Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Their standards allow more sulfur content than our standards do.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Again, we're very willing to work on some reforms to the current lands that are leased to expedite the permitting process and the leasing process, and hopefully those on your side would be willing to work with us to make available more lands that haven't yet been leased.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I'm not aware that we've ever said it was anti- drilling. What we've said is we want to do more than that. But we certainly support the first steps at some pro- leasing program on the majority side. We think that's a step in the right direction.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Let me yield to my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland) who is responsible for, or at least partly responsible for the fact that we're actually having the debate. It was his idea, and he was able to convince Speaker Pelosi and minority leader Boehner to engage in this. I will yield him such time as he may consume.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Low sulfur content. The sulfur content of diesel.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. A very complicated chart.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. They were, is my understanding. And we then put them under moratorium.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. And then you have a specified amount of time in which to make improvements on the lease and determine whether it's commercial.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. My understanding is it's in--various acreages are in various stages of that process. I think that's a true statement. I don't think it's all completed the entire process.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. In some cases, that's a true statement. In some cases, it's not. There are areas that have been put under moratorium recently by acts of Congress that were closed to commercial production, especially in the eastern gulf of Mexico and the OCS.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. The gentleman has kind of outlined the problem, but I don't think he has really quite explained it. As he pointed out, demand for gasoline in the United States is going down--you said eight-tenths of 1 percent, I accept that as a number. In terms of barrels a day, it's about a half a million barrels a day it's gone down.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, if the gentleman would yield.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Certainly the area that's never been leased is further behind that that has been in some stages of leasing. I will concede that point.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. You said that our inventory of finished gasoline peaked at 22 million barrels; is that correct?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. If the gentleman would yield?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Reclaiming my time, if the gentleman from Michigan can get our distinguished Speaker to put an ANWR bill on the floor and let everybody have a free vote, I think I can guarantee you that we are willing to restrict that oil and gas to be used in the Continental United States or at least Canada and the United States and Mexico, at least in the North American Continent. If you can get us to get a vote on the drilling, I would bet we can get a restriction that meets your requirement.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We are going to do something a little bit differently this evening on the House floor. We have a 1-hour Special Order of the minority and a 1-hour Special Order of the majority. The minority leader and the Speaker have agreed to combine those two Special Orders so that both sides can participate in the debate about energy policy. I will be leading the minority side, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire) is going to be leading the majority side. In the first hour, it is my understanding that I will control time for both sides, and in the second hour, the gentleman from Pennsylvania will control the time for both sides. We are going to try to operate in such a fashion of cooperation which, I think, will be refreshing in this Chamber so that both sides end up, at the end of the 2-hour period, with equal amounts of time. In Special Orders, you don't yield for specific amounts of time, so what we're going to attempt to do, between looking at the two clocks that are publicly visible and between the staff members who have clocks, is to make sure that we balance the time out. So, before we get started in the actual substantive debate, I'd be happy to yield to my good friend from Pennsylvania for whatever introductory remarks he wishes to make about the procedure.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. They've been in place, and this is a guess, but about 18 months, 2 years. Don't hold me to that specifically.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. The price of raw material product has gone up, as you well know, because of all of the hearings you've done on the Oversight Subcommittee that you chair so well.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Let's get to that point, and we'll work. We'll talk.