Lynn Westmoreland

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, we need to get with those folks and see if we both can't get the same answer because the answer we're getting is these refineries are only set up to refine this diesel to a certain point, and because of the new standards implemented on diesel fuel for this country, that these fuels were exported to countries that can use that.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Would the gentleman from Texas just yield for one minute?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Yes.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I just want to point out to my friend that this cause is not, you know, the spike that we usually see is not some type of temporary disruption, but it's a demand from all over the world, not just this country, our demand has gone down some. It's not just this country. But if you look at China and Asia and India, their demand for this oil is going up every day. And if you look at where the world's supply of these imports that come into this country, if you look at Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and then if you look at our ability and all the different types of untapped domestic resources that we have, we could get over and help ourselves by producing this. And so, just like you said, it's not just the supply and demand, it's the fact that we have to import all of this when we have these untapped domestic resources at our hand right here for us to use. And I think that's the reason 73 percent of the American people are saying, hey, look, use some of this stuff. And with that, I yield back.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I guess I may not have posed my question just exactly right, but my question would be to you, this is a 10-year process. This is a 10-year process, and I'm assuming that each acre of land that has been leased, by whoever leased it, is in some part of this process of obtaining production or getting permits in order to produce. And my question is, do you know of any of the 68 million acres that are not in some process?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I understand.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. So I guess my question to the gentleman is that this 68 million that we keep hearing use-it-or-lose-it is actually in some stage, and I have a chart here that shows the different processes.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. But I do think if you do say the 68 million acres out there, that they need to either use it or lose it, and the reality is that they're trying to use it. They're just in some part of this process, and you know, even if it's the Corps of Engineers, I know there're several sites where the Corps is actually being sued, and these companies have to wait on the Corps to work through their lawsuit before they can get back into the permitting process. And then there's other stumbling blocks that they have to go through. But I just find it interesting that the Democrat majority in 1992 was the one that extended this to 10 years because they understand that the trouble and the amount of paperwork and filings and permitting process that you have to go through, and then the same party would come back and say, well, there's 68 million acres out there that they're not using and so, therefore, they need to lose it when they are actually within the law, within that 10-year period, and as far as I know, each and every one of them that have obtained the lease are in some part of this process.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. A very complicated chart, and I'm not going to attempt to explain it all, but I will say that the purple is the pre- leasing process. Your orange is the leasing process. The blue is the notice of staking process, and then the green is the application for permit to drill. And if you will notice these little red blotches on here, these are points of entry for people who want to start litigation during this process. In 1992, the Democratic majority extended the leasing process from, I believe it was either 3 or 5 years to 10 years. And so I think a Democrat majority realized that this was a very burdensome process and could not be done in the time period that these oil companies have been given and extended it to 10 years. So, you know, I just think that when we talk about 68 million acres, out of the 2.5 billion acres that are available that we could be drilling in, that it's not fair to say that, you know, use-it-or-lose- it, when the people that have leased it are somewhere on this chart trying to make this land that they have leased be productive for U.S. oil production.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I disagree with that because I feel that what the American people want us to do is to increase our oil production. I think that they want to see something like the gentleman from Texas talked about in 2005, that this government could come together and we could streamline. I mean, we've got enough smart people in our government that could streamline this process some to bring it about, and I know that the gentleman's in favor of that, and I look forward to working with you and Mr. Barton to be able to streamline this so we can get production on the ground quicker. Now, let me say that, you know, being from an agriculture State in Georgia, there's certain areas of the State that we grow apples. There's certain areas of the State that we grow cotton. There's areas of this country that produce more corn than other areas, and you wouldn't plant corn, let's say, in the north Georgia mountains because you wouldn't get near as good a yield as you would maybe in Nebraska or somewhere else. At the same time, out of 2.5 billion acres of land, and knowing the area that's in the ANWR, and knowing the 2 trillion barrels of shale that are out West that we know are there, why wouldn't we open those up and give companies an opportunity to go out there? And it would not take 22 years to increase our oil production in some of these areas, and later on, we'll be showing a map of how much quicker I think we could get this oil into our refineries, which brings up another point, and then I will sit down because the gentleman from Texas has been so kind to yield. But the other thing we need to talk about tonight I think is the increased refinery capability and the fact that, in our country, we've not built a refinery in 30 years. And we are right now importing almost 7 billion barrels of refined gas into this country and about the same amount of refined diesel. So, with that, I will sit down.