Wednesday, April 17, 2002

Madam President, I rise today to discuss what I think is one of the most important issues our Nation faces, and that is national security. Yes, this is an energy bill. More specifically, we are talking about an amendment to drill for oil in a small remote region of Alaska. What does that have to do with national security? Let's set the stage because the facts are getting lost in some wonderful rhetoric that takes me away in a dream world. I don't recognize the place I know as Alaska when I listen to it. We have tried to put out the facts. I have heard other things that are not quite so factual. Just as a beginning, over the next 20 years, U.S. oil consumption is projected to grow even after factoring in a projected 26-percent increase in renewable energy supply, which we strongly support, and a 29-percent increase in efficiency. Some people think that is outrageous. Some people have a terrible guilt trip that the United States uses so much oil we don't have enough, so we ought to give up.

Drilling in ANWR reasonably could almost double our reserves. The United States has about 22 billion barrels of proven reserves, 3 percent of the world's reserves. ANWR could hold 16 billion barrels of oil more. That is almost doubling. It is adding 16 to 22 billion in our reserves. We use oil. There is no question about it. We have 5 percent of the world's population. We use 25 percent of the world's oil. But we also produce 31.5 percent of the world's total economic output. We are more efficient than the world as a whole, and we produce food and medicine and goods to improve the lives of Americans and people around the globe. Let's be serious. When we are talking about the fact that we use oil, yes, we do. There is no question about it. We need to make sure we have adequate oil reserves. . . .

They take a look at the estimates for oil produced at ANWR. And obviously, since it hasn't been drilled, we can only estimate. If it is not there, they won't drill. So this effort is all in vain, but I believe our U.S. Geological Survey and the other scientific experts have a pretty good idea.

On average, if you take in the high and the low, U.S. Geological Survey says there would be an increase of domestic production by about 14 percent. If you assume the high case, there could be an increase of 25 percent of domestic production. And when you have this kind of production, this is what it means for us. People say that is not much oil. In Missouri, 71 years of consumption could be sustained by that; or Connecticut, 132 years; Minnesota, 85 years. To say that is not significant misses the picture very badly.

What would be our dependence upon foreign oil? Well, without ANWR in 2020, the energy outlook is that 66.7 percent of our crude oil would come in from abroad. If you take the medium case, the medium production case, it would drop that to 62.2 percent. That is a 5-percent or 4-percent reduction. If it is the high case, it would go down to 58.7 percent, an 8-percent decline. Those percentages make a huge difference. They make the difference between whether we have a situation where we can manage it in tight consumption or whether we are up against the wall.

The 1.5-million-acre Coastal Plain, called the 1002 area, of the 19.6-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is one of the best places to look for the oil that America needs. When large chunks of Alaska were set aside in 1980, they saved a small 1.5-million-acre Coastal Plain out of 19.6 million acres. Why did they save it?

Well, we have the letter of July 3, 1980, from Senator Hatfield and Chairman Henry Jackson. They were right when they wrote this in 1980. They said:

One-third of our known petroleum reserves are in Alaska, along with an even greater proportion of our potential reserves. Action such as preventing even the exploration of the Arctic Wildlife Range, a ban sought by one amendment, is an ostrich-like approach that ill-serves our nation in this time of energy crisis.

``Ostrich-like approach,'' those are the words of Chairman Jackson. He said: This is an energy issue. It is a national defense issue. It is an economic issue. It is not just an easy vote you can throw away and get some greenie points. Chairman Jackson concluded:

It is a compelling national issue which demands the balanced solutions crafted by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The only regret I have today is that the Energy and Natural Resources Committee did not have an opportunity to craft a bill because I am confident that they know the energy situation. And they would have said that this is a necessary step.

The Energy Department said: The Coastal Plain is the largest unexplored, potentially productive onshore basin in the United States. The USGS estimates there are up to 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil, enough to offset Saudi imports for 30 years.

