Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, the GOP, the Grand Old Oil Party, is up to it again. Now, it is as if the first six years of the Bush administration never existed. The Republicans controlled the House, the White House, and the United States Senate. Vice President Dick Cheney, at the President's behest, met secretly with the oil and gas industry and other energy producers and proposed an energy policy, a Republican energy policy. That policy was passed by the Republican House of Representatives, adopted by the Republican Senate, and signed by the Republican president. We have been living under it now for a couple of years, and it is having the predictable results. We are now more dependent upon foreign oil. And many of us who voted against that Republican energy policy said it was pushing the country in that direction. We are seeing prices jacked up to unbelievable levels. Many of us predicted at the time that the Bush/ Cheney Republican energy policy would have those results. They didn't mandate increases in fuel standards. They didn't mandate development of alternative fuels. They had a few pretend things about hydrogen which was far enough off in the future that it didn't upset their benefactors in the oil industry because they know hydrogen is 20, 30 years off. But things that we could have been moving toward quickly they were against. Now suddenly they are all for action. They are all for action. What do we need? We need more leases on the Outer Continental Shelf. Well, what about the fact that the industry today is sitting on leases that can access 80 percent of the known reserves of oil and gas off the United States of America? But they are simply not developing them. Now, the industry says, well, they just don't have enough deep water drilling rigs and other things. But last year Enron, I mean--sorry. That is another guilty party here. But ExxonMobil made more money than any corporation in the history of the world, $40 billion. And what did they do with two thirds of their profit? Did they put it into new supply? Did they put it into new drilling equipment? Heck no. They bought back their own stock to enrich their board and their execs. The president who retired got a $400 million retirement, and he bought an oil field in Africa with his retirement. Now that is where their profits and their money went. They are in no hurry to develop new resources. But they would like to lock up what might still be out there while Bush and Cheney are in the White House so that they can get sweetheart deals like the one proposed yesterday for oil shale, because these are their oilmen in the White House. Plain and simple. That's what this bum's rush is all about. The American people need short-term price relief. It isn't going to come through letting more leases in sensitive areas that the industry sits on. It would come from breaking the back of the speculators, something they don't want to do, closing the Enron loophole. Remember Ken Lay, head of Enron from Texas, the President's biggest political benefactor throughout his entire life?

Mr. DeFAZIO. The Enron loophole was created for him to trade oil and gas off the books. Well, Ken Lay is dead, before he went to prison. Enron is bankrupt, and the loophole lives on, and that is the price we are paying at the pump today because of commodity speculation. Take on the speculators, break their back. Break their back any way you can. Re-regulate them or take oil out of the SPR. Break the back of the speculators. That will give us short-term price relief. Develop our resources in the midterm, and new energy future for the long term, not dependent upon oil and foreign oil.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I wish to express my strong support for the passage of S. 2607, the DTV Transition Assistance Act, which will aid rural communities by ensuring that low power translators get the funding needed for digital equipment upgrades. This bipartisan legislation is critical to rural Americans that rely on over the air broadcast television as their main conduit to entertainment, news and even lifesaving information in emergency situations. That is why I joined with Representatives Walden and Boucher, the Co-Chairs of the DTV Caucus, in introducing similar legislation. Under current law, $65 million has been set aside for the upgrade of low powered translators for the DTV transition. In Oregon alone there are over 400 stations that broadcast over these low powered translators. While this money has been set aside to assist in upgrading these translators, the wording of the statute did not allow the money to be spent until September of 2010, almost 2 years after the transition. This bill would make these funds available on the day of the transition in February of 2009. It would also give the NTIA the authority to use leftover funds from section 3008 of the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 for grants, contracts, and assistance