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. If I could use these last few minutes to kind of straighten out a few points, at least my opinion. Mr. Rahall mentioned that the ``use it or lose it'' legislation was pro-drilling. And I had the chart up, and I thought we were in complete agreement that the 68 million acres that are leased are in some process of permitting. So that is not a pro-drilling bill. If it was a pro- drilling bill, then what we have done would have been to reduce the regulations to allow this to speed up. And let me say this. We have not exported any Alaskan oil in 8 years. And what this brings to highlight, and I hope the gentlemen from Michigan and Pennsylvania will take note of this and the fact that we have had so many conflicting facts here. This is a good reason that we need to have committee hearings, subcommittee hearings, committee hearings, and open debate on this floor. The energy bills that we have passed so far have come under suspension. So there have not been any committee hearings on it. Speaker Pelosi said, ``We are trying to get the job done around here.'' This is her defending the use of suspensions. ``And we work very hard to build consensus, and when we get it, we like to just move forward with it, as we did on the Medicare bill,'' which was a suspension bill we don't even need to talk about. But this is not about a tool; it's about the legislative process and how we get a job done. We have seen tonight and, Mr. Speaker, I think the American people have seen tonight that there are so many conflicting reports that we need to have committee hearings. We need to go through regular process so we can debate these bills on the floor. The last comment I will make, in 1995 President Clinton vetoed drilling in ANWR. By today's projections from Energy, they said that we would be getting 1 million barrels of oil a day today. That was 13 years ago. We would be getting 1 million barrels of oil. And quoting Senator Schumer, from the other side of the aisle, he said an additional 1 million barrels of oil a day produced in this country would lower gas 50 cents a gallon. So the gentleman from Texas sees these things, that we need to go through regular order and let your Committee on Resources have some input.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Okay.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I understand that they are not producing, but is there any----

Mr. WESTMORELAND. You do realize that we changed the EPA or the clean air requirements for diesel. This diesel that we are exporting to Central American countries, our government will not let us burn in this country.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, I certainly want to thank the gentleman from Texas for his participation and for his willingness to come here tonight and to lead it with the expertise that he has had as former chairman of Energy and Commerce and that he has now as the ranking member. I also want to thank Mr. Altmire for his willingness to participate, and I would like to thank the gentleman from Michigan. While we don't necessarily agree on a lot of the facts, I think it has been a good example of why we need to have committee hearings. I was glad to hear that the gentleman from Michigan's bill is going to actually have a markup in the Energy and Commerce Committee, so I think that's a positive step in that we're finally, hopefully, having the majority ask for the minority's input. It does concern me a little bit as to what Speaker Pelosi said today in her quote, that she is going to continue to do these things under suspension. Mr. Speaker, I believe that that is out of fear that we will come back with a motion to recommit. Let me say this: While we're talking about gas today, we cannot regulate ourselves out of this crisis. While we came down today to discuss, I thought, some U.S. oil production and drilling, it's good that we got into some of the other things that the majority is saying are causing these gas prices to go so high, but even from listening to them about this not affecting it immediately, we need to look to the future for our children and for our grandchildren. So I hope we'll continue this discussion. Again, I want to thank all of the parties who participated. Mr. Altmire, I will yield back to you. I think the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) would like to say something.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. If the gentleman would yield, and I don't know if you have a list or what, but it is a simple question. Do you know what percent of profit the chart represents?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I just wanted to ask the gentleman from New York one question. When he was talking about the profits for these oil companies, are they making 50 percent profit or are they making 30 percent profit or are they making 25 percent profit? What percentage of their sales is that profit? I am just curious to understand.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I don't think anybody has any sympathy for oil companies, and I'm not trying to say that they do. I'm trying to ask, do you know if they are making 50 percent profit, 30 percent profit, 20 percent profit, 10 percent profit? What percent profit are they making that relates to these high numbers? Is there a percentage of profit on there that they are making? And what percent of profit is too much?

