and equipment, while even eliminating hot meal options so they could eliminate ovens and microwaves in the galleys. While I commend our airline industry for their innovative solutions and creativity during these constrained times, these changes combined with fare increases are having a dreadful impact on our domestic airline industry, which has been vital to national and international commerce and tourism. Denver, CO, is the center of much of that activity. United Airlines recently announced plans to take 70 more jets out of service and cut domestic capacity by 17 to 18 percent for the remainder of 2008 and 2009. Although Frontier Airlines prides itself on the ability to provide passenger service at relatively low cost, once again the high price of fuel has necessitated an increase to their fuel surcharge which is passed on to the customer. In addition to raising prices, they have reduced aircraft fuel burns and began using new flight-planning computer software to track fuel and flights to save fuel. Frontier has also had to reduce the number and frequency of its flights into Denver, which will have an adverse impact on the Colorado economy and Colorado tourism, which usually flourishes in the warm summer months. In closing, I would like to address the claim that Republicans in this body are the problem. Republicans in this body actually have legislation that will increase domestic production of energy, instead of cut it off. We are ready to talk about energy prices. We are ready to talk about gas prices. That is why we are here today doing that. We wish to help Americas alleviate the pain they are feeling at the pump by increasing production. That is the real solution to our problem. The laws of supply and demand dictate that increasing supply will work to drive down prices. Increased taxation simply suppresses supply, which, in turn, leads to even higher prices. What we should not do is act on a bill that will decrease domestic production by imposing increased taxes. What we should not do is act on a bill that will decrease domestic production by increasing the regulatory burden. That is what we have on the floor right now. That is what the ``no energy bill'' before us will do. I simply cannot support that. I am supporting the majority leader's effort to allow Republicans to be able to be a part of this process, to submit their amendments on the floor so we can actually move toward more production, instead of less production. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. For 10 minutes.

Mr. ALLARD. For 10 minutes.

Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, thank you. I am prepared to discuss the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill that was amended by the Boxer amendment. In general terms, I wish to take a moment to discuss climate change because that is obviously the main topic on the floor today. I have concerns about the science that some people are claiming here on the floor of the Senate. I think that obviously if we are going to have good policy, we have to have good science. But let me say that from the reports I have seen, I think it is unclear as to what the long-range trend is as far as the temperature of the Earth is concerned. I admit that right now we are going through a warming period, but in the last few years we may have cooled a fraction of a degree. I am recalling when I was in high school in the late 1950s, that we had magazine articles, National Geographic and everyone were writing about how we were into a cold trend, and we were heading toward an ice age. Now we are heading toward the trend in the headlines where we have global warming. I have listened to some of the comments here on the floor. One comment was that: We are at the highest temperature on record--the problem is, the record we have of the Earth's warming and cooling is a relatively short period of time when you look at the total history of the Earth. If you go back to the year around 1,000, for example, measuring based on some scientific evidence that has been obtained from our polar caps, by going down through the depths of the ice and analyzing it, some scientists have come up with the conclusion that actually it was warmer in the year 1,000 than it is now. You cannot blame that on human action. So the question comes up whether this is a trend, a natural cycle, that happens, that is related to sunspots or volcanic activity or whatever natural phenomena might be happening. I happen to agree that we probably contribute some to global warming. The question is, how much? That has not been adequately identified either. I am here to raise some questions. Obviously, if we absolutely know we are headed for catastrophe, the sooner we act, the better. But on the other hand, we don't want to overreact. We could cause problems for the economy and for Mother Earth if we react in the wrong way without having good scientific evidence. I am rather disappointed we will not have an opportunity to debate and amend this legislation, as we should. No piece of legislation is perfect. Obviously, there needs to be an opportunity for bills to be amended when they come to the floor. I am disappointed the majority leader has filled the amendment tree and filed for cloture, rather than allowing for the full and healthy debate that is such a rich part of the Senate's history. Since this bill has been introduced, we have record-high gas prices. There is pain at the pump. The common solution we have heard time and time again, whenever we have high petroleum prices, is: You need to raise taxes. You need to limit supply. You need to blame corporations. You need to somehow control international cartels. You can't control what isn't part of America. We can't pass laws and tell them when they can form a cartel and what they can do. It is beyond our reach. But we can take care of corporate misbehavior. We have had hearings time and again trying to blame oil companies for overcharging. Over