programs to assist seniors, rural residents, and minorities. The Digital Television transition is the most sweeping and fundamental change to the television landscape since the advent of color. The advent of color television however, did not require millions of Americans to buy a new television or converter box or risk losing their picture. That fact alone makes the transition to digital television in February of 2009 a tectonic shift in broadcast television. While this bill is an important fix, many problems still remain. The auctioning off of the newly available spectrum being vacated due to the digital transition has made the government over $19 billion. Despite this massive collection of funds, the government has only allocated $5 million to educate the public about the transition, which is less than 0.03 percent of the $19 billion in revenue from the auction. The results have been as obvious as they have been preventable. A December 2007 survey by Consumer Reports found that 36 percent of respondents were completely unaware of the transition. How can we tell our constituents that we did everything we could when we spent next to nothing on educating them about the transition? Instead the Bush Administration has privatized the outreach aspect of the transition, relying on private industry to inform viewers. The results have led to a jumble of different messages from different industries, all looking to benefit from the transition. There are examples of public service announcements supposedly made to inform consumers about the transition instead being thinly veiled advertisements for their own products. The problems do not stop there. With only a 90 day window to buy convertor boxes before their coupons expire, many rural customers are finding that many stores either do not carry any convertor boxes or they are not carrying a pass through capable converter box that the customer will need in order to get all of their channels. These customers should not be penalized because of where they live. Madam Speaker, this bill is an important step but it is only a step. We must do more to ensure that when Americans wake up on February 17th 2009, they are not left in the dark.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank my good friend and colleague for yielding the time. Madam Speaker, this is an extraordinarily serious problem. Americans today are already familiar with the problems of our transportation infrastructure. On a daily basis, trucks are detoured because of weight-limited bridges. Individuals are sitting idling in traffic in congestion because of inadequate and obsolete infrastructure. People are flooding on to transit at a record rate. Transit ridership is reaching levels that haven't been seen since we had a decent system of transit in this country 50, 60 years ago. But the stress on the system is extraordinary. People are trying to escape the high cost of gas. But our transit systems are struggling to pay the bills themselves. So this is not the time to begin to reduce our already pathetic and inadequate investment in our transportation infrastructure in the United States. The gas tax was 18.4 cents a gallon in 1993 and gas was a buck a gallon. Today, the gas tax is 18.3 cents a gallon, and gas was $4.29 in my district last weekend. And that is not the cause of the run-up in price. And the buying and purchasing power of that small amount of tax is about half of what it was 15 years ago. So this is not the time to begin to think about even less investment. And that is what looms before us if this bill doesn't pass today and isn't signed into law by the President. Less investment. My colleague, Earl Blumenauer from Oregon, corrected me after his speech. I said, you know, America is falling to a third- world status in terms of its investments in transportation infrastructure. He said, no, actually that was pretty insulting to a lot of third-world countries who are investing more than we are. So I have begun to call us ``fourth world.'' That is a formerly first-world infrastructure falling even behind many countries in the third world in terms of investment. 150,000 bridges in America are either functionally obsolete or structurally deficient. I think we should post every one of those bridges with a sign so people know every time they drive over it. This is not the time to begin to talk about doing less work to maintain our bridges and deal with the structural deficiencies and the functional obsolescence. This is not the time to begin to pull back on meeting our commitments to surface transportation infrastructure. I'm so pleased that the Ways and Means Committee has chosen to act and replace funds that were raised out of the gas tax, intended to be only spent on transportation infrastructure, but transferred to the general fund and spent on who knows what. This will put us back in compliance with the law and the principles of the United States of America. As we raise money dedicated to transportation, to be spent on transportation, there is a lot of investment that can be done. This is a needed bill. Pass this bill today.