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Speaker.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, if this motion to recommit did pass, could the bill not be sent back to the committee from which it came and brought back on the next legislative day?

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Thank you.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. ``But you know the temptation to want to win back Congress--we sort of stretched the facts, and the American people ate it up.'' Well, I've got something to say to Mr. Kanjorski and the majority party. The people are paying the price for that meal that they had of lies and untruths and half-truths. They're paying the price for it at the pump. It's time we took action. It's time we make it where the American people didn't have to make the choice of visiting a sick relative in the hospital or going to work.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, I also want to address what the gentleman from Michigan on the other side just got through saying about they are for drilling. Well, if they are for drilling, why is it that they pulled the appropriations bill when there was just a mention of having an amendment to allow drilling? Let me just go back to April 2006 when then-minority leader Nancy Pelosi, now Speaker, said the Democrats have a commonsense plan to lower the skyrocketing price of gas. Where is that plan? Well, the plan was supposed to be, I guess, H.R. 6, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which came forth. I am assuming this was the commonsense plan that the Democrats had. Well, you know what? If they want bipartisan for it, if they wanted to vote on drilling, if they want to vote on getting to the Outer Continental Shelf, or if they wanted to be serious about tar sands, alternative fuels, coal-to-liquid, shale oil, then why did we have a closed rule? Why did we shut out half of the American people in this country that have representation in this body that didn't have a voice about an amendment on the floor that did not have an amendment in the Rules Committee? If we're so bipartisan now that this issue has come up and that the majority has not been able to address it, why are we wanting to be bipartisan now? Why weren't we bipartisan when we passed H.R. 6? And let me tell you this: In that bill of over 300 pages, crude oil's mentioned five times, gasoline is mentioned one; exploratory drilling is mentioned two; offshore drilling, zero; domestic drilling, zero; domestic oil, zero; domestic gas, zero; domestic fuel, zero; domestic petroleum, zero; gas prices, zero. Commonsense, goose egg. Greenhouse, 103; green building, 101; ecosystem, 24; climate change, 18; regulation, 98; environmental, 160; geothermal, 94; renewable, 333; swimming pool, 47. And yes, don't forget the popular CFL light bulb, 350 times. Madam Speaker, we cannot regulate our way to energy independence. We cannot tax our way to prosperity. When is the majority party going to understand that we have got to do some of these things that we hear them talking about? It's time to show the American people, Madam Speaker, that we mean business about lowering the price of gas at the pump. I want to quote this, and I think this is a representation of what the Democratic Party did to the American people in 2006. This is a quote from Mr. Kanjorski from a newspaper: ``Now, anybody who is a good student of government would know that wasn't true,'' Mr. Kanjorski said at an Ashley town hall meeting in August. And he was talking about ending the war.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Guam and her comments about bipartisan and working together and coming up with a common solution. Mr. Speaker, I am all for that, but what we've come up with in the past is very limited debate. We've had bills come to the floor with no amendments. We've had bills come to this floor that had no committee hearings. Now, that, to me, is not working together or with bipartisan support. So, if we want to have this bipartisan discussion, let's have it on the floor. Let's have an open rule on an energy bill, an open rule energy bill. What a great way to preserve what this body was meant to be, a place where representatives of the people came to debate and discuss and to talk about things that were affecting their constituents. But half the people in America who are represented by Republicans in this body have not had an opportunity to even offer an amendment to some of these energy bills. We've not even had an opportunity to come down and speak on this floor because of the limited debate. If we want to work out a solution, if we want to hear all the ideas from all 435 Members of this, so all the people in this country can have some input into this process, let's have an open energy bill that went through regular order and went through the subcommittee and the committee process, had a rule that was written where we could all have some input. I'm for that kind of bipartisan support, and