the years, the conclusion is, there has not been any misbehavior as far as corporations setting prices. They are responding to supply and demand. They are responding to the cost of the product, taking a reasonable profit and putting that product on the market. I happen to believe supply and demand has the greatest impact on our prices at the pump to date. Obviously, this is not a perfect process. It is not a perfect bill. We need to bring the bill to the floor, provide an opportunity for substitutes to be brought forward, and then an opportunity to amend those. I am disappointed we will not have an opportunity to do that. That seems to be the trend this year. Republicans are not having the opportunity to bring up issues they believe are important on legislation that comes to the floor. That has happened time and again. Then the other side blames Republicans for somehow blocking the process. If you don't have an opportunity to offer amendments to the legislation, that is a serious concern to those of us who have to work in the minority in an institution such as the Senate, where there are specific minority rights. I would like to address some of the concerns of the Boxer amendment to the Warner-Lieberman climate change bill. My foremost concern is the science on which the entire bill is based. But because the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee has asked us to leave science aside and focus on the legislation itself, I will start there. Based on many reports I have seen, it is unclear what, if any, effect climate change legislation would have on global temperatures. However, its potential economic impacts are absolutely staggering. The primary tool this bill uses to reduce greenhouse gases is a cap-and-trade program. It should more accurately be called a cap-and-tax program because it is essentially a camouflaged energy tax increase. Many of the proponents of this bill have said it is just like the program the Government instituted to control acid rain. But unlike sulfur dioxide in the acid rain program, there is no widely deployable control system for CO2 removal, nor do we expect this equipment to exist in the reasonably foreseeable future. This will result in significant increased cost to electric utilities, their consumers, as well as affected industries and their customers. That is the taxpayers. Thus, the cost of compliance will have a significant negative economic impact on electric consumers statewide and Colorado's manufacturing industries. A recent study produced by the Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis found that enacting this bill would cost Colorado almost 7,000 agriculture-based jobs and over 21,000 manufacturing jobs. That is over 27,000 lost jobs in Colorado alone. The same study found that statewide, Colorado would have a personal income loss of around $2.162 billion. This bill also contains a provision in section 201 which was originally formulated for the acid rain program. This provision specifically denies that emissions allowances, which will be given out by the Government, are to be considered a property right. The provision also allows the administrator to limit or revoke the allowances at any time. Specifying that allowances are not property is, therefore, the Government's way to avoid a ``taking'' in the inevitable instance that the administrator does revoke allowances. How do we justify this? Government enables itself to give a product, sets up a scheme for buying and trading that product but can, at any time and for any reason, revoke that product without compensation. While there is certainly legal precedent, that does not make it right. In my view, this challenges assertions the bill's sponsors are making that their cap-and-trade approach is a market-based one. I will propose an amendment, if given the opportunity--I filed it by the 1 o'clock deadline--to fix this by specifying that emissions allowances are property rights, and while the Government could still limit or revoke allowances, it would have to compensate the owners of allowances in order to do so. It is only fair that the Government would have to follow the same rules it sets out for industry to follow when buying and selling allowances. If we allow this legislation to go forward in its current form, we will see energy prices go up. The national cost of gas today averages around $4 a gallon. This will only go up if we pass the climate change bill. Coloradans are currently feeling pain at the pump, but if we pass this bill, they will feel it in their homes also. One of Colorado's municipally owned utility providers has informed me that when this bill takes full effect in 2012, their customers will immediately see their utility bill jump above 25 percent. Another utility, Tri-State, which provides electric power for 1.2 million rural electric customers in a 4-State area, has projected that their costs to comply with the requirements laid out in this bill will be $12.6 billion in 2012 to 2030. This is based on the assumption that carbon credits would cost $50 per ton. It is entirely possible that cost projection is very conservative, and these are just rural electric cooperative impacts. I also have very real concerns related to the fact that anyone--not just covered emitters--can buy, sell, hold, or retire emissions allowances. Anyone with a large enough pocketbook could purchase a significant share of allowances and hold them to push the allowance price up or retire them. That would put our Nation at risk of economic manipulation, should another nation decide to step in and buy those allowances. Additionally, if an investor wants to make a lot of money off of the carbon trading market, they could just purchase and hold those allowances until the price gets high enough to make them want to sell. In any of these scenarios, the end result will leave the consumers as the ones paying the price. In closing, I reiterate that this bill is, in my opinion, not