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for yielding. In 1923, President Harding took the Saudi Arabia of the United States and put it into the Naval Petroleum Reserve. There is a huge pool of known oil, over 10 billion barrels underneath what has now been called, and the Republicans changed it from the Naval Petroleum Reserve to the National Petroleum Reserve. And yes, indeed, President Clinton did let the first leases in that more than a decade ago. The companies have drilled 25 test wells to find out there is indeed oil under there, but they have not connected over here to the Prudhoe Bay pipeline and there is no construction going on and no active drilling going on. Now this area that they want to argue about, in 1950 it was made into a wildlife reserve. Now this was made into a Naval Petroleum Reserve because it has huge amounts of known oil. This was made into a wildlife reserve because it has huge amounts of known wildlife. President Harding didn't make ANWR into the Naval Petroleum Reserve because no one knows if there is any oil under there. They try to pretend that they know that there is oil there, but the Bush administration's own Mineral Management Service says there is a 50 percent chance of recoverable oil under ANWR. So why not drill here in NPR-A? Why don't the Republicans and the oil companies want to fully exploit these 10 billion barrels of oil? I think there is a pretty simple answer to that, because they are doing really well under the Bush-Cheney energy policy. Remember, written in secret, voted on and put into law by the Republican Congress, signed by George Bush. During George Bush's tenure, the profits of the oil companies have been $511 billion, a new record every year George Bush has been in office, more money in 7 years than in the preceding quarter-century. This system is working quite well for them. They don't want to increase supply. In fact, they are working hand-in-glove with OPEC and others who are colluding to restrict supply. Drill responsibly in leased land. Exploit America's resources.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for yielding. There are a lot of reasons we're in this pickle we are today. But let's just remember one. George Bush elected 2000; Dick Cheney's secret meetings with the oil and gas industry. They formulated an energy policy. That energy policy was adopted by the Republican House, the Republican Senate, and signed by the Republican President. That was in 2005. Many of us said it was shortsighted, it would make us more dependent upon imported oil, and it has. When George Bush was elected, 52 percent of our oil was imported. Today it's 58 percent. Many of us said it would drive up the price. It has. When George Bush was elected, it was $1.46 a gallon. Today it's $4.39 a gallon in my district. So they're saying now suddenly, Whoa. It's the Democrats' fault. No. We're living under the failures of the Republican oil industry energy policy. There's actually 164,968,695 reasons why we're living under that. That's the amount of money the Republican Party has received from the oil industry in the last 18 years, $164 million in political contributions. Now, that's a pretty big motivation. There's another thing going on here. Since George Bush took office, the profits of the oil industry have been $511 billion in this country. That's $511 billion out of Americans' pockets and into the oil industry's pockets. They made more money under 7 years of George Bush than they made in the entire quarter century preceding his presidency. Yeah. There's something a little bit rotten here. They talk about drilling offshore and all of that stuff. Well, let's talk about short-term relief. There's three ways to get short-term relief. One is release our oil. Release our oil. We have paid to put oil in the Strategic Reserve for emergencies. This is an emergency. It's been done three times: 1991, the price went down 33 percent; 2000, it went down 18 percent; 2005, it went down 9 percent. That would give relief today at the pump, and there's another thing that we could do, but they're against this, too. The gentleman from Texas talked about, oh, they want to file a complaint against OPEC. Well, you know, we probably do, but George Bush isn't going to do that, that's for sure. Here's George Bush holding hands with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia when he was over there begging them to increase production. OPEC's production, with a doubling in the price of oil, is down 2\1/ 2\ percent. They have colluded to drive up the price of oil and limit the supply, and we have a legal option, which the President refuses to use. He refuses to file a complaint in the World Trade Organization for a clear violation of the rules of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, article 11, by the OPEC countries.