I know you are too because you are a very sweet lady. Now, let me go on to say one thing: There was a poll that came out today I thought was very interesting. The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen reporting tracking history. This month, just 9 percent say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Mr. Speaker, I think we need to form a committee to go find that 9 percent of the people to find out where they've been because we are not doing a good job, we are not doing an excellent job. We are doing a very poor job of addressing the needs of the American people and what's affecting their pocketbook and the ability for their family to survive today. We've got gasoline that is up $1.76 a gallon since the end of 2006. A loaf of bread is up 23 cents, or about 23 percent, than what it was at the end of 2006. A gallon of milk is up almost 30 percent, Mr. Speaker, since the new majority came in. The Dow Jones has lost about 20 percent. The stock market is down $53 billion in the wealth of the stock market. Real net worth is down $2.51 trillion. The real per capita gross domestic product is down. Inflation rate is up. Unemployment rate is up. The real average wage is down, Mr. Speaker. We are not doing a good job. Part of the reason that bread is high, that milk is high, that the stock market is going down, that inflation is up is because of the oil crisis that we're in right now because we are totally dependent on foreign oil. And I would like to close with this, as a quote from the Department of Minerals Management Service that's in the Interior Department. The director says, ``The agency estimates that offshore drilling could produce 1.8 billion barrels of oil and 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.'' And we're going to need that natural gas, Mr. Speaker, when these home heating oil and natural gas bills come due for people trying to stay warm this winter. The director would not say how much more oil and gas he thinks the lands could produce, but he said that experience has shown that once companies begin drilling on land, they often find more than expected. Mr. Speaker, we have about 2.5 billion acres of Federal land and offshore that we could be drilling on; 68 million of that has leases that oil companies have leased. And we certainly--and I say we, I'm talking about the minority--do not think that Big Oil does not play some part in this. But the reality of it is we cannot expect Big Oil to go out and drill on leased land that has no oil or no gas. You do not go grocery shopping at a hardware store. We need to open up this land that is available, that the Department of Interior, that the Minerals and Management Service says that there is gas and oil there. We need to open up this land to let people drill on, to let people get our natural resources out of the ground rather than us being dependent on going to foreign countries on bended knee with hat in hand asking them to sell us their natural resources when we refuse to use our own. So Mr. Speaker, I will close with this, that we do want to work. We want a bipartisan solution. Because we think the answer is all of the above, it's more conservation, it's more use of wind and solar, but it's also drilling. It's also using our own natural resources. It's using clean coal. It's using an environmentally sensitive way to get this natural resource out of the ground. And we welcome an open rule bill that comes to the floor that all 435 people and the seven delegates that represent people in our territories and our States in this great country that we live in, to come have an open, honest debate about what we can do to solve our energy policy, to come together, to work together. That's the kind of change that the American people want, not the radical kind of change that has been offered so far in this Congress.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, Lord, I don't even know where to start. I've sat here for the last 45 minutes and listened to the Blue Dogs. And I appreciate them very much because there's about 40 or so of them, I think, and they could do a lot to help us, Madam Speaker, with the energy problem. I just hope that they will stand fast. I listened to my colleague from Arkansas (Mr. Ross). And I'm on his bill because it brings about more energy independence for this country, Madam Speaker. And it's interesting that the Blue Dogs talked a lot about all the things that we have done thus far, at least that the Democrats have done thus far, the majority, Madam Speaker. And I don't even know how to start to unravel some of the facts that have been laid out here tonight. There were some facts that I agree with, but there are some facts that are very, very misunderstood, and hopefully during this hour sometime, Madam Speaker, we can put some truth into it. It's interesting that I heard some of the Blue Dogs talking about increasing oil production. And I know that in May of 2007 there was an amendment that we passed that