Panel Hears Producers, Regulators, Consumers Trace Oil from Ground to Gasoline Tank America’s Energy Future WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, made the following statement today during the full committee hearing entitled, “Gasoline: Price, Supply and Specifications:” “Good morning. Today the committee begins two days of examining gasoline supply, price and specifications. Just last week, we completed another painful transition from winter gasoline to summer gasoline. Early May is always a tough time for drivers, but it was particularly difficult this year. As storage tanks were drained, prices shot up. If that weren’t enough, some people couldn’t buy gasoline at any price in their neighborhood stations. “Gasoline markets are complicated. The price is driven by many factors, but mostly the old standby of supply and demand. We consume about 10 million barrels of fuel in the United States every day. In the course of this hearing, America will use about 20 million barrels. We have invited the experts: The regulator, the producer, the supplier, the transporter, the retailer and the consumer of gasoline to this hearing to explain exactly what goes on from the time a barrel of oil is brought into a refinery to the point where you and I pump fuel into our cars and trucks. “The world crude oil pricing hearing last week reminded everyone that the U.S. government cannot dictate crude oil prices. With major developments in other parts of the world bringing the price of crude to $75 a barrel, there is an inevitable and corresponding increase in the price of gasoline at the pump. When the price of one changes, the price of the other follows. More than half of the price of a gallon of gasoline is determined by the price of crude oil. Domestically, our gasoline production, supply, and delivery system is still recovering from the devastating effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and undergoing a major transition in gasoline formulation as we have taken MTBE off the market and are trying to replace it with either ethanol or reformulated gasoline. Coupled with this is the annual transition from winter to summer grade gasoline. “Most fuels move across the country inside pipelines. But ethanol and fuels blended with ethanol move in railcars and tanker trucks. Increasing our domestic ability to produce and deliver the finished product of ethanol-enhanced gasoline is something that America hasn’t done as a nation across the entire continental United States. “The energy bill that we passed last year did many things on what I call the non-mobile energy side to help our nation’s energy future, in areas like clean coal and nuclear power and LNG siting facilities for new natural gas supplies. We need to do things on the mobile supply side that will help the drivers of our cars and trucks. These include opening up some of our domestic areas that we still have potential for large amounts of oil and gas to be discovered, including ANWR, OCS and I believe we also need to streamline the requirements to permit new refineries or expand existing refineries. “Today, we’re going to begin the process of determining exactly how to do that, while we try to integrate ethanol into our nation’s fuel supply as we move from MTBE to ethanol. So I am going to look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses and today will be one of many hearings we’re going to have in the next month to get the facts on the table for the American people.” ####