Mr. DeFAZIO. That would have an immediate impact for the American people. And then there's the speculators. Today, the largest holder of oil resources in the United States of America is not ExxonMobil, not Shell, not Conoco, name all of our oil companies. No, it's Morgan Stanley on Wall Street, through their speculative activity, followed by Goldman Sachs and followed by others who are speculating and driving up the price of this market. We have credible testimony from Wall Street experts, if we reined in the speculation which was created by the Enron loophole--remember Enron? Texas corporation, Ken Boy Lay, the President's best friend. He's dead. Enron's bankrupt. He would have gone to jail for fraud. But the loophole lives on, and we're all paying at the pump. An estimated 50 percent, according to Wall Street experts, is going into speculative activities, but they don't want to take on speculative activities. They just want to talk about one thing, and that is, they want to drill in ANWR. Well, guess what, ANWR was made a national wildlife refuge in 1950. The Naval Petroleum Reserve was made a petroleum reserve by Warren Harding. Now, why was this a natural preserve and this an oil preserve? Because they know there's more than 10 billion barrels of oil under here. Republicans change it from a naval reserve to a national reserve, and Bill Clinton actually leased it. And yesterday, George Bush announced he's going to lease more of it. There's 10 billion barrels of oil under this. That's our Saudi Arabia. They've drilled 25 wells, but they haven't tried to connect to the Alaska pipeline. They've capped the wells and they're sitting on them. And why are they sitting on them? Because they think if they keep manipulating the market they can make as much money as possible today and even more down the road. They are sitting on supplies of oil, and they are failing to develop what they could.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Back when George Bush was elected in 2001, gas was $1.48 a gallon, and we imported 52 percent of our oil. Today, gas is $4.39 a gallon in my district, and we're importing 58 percent of our oil. In the meantime, what's been done? Well, we adopted the Republican energy plan, formulated in secret by Dick Cheney--yet another oilman along with George Bush--and some people say, Well, it's not working. I think it's working. Record profits for the oil industry and their friends, $551 billion since George Bush took office and more dependence on imported oil from Saudi Arabia and other friends of the President. We need a new energy policy in this country, and we're striking out in that direction. We've already passed new mandates for fuel efficiency. We tried to move us towards renewables. But we need some interim supply. That's why we have the DRILL Act up today. We need interim supply, but Big Oil is sitting on leases that can access 80 percent of our estimated reserves in Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf, and they're not drilling it.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I had to come to the floor when I heard the gentleman from Texas and he talked about the Democrats' plan is working. No, actually, we're living under the Republican energy plan. Remember that in 2001 Dick Cheney had secret meetings with all the executives in the oil industry and other energy producers. And in 2005--the gentleman has a short memory--the Republicans, after 4 years, passed an all-Republican energy policy written by Dick Cheney, passed by the Republican House and the Republican Senate and signed by George Bush. And it is working exactly as some of us predicted. We said it would make us more dependent on Saudi oil. It did. Fifty-two percent imports when George Bush took office, 58 percent of our oil is imported today. We said it would raise the price. It did. When George Bush took office, gas was a $1.47 a gallon. Today it is $4.39 a gallon in my district. But it raised one other thing that is vitally important to the Republican Party. Their friends in the oil industry have made a pile of money since George Bush took office. Five hundred eleven billion with a ``B'' dollars profit for the oil industry since George Bush took office. So, yes, this is intentional. And yes, it was designed, signed, sealed and delivered by the Republican Party when they controlled all of Washington, D.C. We are living under their energy policy. We are trying to set a new, sustainable energy future for this country. And in the interim, yes, we want to develop domestic resources with the DRILL Act to help us with that transition. But we want to break the dependence. You don't. You made it worse.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman of the full committee for his outstanding work over the many years for transit. How prophetic many of his positions have been. I remember during the last reauthorization fighting to just get a tiny bit more for transit. We didn't get what we wanted and said we would need, but we did get a little more, despite a particular opposition from a number of Republican Senators. We are loving our transit systems to death today. Americans of necessity, or with changes in life-style, are flocking onto mass transit at record rates, rates not seen in half a century in the United States of America. That's the good news. The bad news is so many Americans are flooding onto our transit systems, the most in 50 years, that our transit systems are having to curtail service and cut routes. There is something very wrong with this picture. At the very time that the American people are demanding an alternative because they can't afford the $4.50 a gallon for their car or they are tired of the congestion and commute, which have not yet been