prohibits us from drilling shale oil, where there's two trillion barrels of oil. Two of the speakers here tonight voted for that amendment to keep us locked out of that acreage out west where the shale oil is. And Madam Speaker, if people could see this chart, May of 2007 is when the biggest spike in the oil prices happened. And I think that's a time when the speculators saw that this Congress was not going to do anything about our own oil production. We refused to do it. And I think the speculators took great advantage of this and said this is a country that's not going to look to their own resources, they're going to be totally dependent on foreign oil, so we'll do with them as we wish. What has happened over the past, I guess, 3 or 4 weeks is people have been calling our office and calling me, Madam Speaker, and asking me if I had signed a petition; there have been several of them on the web page about ``drill here, drill now, lower prices.'' There's petitions on there from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups about not allowing people to drill. And as I got these petitions, and especially when I was at home, Madam Speaker, one day and I saw a petition on the counter of a gas station, and I guess the owner of the station had it there to give people something to do rather than talk bad to him about the price of gas, but it was a petition that said, ``Sign here if you want to lower gas prices.'' And so I came up with an idea that what I would do is start a petition, Madam Speaker, in this House where the American people could know how their Congress person felt about increasing the oil production in this country to lower their price that they were paying for gas at the pump. And so we came up with this very simple thing. In fact, there is no legislation attached to this, there is no discharge petition, there is just a simple statement where Members of Congress can make a statement to their constituents, Madam Speaker, much like our constituents have been making their thoughts known to us by signing these petitions online and at local convenience stores. This simply says, ``American energy solutions for lower gas prices. Bring onshore oil online. Bring deep water oil online. And bring new refineries online.'' And I put everybody's district, all 435 and the seven delegates that we have that represent territories of the United States. It gave people the opportunity to sign. And it simply says, ``I will vote to increase U.S. oil production to lower gas prices for Americans.'' And I don't care if it's the production of biodiesel fuel, biomass, oil, whatever it is, to make us less dependent on foreign oil. And we've listened to a lot of the Blue Dogs tonight, but none of those Blue Dogs have signed this petition. And Madam Speaker, I have often learned in life that your walk has to match your talk. And some people say, well, this is just a political statement. It's not a political statement at all. We've had some Republicans sign it, we've had some not sign it. We've had some Democrats sign it, we've had some Democrats not sign it. If you want to know if your Member has signed it, you can go to House.gov/westmoreland. And on that page we have those that have signed it and those that have refused to sign it. If you don't see their name in either spot, then we're going to take it that they did want to sign it, we've just not had a chance to talk to them personally, Madam Speaker. But we believe that your walk should match your talk. And so we do have some Democrats on there, some people--Neil Abercrombie from Hawaii, a great leader, we have Mr. Cazayoux from Louisiana, Mr. Melancon from Louisiana, some from Texas--that are on here because they believe that we need to increase our oil production to lower the gas prices, and we do. That's just a fact. We heard about all these biodiesel plants, and those are great. But you know what? Until we start using our own natural resources--we see what the speculators did when we voted not to. Now, oil came down $4 a barrel. It came down, and I understand one of the reasons it came down is because Ms. Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, Madam Speaker, sent a letter to the President saying we need to get into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a reserve of our petroleum that we have, millions of barrels of oil that we would have in an emergency, in a crisis, in a disaster. She wants to release that, which means to me, Madam Speaker, that she realizes that we need more oil, we need more production. But because of the radical environmentalists that have controlled the majority, or at least influenced the majority greatly, they cannot afford to do what we need to do politically; it's not politically correct for them. I think that the American people, Madam Speaker, are tired of us in this body being politically correct. They just simply want us to do what's right, the things that we swore, took an oath that we would do, and that is to protect the American