the right way to approach the issue of climate change. A far more effective approach would be for the Federal Government to continue to provide incentives for the development of greenhouse gas neutral technologies and technologies that do not produce greenhouse gases. Incentivizing technology development would get us to the same place without the economic hardship that this bill would impose. A good example of doing this has been the significant increases in renewable energy production that have resulted from the production tax credit, clean renewable energy bonds--called CREBs--and with incentives for clean coal technology. There will, of course, be a need for a larger Federal incentive program in all these areas to move the ball forward, but this will still be at much less cost to consumers than the $325 increase in average annual household energy cost that the Energy Information Administration has projected this bill could bring about. This is a poorly thought-out piece of legislation. We need to have an opportunity to legislate, to offer amendments, and move forward with this important debate. This is a comprehensive piece of legislation. It is important. It involves lots of Americans. I am disappointed we will not have an opportunity, under the current process, to amend this legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. I object.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, this weekend is the unofficial beginning of summer and the start of the summer driving season. This is as oil hits $135 per barrel and more and more cities and towns all over the country are seeing gasoline prices over $4 per gallon. In the face of these challenges to the American economy and consumer, we have failed to take the steps that are necessary to address this problem either in the short term or the long term. Last week, the House and Senate voted to suspend filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I voted against that effort as many on the other side hailed it as a major move that would help to alleviate ``pain at the pump.'' Instead, oil prices have continued to increase every day since that measure passed. I think this demonstrates that adding a mere 70,000 barrels a day to the marketplace means little when we consume 21 million barrels of oil per day in this country alone. Oil shale can be a major part of addressing rising oil prices by potentially bringing over 1 trillion barrels of oil to the domestic market. There are enormous oil shale reserves located in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Oil shale is energy we can develop here at home to lower gas prices, increase our Nation's security, and improve our balance of trade by keeping money and investment in the United States rather than sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas-- frequently to governments, I might add, that are unstable or whose interests are counter to those of this country. It will also bring in billions of dollars to the States and the Federal Treasury in the form of future royalties. This bill is necessary because the fiscal year 2008 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies bill has language prohibiting funds from being used by the Department of the Interior to prepare final regulations and will set forth the requirements for a commercial leasing program for oil shale resources or to conduct an oil shale lease sale as provided in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Without removing this moratorium--and it is a moratorium--companies will not know the rules of the road so they can make investment decisions, things such as what the length of the oil shale leases will be, the royalty rate, and reclamation and bonding requirements. I have a letter from the Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals at the Department of the Interior, Stephen Allred, dated May 14 in support of removing the prohibition contained in last year's Interior bill on the Department of the Interior issuing oil shale regulations. I ask unanimous consent at this time to have the letter printed in the Record.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, Allred points out that issuing these regulations is critical to providing regulatory certainty for these oil shale projects to go forward. With the regulatory certainty these regulations will provide, companies will have an incentive to commit the resources necessary to develop this technology. I also have a letter from Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne dated December 12, 2007, objecting to the inclusion of this moratorium that was in the House version of the fiscal year 2008 Interior appropriations. I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in the Record.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, Secretary Kempthorne also indicates the critical nature of allowing the Department to issue these regulations in order to attract the private investment necessary to develop the oil shale resource. Let me emphasize that this is not an environmental issue. No commercial lease sales are permitted under the provisions of this bill. In fact, commercial oil shale leases are banned for 2\1/2\ years because the technology for oil shale extraction is not yet economically viable on a wide scale. But, as I have said, the companies that invested tens of millions of dollars in this technology already need to have the Department of Interior issue the leasing ground rules so that they know what their costs will be for taking part in the Federal commercial leasing program when the time for leasing comes. My bill also makes sure there is adequate public comment by requiring that final regulations not be issued for at least 90 days after they have been published in draft form. When I offered this as an amendment in the Appropriations Committee, it was defeated by one vote and strictly along party lines. I heard from the other side of the aisle that because