effectively dealt with because of our lack of investment in other infrastructure, they are turning to transit as an alternative. But transit is confronted with, if it is a bus, a doubling of the cost of diesel. And other modes that are electrically driven have seen their energy costs go up. But beyond that, the rate of utilization, the people crushing on, are wearing the equipment out even faster and we haven't been keeping up with the replacement cycle because of the under-investment in the system. I was talking to someone who came in from Rockville today. They said you wouldn't believe how packed it was. I said I think we are going to have to adopt the Japanese system where we hire little guys with white gloves to start pushing people onto our Metro cars, or our MAX cars in Oregon, because there are so many people who want to get on, we have to utilize what isn't enough capacity. So this bill is the first, little, baby, incremental step to giving some assistance to those transit agencies who want to give assistance to an American public that is hurting because of failed energy policies. I am not going to re-debate the energy policies with the gentleman from Florida, but that was an incredibly creative recapitulation of the failed energy policies of the Bush-Cheney administration over the last 6 years. So we need now to deal with some of the results of those failures. And we've debated other bills to help provide relief to the American consumers there. But here we have to provide relief and help to our transit agencies who are going to extend a hand to our American commuters and families. Unfortunately, this is, as yet, only a promise. It's an authorization. And the budget is a little tight around here unless you're one to fund a war with emergency funding. The President won't declare a transit emergency, I don't think. Maybe we can get him to do that. But we need to get some funding and flesh out the bones of this bill.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. We are going to hear a lot today about the need for new leases. There is no need to open new areas and new leases. Here is Alaska. The former Naval Petroleum Reserve leased by Bill Clinton, authorized by the Republican Congress, has more than 10 billion barrels of oil under it. It is known to exist. The oil industry has the leases; they have drilled 25 wells; they have capped them. They have no plans to connect it to the existing pipeline and bring that oil here to consumers. But they are saying, no, we want to go over here, we want more leases over here in ANWR. We don't even know if there is any oil under ANWR. How about they deal with the known 10 billion barrels here and provide us some relief at the pump? Then we can talk about other places they might want to go in the future.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, this is a little lesson about one of the largest finds of oil in the United States. We have known about it since 1923. In 1923 this large area of Alaska was designated as Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4. Why? Because we knew there was a huge pool of oil under it. Estimates are the current figure is up to 15, ``b,'' billion barrels of oil. That's a lot of oil. So the President, I believe it was President Harding at the time, designated that as a Naval Petroleum Reserve. This little area over here, the one they don't want to talk about, was designated as a wildlife refuge. Why was that? Well, because we didn't know there was any oil under it. So the oil's here, make it an oil preserve. There's wildlife here, make it a wildlife preserve. Now they say they want to drill in the wildlife preserve, but they're kind of neglecting this one over here. Now, it was a Naval Petroleum Reserve until 1996. In 1996 the Republican Congress voted to open it up to drilling by the oil industry. Bill Clinton signed the bill, and, in fact, the Clinton administration let the first 3 million acres of leases in the year 2000. Eight years ago the industry got 3 million acres of land leased over a pool of 15 billion barrels of oil. They have drilled 25 wells and capped them. That's it. The Bush administration is going to lease another 4 million this next year. If we don't have this bill, maybe they'll drill some more wells and cap them. They have no plans. Now, they say they want to drill over here. You will notice actually this area is closer to the existing pipeline than this area over here, but they want to debate this area over here with no known oil reserves and no pipeline and neglect this area over here with massive reserves and no pipeline and apparently no plans to build a pipeline. If we pass this bill today, that will all change. They won't be able to sit on the largest single pool of oil in the United States territory anymore. They will have to begin in good faith to develop it. But guess what. The industry really doesn't want to do that because they're making a bucket of money the way it is now by pretending there's a shortage and not drilling. Now, that's just the Alaska issue. If we go offshore and look elsewhere, as Mr. Markey said earlier, 80 percent, according to the United States Minerals Management Service, 80 percent of the oil and gas that's known to exist off of the Continental United States is accessible from existing leases. Unfortunately, 6,491 of those leases are sitting idle. On different days you get different excuses: ``Oh, it takes a really long time.'' Well, if it takes a really long time, why do we want to let new leases when it's taken a really long time to develop the old leases that they're sitting on, that have known pools of oil under them? They're taking a bucket of money now. They don't want things to change; we do. Produce American oil for America.