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. But this is a debate, and then I will yield to my good friend from Georgia. First of all, I think those on the minority side would love to work with the distinguished chairman of the Natural Resources Committee if he wished to bring a bipartisan bill to the floor on permitting reform on the 68 million acres that are currently available for leasing. I think the gentleman knows that in the Energy Policy Act that passed in 2005, we put some permit reform measures in place on a pilot program basis. And in this Congress, there have been efforts made in H.R. 6 and then also some of the appropriation riders to put some roadblocks in some of those permitting process reforms. So if that's something that we could work together with, I would be happy to do that. The second answer I would give on the acreage that is currently under lease is some of those areas, while they are leased, they don't appear to have significant mineral production even at today's prices. And as they asked the bank robber Clyde Barrow why he robbed banks, he anecdotally is supposed to have answered, ``That's where the money is.'' Well, some of the areas that are currently not under lease is where we think the significant amounts of oil and gas are. But on the current acreage, I think we would be very willing to do an inventory bill, if the gentleman wished to work on an inventory bill. We could certainly do an expedited permit and reform bill if the gentleman and his leadership wished to do that. So there could be some agreement there.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Let me make a couple of comments about what my good friend Mr. Stupak just said. First, in terms of speculation, I think that most Republicans would agree that there is some speculation in the market. I certainly believe there is. I held hearings when I was full committee chairman in the last Congress and you, Mr. Stupak, have done an excellent job in that hearing that he referred to, I think, on June 23. Some of the things that are in his PUMP bill and some things that are in the bill that I have introduced and Chairman Dingell has introduced, we are going to have a markup in the Energy and Commerce Committee on a bipartisan basis sometime next week and hopefully come to a bipartisan agreement about what to do on speculation, putting some position limits, bringing the foreign exchanges under rules that the U.S. exchanges have to go by, creating a two-tiered system where physical traders play by a different set of rules in terms of margin requirement than people that don't take physical possession or provide for physical delivery. There are a number of issues we have agreement on, and we will be working together. I might also point out that the gentleman's chart that shows the tracking of oil and gold, that is a, to me, a disconcerting chart, because what it shows to me--and I am not an economist--but we have taken oil from a commercial commodity that had value because of the end use that it could be put to, to a commodity that now has become a value of storage like gold. I mean, there is not a big commercial demand for gold in terms of jewelry and dental work. Gold is basically--has historically been a hedge against inflation, and what the world financial community has decided with oil, because of the tightness of the market, since it is almost a necessity in the modern age, it, too, has now become a store of value, and it has a value applied to it above and beyond the commercial value of being used. If we really want to do something to dampen speculation, and, again, we are going to work with Mr. Stupak on a speculation bill, we have got to fundamentally change the supply and demand tightness. Right now, world available supply is about 85 million barrels a day. World demand is about 84 million barrels a day. That supply number, that 85 million barrel a day number hasn't changed significantly in the last 3 years, because most of our major oil fields are growing older, the war in Iraq. I could say corruption in some of the national oil companies, I won't name names, but even with these high prices, we haven't seen that supply and demand tightness go away. We have got to get either the demand down or the supply up, and, so, some of the things that the Republicans are talking about to increase domestic supply would help on the speculation side. My final comment, before I yield back to the majority side for some time, is that in terms of the oil company profits, apparently the gentleman from New York, who is no longer on the floor, has made a big deal about how high these profits are. Well, let me make a couple of comments. If you can't make money at $130 a barrel, you don't deserve to be in business. I mean, we would expect profits to be up when the price is up where it is. Believe it or not, there are some of these nationalized oil companies whose profits have not gone up. Now, one can speculate as to why that is, but in the United States we have a transparent market-based system and our oil companies are not price setters, they are price takers. If the world market is $130 a barrel or $140 a barrel, our national--our private oil companies take that price. Now, the question is, how do we want them to use those profits? Let's unlock these reserves, these domestic resources, 85 percent of the OCS has been off limits? We can't drill in Alaska where we think there is a 10 billion barrel oil field in ANWR? Let's allow our private companies to invest those profits in American-made energy. Increase that supply demand balance so that, as the supply goes up, the price goes down. Now, having said that, I agree with Chairman Stupak in that we need to do something on speculation. I don't agree with everything in his pump bill, but I do agree with probably 75 percent of it. In the committee markup of the Energy and Commerce Committee that Chairman Dingell has announced to me--and I, hopefully, will publicly announce it soon if he has not already--you will see bipartisan agreement. We have to live within the market structure of the United States and the regulatory structure through the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and through the Securities & Exchange Commission. Certainly, we can do some things to do something on speculation, but if we don't change the fundamental tightness in the supply and demand situation, all of the speculation bills in the world are not going to make that much difference. With that, I yield back to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Would you like a response to some of that?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thought we had about 12 minutes, 12 minutes, so it's about 12-3.