The 1002 area is not a beautiful piece of America. Congress set it aside for oil exploration. The people who talk about this give these word pictures of a magnificent forest. I don't think they have been there. When I go back home, I ask anybody: Have you been to the North Slope? Do you know what it looks like? They tell me: No.

I kid my colleagues from Oklahoma that it is as attractive as a frozen Oklahoma. Nobody I know has refused to drill for oil in Oklahoma because of its pristine beauty. I have been there. I have swatted away the mosquitos.

This is what it looks like in the winter. My good friend, the senior Senator from Alaska, refers to it as the proverbial Hades. It is quite a few degrees colder.

When I have been there in the middle of July, it has gone up to 38 or 39 degrees, and there are those hardy souls who work out there in shirt sleeves, 39 degrees, because it is a heat wave. This is the best we can show you. This is what the 1002 area looks like. That is Kaktovik in the background. Look at this magnificent beautiful piece of Alaska. Look a little flat? Look a little same? It is. But it has its own beauty. It really does.

One of the beauties is it has caribou and wildlife and birds, and they thrive up there. Here is a picture of drilling in Prudhoe Bay. This is Prudhoe Bay. If you can't see very well what it is, all these are caribou. The caribou herds thrive. The drilling does put permanent structures in there. But the temporary rock and gravel roads make a great place for caribou to calve. And the birds are there and the other wildlife is there.

Somebody said we are going to destroy this great swath, this beautiful natural reserve in Alaska. Are we talking about the same thing? We are talking about 2,000 acres, roughly 3 square miles, out of the Coastal Plain of 30,600 square miles. That is less than the size of Dulles Airport and the State of South Carolina. It is 3 square miles out of 30,600 square miles. This was in the area consciously set aside, on a bipartisan basis, because Chairman Jackson and the people on the Energy Committee then realized that this was where we were going to have to get our natural resources.

What would happen if we drilled and they found oil? It would mean 700,000 jobs would be created across the United States--not from a Government make-work program, but from private investment. Wildlife habitat will be protected under the world's strictest and most environmental standards. To drill out there, you have to take all the equipment in, in the midwinter on ice roads, when it is 100 to 200 degrees below zero. That is so cold that I cannot even think about it. But you do that so you don't disrupt the land.

The caribou herd in and near Prudhoe Bay's oilfield is five times larger than when development began. It is five times larger. Prudhoe Bay is producing 20 percent of our Nation's oil production.

Now, let me say one other thing. As a result of my personal visit up there, the people who live there, the indigenous people, the Native Alaskans, the people who live in the region, they understand that this is the way they can improve their lives. They can make a positive economic contribution to the welfare of this Nation and benefit from it. They begged us to allow them to go ahead and develop a resource that will not interfere with their fishing and their hunting and the wildlife around them.

I heard it said that it would be 10 years before we got any oil. Well, it depends on how much Congress delays it, how many lawsuits. Perhaps as soon as 3 years after the first lease sale. There has already been discovery on State lands of an oilfield that extends under the Coastal Plain. We know it is there, just not how much. If the Congress were serious about it and we said we want to develop this in an environmentally sound manner and do it quickly, we could get it online. Contrary to a myth that many on the other side have spread, and as my friends from Alaska pointed out, we are not exporting the North Slope oil. None has been exported since May 2000. The average well at Prudhoe Bay produces over 550 barrels per day, more than 45 times the 12.5 barrels of oil produced per day by the average oil well in the United States. If the oil in ANWR is locked up, a lot of wells will have to be drilled to replace it, or we will be back in the situation in which we found ourselves several weeks ago.