Mr. DeFAZIO. The former Naval Petroleum Reserve has 15 billion barrels of oil under it. It was leased by President Bill Clinton in 1998. There is no pending lengthy application process for the pipeline. They have no plans to connect to the pipeline.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Certainly, whatever time I have left.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I agree with the gentleman. We should be doing more drilling in the United States. The oil companies should begin to develop the 6,391 offshore leases they already have that are environmentally approved, that are sitting idle, but the industry is not moving to develop those leases despite the vast resources available. In fact, the estimates of the Minerals Management Service are that they could access 80 percent of the available oil off the shores of the United States of America from their existing leases. They just don't want to do it. Now, why might that be? Well, maybe it has something to do with their making piles of money the way it is. So why would they want to provide relief to the American consumer by cutting into their obscene profits? Second, there's some pressure on that side to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. There may be a fair amount of oil under there. We don't really know. There was one exploratory well drilled 30- some-odd years ago. Proprietary. No one knows. But we do know that right next-door to the west of the pipeline is a vast area that used to be called the Naval Petroleum Reserve. Why was it called that? Because we know there is a huge amount of oil under there. We've known that for 70 years. In fact, Bill Clinton, as President, decided to lease that to the industry to bring on line over 10 billion barrels of oil, of U.S. oil, for the American people. Now, first, of course, we have to do away with the little loophole the Republicans created when they allowed the ban on the export of Alaska oil to lapse. I have a bill, and I've had a bill for a number of years to reinstate a bill on the ban of the export of Alaska oil. But how about that known 10-billion-barrel reserve? The oil industry has drilled 25 exploratory wells and then has capped them, and they have no plans to provide transit from there to the existing pipeline, which is just to the east of that reserve. So how about the industry takes some of the 20-30 billion barrels that are available off of their existing leases that could double our domestic supply for the next 20 years and then develop that? Then we can talk about more leases or, hopefully, by then, we will have transited into a new energy future that isn't going to require the same massive amounts of oil that the current economy requires. There is something else the Republicans have left out. Had we started down a new energy path after 9/11, the lesson there would have been we don't want to be dependent upon the Middle East and Saudi Arabia. Most of those were Saudis who attacked us. Who's giving hundreds of billions of dollars a year to the Saudis? Well, unfortunately, American consumers are, and we're dependent upon them, and the President goes over and begs for oil. Even though they're violating international law, he won't file complaints against them. We treat them with kid gloves. We need to be free of those people, so we need to be looking toward a different energy future, but in the short term, we don't need to be price-gouged, which brings up a third point which the Republicans don't want to address. It's estimated that 50 cents of every gallon today is pure speculation for Wall Street. We could do away with that by closing the Enron loophole. Remember Ken-Boy Lay, the President's principal financier throughout his political career? He's dead now. Ken-Boy ran Enron. He wrote our energy policy behind closed doors with Dick Cheney. Enron is bankrupt, but the Enron loophole lives on, and other major firms on Wall Street--Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others--are now fully utilizing that loophole. According to today's Washington Times, 99 percent of the premium crude in America is controlled not by ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and others but by Wall Street and futures speculation. They're making a pile of money at the cost to American consumers. So let's close that loophole. But, no, the Republicans never want to take on Big Oil and make them do what they should do, which is to develop existing leases which they're sitting on, and they don't want to take on Wall Street and close the loophole that was created for Enron's Ken-Boy Lay, the President's best buddy. Those are things we could do to provide short-term relief of, virtually immediately, 50 cents a gallon. Then in the medium and short term, by developing the 6,391 offshore oil leases and the former Naval Petroleum Reserve, with known reserves of over 10 billion barrels, we could make them develop that. Use it or lose it. I think we're going to have a discussion about that later this week. Let's see where the Republicans come down on that. These are already let leases, and they can be developed much more quickly than new leases could be. Let's see what they're really all about.