the Governor of Colorado and the junior Senator from Colorado opposed lifting this moratorium, Congress should not do so. I find this curious and incredibly inconsistent with prior debates over public lands policy. When we have debated drilling in the section 1002 area of ANWR, the other side seems to have little or no regard for the desires of Alaska's Governor, the people of the State of Alaska, or the entire congressional delegation about how they want their public lands managed. On this side of the aisle--that is, the Republican side of the aisle--we have offered proposals to bring to market billions of barrels of domestic supply that are continually blocked. If we don't begin to put in place policies to enhance our domestic production, prices are only going to go higher and the American people are going to pay the price at the pump as well as suffer the consequences of a further drag on the economy. In closing, I wish to state that increasing domestic energy production, including from oil shale, will strengthen this country's national security, lower gas prices, keep jobs and investments right here at home, and, in these tight budgetary times, bring in hundreds of billions of dollars to the States and the Federal Treasury through royalty collections. Congress needs to take a good, hard look at what it has done as far as encouraging further supply of energy for this country. As was mentioned in a number of editorials that have shown up in the papers, it is easy to blame companies and the stock market, and it is easy to blame the futures market, but really the problem starts right here in the Congress. The Congress needs to come up with a solution to relieve the inadequate supply of oil and gas. If that solution is not arrived at soon, Americans are going to be put out of business. We already hear about airlines having to cut back on the number of employees they have because of the high cost of gasoline. So it is going to have a dramatic impact on the economy of this country. Just think about how much land we have tied up because of previous action by this Congress--the billions of barrels of oil that potentially would be available in ANWR; the huge amount of reserves that we think is in the deep-sea portions that would be available off the coast of this country. We are the only country in the world that restricts drilling out in the deep sea. There are potential reserves that would be available for consumers of this country with oil shale in Utah and Colorado and Wyoming. Now we have that tied up with a strict moratorium that tells the oil producers of this country: We want you to shut down. We don't want you to be able to move forward. I think these are huge reserves, and if we had acted, actually, 10 years ago, we wouldn't now have a problem. We are going to have a problem for the next 10 years unless we do something quickly and drastically, and we need to do something more than just saying that the Strategic Oil Reserve can't purchase oil for 6 months or we wait until it drops to less than $75 a barrel. I am calling on my colleagues to join us because this is a serious problem we are facing in this country, and the Congress needs to do something about it.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, I wish to thank the Senator from Oklahoma on this particular issue. I also wish to thank the last speaker, Ted Stevens of Alaska, for his leadership in making sure we have adequate energy for the American people. Right now, we are falling short. The reason for that is this Congress. It is not business where we should assert blame; it is not the stock markets we have heard blamed on this floor, or the futures market. It is simply because Congress has been tying up these reserves and not providing the incentives we need to move ahead with oil refineries and to make supplies available on the market. This is a supply-and-demand issue. The demand in this country is exceeding the supply. If we want to become less dependent on foreign oil, we need to do more than what we have done historically. (The remarks of Mr. Allard pertaining to the introduction of S. 3062 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, this weekend is the unofficial beginning of summer and the start of the summer driving season. This is as oil hits $135 per barrel and more and more cities and towns all over the country are seeing gasoline prices over $4 per gallon. In the face of these challenges to the American economy and consumer, we have failed to take the steps that are necessary to address this problem either in the short term or the long term. Last week, the House and Senate voted to suspend filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I voted against that effort as many on the other side hailed it as a major move that would help to alleviate ``pain at the pump.'' Instead, oil prices have continued to increase every day since that measure passed. I think this demonstrates that adding a mere 70,000 barrels a day to the marketplace means little when we consume 21 million barrels of oil per day in this country alone. Oil shale can be a major part of addressing rising oil prices by potentially bringing over 1 trillion barrels of oil to the domestic market. There are enormous oil shale reserves located in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Oil shale is energy we can develop here at home to lower gas prices, increase our Nation's security, and improve our balance of trade by keeping money and investment in the United States rather than sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas-- frequently to governments, I might add, that are unstable or whose interests are counter to those of this country. It will also bring in billions of dollars to the States and the Federal Treasury in the form of future royalties. This bill is necessary because the fiscal year 2008 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies bill has language prohibiting funds from