By a very significant majority, 63 Members of this body, said we want to continue to be able to give American consumers the choice to drive SUVs, light pickup trucks, or vans. We ordered the Department of Transportation to use the best scientific and technological information available to push for increased oil and petroleum efficiency, gasoline combustion efficiency, and do everything we can to increase the efficiency. But don't force unrealistic standards that merely require us to move down to smaller and smaller cars until we are driving around in golf carts. If we are going to continue to supply the energy needs that my colleagues who voted with us on the CAFE amendment said we are going to need, we need the oil coming from ANWR. This is absolutely essential for our economy, for the sound development, the business of industry, and, most of all, to supply the transportation needs of our families.

For each dollar of crude oil and natural gas brought to the market, there will be $2.25 of economic activity generated through the economy. The actual impact of the ANWR oil could be anywhere from $270 billion to $780 billion. These are all good economic arguments. But this is not the only question.

Keeping the oil production in the United States means we are buying less oil from overseas. We keep our domestic dollars at home. These are U.S. dollars not going to foreign countries, with leaders who may be on a mission to destroy our entire existence.

If that was too subtle for some colleagues, let me explain it. Just last week, we watched Iraq announced a month-long oil export embargo to protest Israel's response to the terror campaign. Some argue that Iraq only produces 1.5 billion barrels a day, roughly 4 percent of world production. We are told Saddam Hussein is only supplying 8 percent of U.S. imports. It ought to be time that we tell the American people this country can not and should not maintain that level of dependence on Iraqi oil.

Last year, we paid Saddam Hussein $6.5 billion. Does that sound like good policy? Do the American people really want to continue any efforts to benefit a tyrant such as Saddam Hussein, who continues his reckless oppression of his own people while threatening the security of the world with the development of weapons of mass destruction?

Madam President, let me answer that question emphatically. The United States must not continue this type of dependence, resulting in billions of dollars going directly to one of this century's most demented and ruthless rulers. The time has come for the United States to develop its own ability to produce oil and petroleum so we don't have to depend on him.

I commend President Bush for his actions in the Middle East, and I fully support him in the efforts to defend our national security. If it should occur one of these days in the near term when the President, we would hope in consultation with this body, deems it necessary, for the protection of peace and safety in the world and our own security, that we take on Saddam Hussein and his tyrannical regime once again, we must not be held hostage by the fact that they are supplying us oil. Right now, they have us over the oil barrel when we have oil and petroleum products in the United States we can develop to maintain our security.

Drilling for oil in Alaska is not just a good, sound option, it is a necessity. We must decrease our dependence on foreign oil every way we can. As I said a couple weeks ago, the Senate wisely adopted reasonable, scientifically based mandates to increase our automobile fuel usage. The CAFE provisions mandate an increase in standards that will help reduce our dependence. We provide incentives for alternative fuels such as electric power, solar-powered vehicles, and other provisions that include the use of biodiesel in bus fleets and school bus systems.

Yes, we must have renewables. Last week, the Senate voted in opposition to an amendment by my colleagues from California and New York that would have undermined the renewable fuels standards. I applaud my colleagues for opposing that effort because renewable standards are one important part of our energy policy. We need to make every effort to decrease our dependence on foreign sources of oil.

I urge my colleagues in the strongest possible way to support the efforts of the Senators from Alaska. I have been there. I have gone with them to visit this region. I have seen the oil exploration underway. I have seen the wildlife running on those plains.

Madam President, when they finish, there will not be any signs of development, and it will still be a barren, mosquito-filled plain in the summer, with its natural attributes and an absolutely hideously cold winter, and the wildlife, the birds, and the fish that thrive up there will continue to thrive. We are not destroying anything.

Even if they were going in to burn and turn it upside down, we are talking about 2,000 acres--2,000 acres, just a little over 3 square miles out of 30,600 square miles. There is no way anybody can legitimately say we are going to No. 1, destroy anything, because we are not destroying it. It is not a pristine wilderness that will not survive the drilling. We have shown how it can be done, and we are only talking about a thumbnail size out of the entire area. Mr. President, I thank you for that good news, and I urge support. I ask my colleagues to support the Senators from Alaska.