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, there is no ban on offshore oil drilling. In fact, there are 33.5 million acres offshore leased to the oil industry from which they are extracting nothing and they are not developing. They say, well, they don't have the drill bits or they don't have the time or whatever. The Republicans say they need more leases. They don't need more leases. They need to develop what is out there, plain and simple. Think of the former Naval Petroleum Reserve. It is right up there in Alaska next to ANWR, 13.4 billion barrels of known reserves, drilled and capped by the oil industry, leased by Bill Clinton, not producing a single drop. But, oh, let's go to ANWR. There might be some there. Come on, guys. They are not developing what they have now. There is a 20-year supply out there underneath their idle leases that could double our domestic production, and, plain and simple, they haven't developed it. Then when they are done with that, then we can have a debate about more leasing in other places.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, you have got to admit it's a great system. The oil companies fill the Republican coffers with campaign contributions, and the Republicans pretend that they care about consumers while the Republicans stonewall steps to rein in price- gouging market speculation. Remember the Enron loophole? That's 50 cents a gallon at the pump today. Ken Lay is dead, but it lives on. They are protecting OPEC against World Trade Organization complaints that the President refuses to sign. He goes over and holds hands with the Saudi princes, but he won't file a complaint against market collusion. Refineries, you are right. We have got a shortage. ExxonMobil says they are doing just fine. They have no plans to build a refinery. They are making obscene profits, 6,492 leases, no development. Eighty percent of the Outer Continental Shelf reserves are available, no plans to drill. Naval Petroleum Reserve, it is 8 years since Clinton leased it, zero percent production. There is a sea of oil under it. Market forces, 11 bucks in 1 day for a barrel of oil, while consumption is way down in the U.S. It's not market forces, it's collusion and price gouging. The Bush-Cheney Republican caucus and the OPEC cartel are doing just fine the way things are. They pretend they want change, but they don't.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Just in response, the gentleman asked three times to bring this bill to the floor with these offsets, and the gentleman from Utah actually said in committee: I am specifically looking at offshore drilling fees, which is a concept of a new fee that is there. I am more than happy to go in that direction. But today they're not. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. DeFAZIO. I suggest the gentleman use some of his time, because I only have one more speaker and then I will be closing.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I would inquire as to the time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time. This is a difficult choice. It is always difficult to choose between your constituents and your patrons. The patrons heavily to that side of that aisle have been Big Oil. This would hurt Big Oil. They would actually have to pay a fee for leases that were written improperly where they don't pay any royalties to the American taxpayers at a time of record prices. That hurts. Yes, it is true. So far, a bare minority of Senators have rejected it, previously. Maybe they won't this time. Maybe with oil at $125 a barrel they will go along with it and say we can get some good out of this for a change. We can help kids get an education. We can keep teachers employed. We can provide money to police our counties and to keep people in jail who need to be there, and for other public services and public works. We can do those things. But we have got to have some guts. Every once in a while you have got to stand up. We hear all this stuff, all we need is more leases. Their staff boycotted a meeting last week. They sprung a proposal last night, which is a Republican bill, not a single Democrat on it, and would open up offshore oil drilling, which is not acceptable to the Republican Governor of California, to the Republican Governor of Florida, and many others. It is a nonstarter. Come on, guys, let's get real. This is your choice. This is it. There are 6,312 nonproducing leases on the OCS. This bill would make those companies begin to produce, or pay a fee for not producing. If you want to help provide more supply, which is what a lot of the debate has been about today, let's impose a fee on those 6,312 wells. And, in the meantime, let's get some good of that money for the American people. Help 7,000 teachers, help the kids in rural schools, help our deputy sheriffs, help our people who do corrections, help the people who have a backlog of road and bridge projects all across rural America. Help 42 States. Help 600 counties. This is your only vote. This is your time. Sometimes you have to make tough choices. I urge an ``aye'' vote on this bill.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu).

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentlelady. First off, it was the head of ExxonMobil, the most profitable industry in the history of the world, who said he has no intention of building a refinery. He didn't mention regulations or bureaucracy. He said they're doing just fine the way it is, why would they build another refinery? And other CEOs of oil companies have said the same thing. It's not bureaucracy or regulation. They didn't take Bush up on his loophole to put it on closed military bases. So that's not the issue. Don't try that stuff.