people. And as the Blue Dogs said tonight, this is not just an economic policy, this is a national security interest that we have. And we've got to own up to our responsibility and make sure that we live up to the challenges that our constituents have given us by electing us to this body. We have got to act. We've got to get out of the fetal position, and we've got to act and do some things that will bring about some relief at the pump. A lot of them in the past 45 minutes or the last hour or so have talked about all the great things we've done. Well, with all the bills that have been passed, I haven't noticed the price of gas coming down one dime. It's almost like putting lipstick on a pig. You can make it look good, but it's only going to be a pig. So we can make things look good, we can make things look like we're doing something, but all we're doing is just making a nice window for people to view at. It's time that we got down to some hard decisions. And there are some hard decisions that have got to be made. And there are things that we are doing. We have put up discharge petitions--and I say ``we,'' I'm talking about the minority party--but they're there for everybody to sign. The week of June 9, we put a discharge petition, ``No More Excuse Energy Act of 2007.'' What that would do is it would reduce the price of gasoline by opening new American oil refineries, investing in clean energy sources such as wind, nuclear, capturing carbon dioxide, and making available more home-grown energy through environmentally sensitive exploration of the Arctic Energy Slope and America's deep-sea energy reserves. Now, what that takes is 218 Members to sign that discharge petition. We hear a lot of talk, but we don't see a walk. The week of June 16, H.R. 2279, Madam Speaker, Expand American Refining Capability of Closed Military Installations. It would reduce the price of gasoline by streamlining the refinery application process--which in 2005 was passed by a Republican Congress and later stripped out by the new majority--and by requiring the President to open at least three closed military installations for the purpose of siting new and reliable American refineries. A lot of people, Madam Speaker, might not realize that we import refined gasoline of almost seven billion gallons a year, almost the same amount of diesel fuel, Madam Speaker, that we bring into this country because we do not have the refining capabilities. Not a refinery has been built since 1978. The week of June 23 it was H.R. 5656, the Repeal of the Ban on Acquiring Alternative Fuels; reduce the price of gasoline by allowing the Federal Government to procure advanced alternative fuels derived from diverse sources like shale oil, tar sands, and coal-to-liquid technology. Do you realize in the energy bill, Madam Speaker, that was passed by this majority, that Federal agencies cannot use these alternative fuels? We heard a lot tonight from the Blue Dogs about using alternative fuels, increasing alternative fuels, but yet we will not let our agencies use it. The week of July 7, this week, H.R. 2208, Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Act, which, Madam Speaker, happens to be authored by a Democrat, reduces the price of gasoline by encouraging the use of clean coal-to-liquid technology, authorizing the Secretary of Energy to enter into loan agreements with coal-to-liquid projects that produce innovative transportation fuel. There shouldn't be one Member of this body not on that discharge petition to say let our oil go. The week of July 14, we are going to have H.R. 2493, Fuel Mandate Reduction Act of 2007. It will reduce the price of gasoline by removing fuel blend requirements and onerous government mandates if they contribute to unfavorable gas prices. Right now part of the problem that we have with the high gas prices in areas in California and other cities that don't meet the attainment is the boutique fuels that we have. The week of July 21 brings H.R. 6107, the American Energy Independence and Price Reduction Act. It will reduce the price of gasoline by opening the Arctic energy slope to environmentally sensitive American energy exploration. The development footprint will be limited to 1/100 of 1 percent of the refuge, and revenue received from the new leases would be invested in a long-term alternative energy trust fund. The week of July 28, right before we go on the August recess, H.R. 6108, Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act of 2008, reduces the price of gasoline by enabling the United States to responsibly explore its own deep ocean to produce American energy. The bill would grant coastal States the authority to keep exploration 100 miles from their coastlines, and it would also allow States to share in the revenues received. As Mr. Cazayoux said today, it helps Louisiana protect their vital coastline and all the great natural resources that they have there. Mr. Speaker, I would like to now yield to my friend Mr. Roskam to hear his comments.