Republicans' Energy ``Solutions'' Won't Solve our Energy Crisis

REPUBLICANS' ENERGY ``SOLUTIONS'' WON'T SOLVE OUR ENERGY CRISIS -- (House of Representatives - June 19, 2008)

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Mr. INSLEE. You bet. And any time an optimist is talking at 11 o'clock at night about America's great energy future--and I think we do have a very great energy future before us, and I appreciate you sharing that sense of optimism.

And I'm optimistic because it is my belief that America has the same right stuff we had in the 1960s when Kennedy sent us to the moon and that same right stuff, that same intellectual fever, that same sense of a can-do spirit, that same innovative spirit is really available to us if we, in this building, will simply unshackle that creative power of America to solve our energy woes.

And the reason I came over here tonight is that I am very concerned that some folks are promoting an alleged plan that won't solve our problems but will short-sell the Americans' spirit of being really able to solve this problem through technological gains.

I heard some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle today proposing what they call an energy plan which is to simply drill more holes in the ground. And I would suggest very strongly that that is a plan doomed for total and abject failure, which is something at $4 a gallon of gas and a war in the Middle East and global warming nipping on our heels we can't run the risk of failure.

And I'm just going to suggest what has been proposed is too little, too late, and too timid.

And the first two are obvious why they're too little and too late. We know that it's too little simply to drill a few more holes in the ground in the United States because we don't have the oil. Even if we drill in Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park, and the Capitol Mall, we could drill in the south lawn of the White House, but we don't have the oil that can make any significant difference in the price of oil.

Oil is a fungible product that is sold on a worldwide market, and every single expert that has testified--and we're not talking Democrats or Republicans; we're talking to people who know the oil industry--and every single expert that we have talked to has told us even in the long term, because our dinosaurs somehow died under the Saudi Arabia soil, we don't have the oil to make a difference in the price. Simple economic fact.

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The simple fact is we use 25 percent of the world's oil. The experts have told us, even if you drill in the south lawn of the White House, we've only got 3 to 3.2 percent of the world's oil supply. Because oil trades on a worldwide market, we can maximize and we won't be able to change the worldwide price of oil more than a couple of cents.

And I want to make sure people understand this. There's a bunch of hooey coming from across the other side of the aisle that you're going to get $2 a gallon of gasoline if we drill on the south lawn of the White House. It's a bunch of hooey.

Every single expert who has testified in the United States Congress for the last 2 years has told us that if you maximize drilling, if you ignore all of any environmental concerns we have, you will not change the price of oil more than a couple of pennies because it simply isn't enough to make a difference. The oil under Saudi Arabia is many, many, many fold the oil that we have no matter where we drill.

So telling Americans that we are going to be able to affect the price of oil by expanding drilling in the United States is simple flimflam, and it reminds me of that great movie with George W. Scott called ``The Flim-Flam Man.'' He said he identified himself as a master of back stabbing, cork screwing and dirty dealing. And I think, frankly, it is a flimflam to tell people that it's going to solve it. It's too little.

But it's too late because we shouldn't wait till 2030. The first oil that would flow from these new holes in the ground wouldn't flow until 2030. It is too late. It is too late for the Americans.

And it's too timid. Now, I believe Mr. Blumenauer talked about this a little bit, but we have really one significant thing we can do in the short-term, and that is to end this rampant speculation that the experts are telling us is driving up the price that is not a function of supply and demand. It's hard to explain these increases any other way but rampant speculation.

And tomorrow, I'll be joining Representative Bart Stupak, who's doing great work leading the House to a bill that will finally close the loopholes that have allowed these speculators to act in a nontransparent, sort of dark hole, of energy--of oil trading. And you know, they operate--and the one thing that was entirely appropriately named--It's called the Enron loophole. Man, that was the right name for that loophole, where these traders can do swaps, and we don't know about it.

So we need to close these loopholes. That can have a short-term impact this year where we don't have to wait 20 years for a resolution. So it's too little, too late.

But I just want to really focus on the part about being too timid. We need a bold, courageous, over-the-horizon, visionary energy plan that's fitting of the talents of the American people. Drilling holes in the ground is 140-year technology. It is old, mature technology. We do it quite well, and we've done it for a long time.

Now is the time to turn the page and add to our portfolio of energy sources a whole new suite of technological sources that can power our cars and our homes, and I want to mention two of them. Okay?

In the last 2 weeks, I've met with two people. One is a guy named Felix Cramer, who's a guy who essentially helped invent the plug-in hybrid car. You plug it in, you run it for 40-plus miles on electricity, and if you want to

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drive more, you use gasoline or ethanol. These are technologies that we need to strive on.

And next week, I meet some folks at the A123 battery company in Boston. These are the folks who are making the lithium ion batteries that will be able to drive your car ultimately 100 miles and 40 miles now without a charge.

We don't have to shackle ourselves to oil for the next 100 years. We've got to break our addiction to oil. We have the capacity to do this, but if we're timid, if we're pessimistic, if we're shortsighted, we will simply do what we've done for 140 years, which is drill holes in the ground.

And we have a policy, and I've introduced a bill called the New Apollo Energy Act which basically says that this country's going to go on a course of technological innovation, and this truly has the capability of breaking the chains of oil, and I know we're capable of doing that.

So I appreciate Mr. Blumenauer starting this discussion.

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