being used by the Department of the Interior to prepare final regulations and will set forth the requirements for a commercial leasing program for oil shale resources or to conduct an oil shale lease sale as provided in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Without removing this moratorium--and it is a moratorium--companies will not know the rules of the road so they can make investment decisions, things such as what the length of the oil shale leases will be, the royalty rate, and reclamation and bonding requirements. I have a letter from the Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals at the Department of the Interior, Stephen Allred, dated May 14 in support of removing the prohibition contained in last year's Interior bill on the Department of the Interior issuing oil shale regulations. I ask unanimous consent at this time to have the letter printed in the Record.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, Allred points out that issuing these regulations is critical to providing regulatory certainty for these oil shale projects to go forward. With the regulatory certainty these regulations will provide, companies will have an incentive to commit the resources necessary to develop this technology. I also have a letter from Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne dated December 12, 2007, objecting to the inclusion of this moratorium that was in the House version of the fiscal year 2008 Interior appropriations. I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in the Record.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, Secretary Kempthorne also indicates the critical nature of allowing the Department to issue these regulations in order to attract the private investment necessary to develop the oil shale resource. Let me emphasize that this is not an environmental issue. No commercial lease sales are permitted under the provisions of this bill. In fact, commercial oil shale leases are banned for 2\1/2\ years because the technology for oil shale extraction is not yet economically viable on a wide scale. But, as I have said, the companies that invested tens of millions of dollars in this technology already need to have the Department of Interior issue the leasing ground rules so that they know what their costs will be for taking part in the Federal commercial leasing program when the time for leasing comes. My bill also makes sure there is adequate public comment by requiring that final regulations not be issued for at least 90 days after they have been published in draft form. When I offered this as an amendment in the Appropriations Committee, it was defeated by one vote and strictly along party lines. I heard from the other side of the aisle that because the Governor of Colorado and the junior Senator from Colorado opposed lifting this moratorium, Congress should not do so. I find this curious and incredibly inconsistent with prior debates over public lands policy. When we have debated drilling in the section 1002 area of ANWR, the other side seems to have little or no regard for the desires of Alaska's Governor, the people of the State of Alaska, or the entire congressional delegation about how they want their public lands managed. On this side of the aisle--that is, the Republican side of the aisle--we have offered proposals to bring to market billions of barrels of domestic supply that are continually blocked. If we don't begin to put in place policies to enhance our domestic production, prices are only going to go higher and the American people are going to pay the price at the pump as well as suffer the consequences of a further drag on the economy. In closing, I wish to state that increasing domestic energy production, including from oil shale, will strengthen this country's national security, lower gas prices, keep jobs and investments right here at home, and, in these tight budgetary times, bring in hundreds of billions of dollars to the States and the Federal Treasury through royalty collections. Congress needs to take a good, hard look at what it has done as far as encouraging further supply of energy for this country. As was mentioned in a number of editorials that have shown up in the papers, it is easy to blame companies and the stock market, and it is easy to blame the futures market, but really the problem starts right here in the Congress. The Congress needs to come up with a solution to relieve the inadequate supply of oil and gas. If that solution is not arrived at soon, Americans are going to be put out of business. We already hear about airlines having to cut back on the number of employees they have because of the high cost of gasoline. So it is going to have a dramatic impact on the economy of this country. Just think about how much land we have tied up because of previous action by this Congress--the billions of barrels of oil that potentially would be available in ANWR; the huge amount of reserves that we think is in the deep-sea portions that would be available off the coast of this country. We are the only country in the world that restricts drilling out in the deep sea. There are potential reserves that would be available for consumers of this country with oil shale in Utah and Colorado and Wyoming. Now we have that tied up with a strict moratorium that tells the oil producers of this country: We want you to shut down. We don't want you to be able to move forward. I think these are huge reserves, and if we had acted, actually, 10 years ago, we wouldn't now have a problem. We are going to have a problem for the next 10 years unless we do something quickly and drastically, and we need to do something more than just saying that the Strategic Oil Reserve can't purchase oil for 6 months or we wait until it drops to less than $75 a barrel. I am calling on my colleagues to join us because this is a serious problem we are facing in this country, and the Congress needs to do something about it.