The American Energy Act

Floor Speech

Mr. KELLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the problem of skyrocketing gas prices. When single moms in Orlando, Florida are paying $80 to fill up their minivans, this is a crisis.

I spent my time in August touring the northern slope of Alaska to learn more about the oil drilling situation as well as touring the Florida Solar Energy Center in Central Florida where they have the cutting-edge solar energy technology of tomorrow.

The straight talk is we need a comprehensive approach to address this energy crisis. We need more drilling here in America, in both Alaska and offshore. We need more renewable energy like wind and solar. We need more conservation like hybrids and higher fuel efficiency standards for our cars. We need all of the above. That is why I am proud to be the cosponsor of the American Energy Act. It's also why the American people deserve an up-or-down vote in this Congress on the American Energy Act.

Now, those who say ``no'' to drilling completely ignore the facts. The main component of a price of gasoline is crude oil. Crude oil is a commodity governed by the law of supply and demand. Therefore, we must increase our supply of crude oil and reduce our demand. Well, where is the largest untapped source of crude oil in America? It's in Alaska, in a place called ANWR.

The critics say three things: Don't let us drill in ANWR because it's only a trivial amount of oil. It will ruin the pristine wilderness, and it will hurt the wildlife in that area, particularly the caribou and the polar bears. I went there on a factfinding mission to find out the answers to those questions myself. Let's address each one.

Is it a trivial amount of oil? I learned from our independent experts and employees of the U.S. Department of the Interior that there are 10.4 billion barrels of crude oil under the lands in ANWR. 10.4 billion barrels of oil are enough to provide all of my home State of Florida with its energy needs for 29 years. 10.4 billion barrels of oil are enough to pump 1 million barrels of oil a day every single day for the next 30 years. Does that sound like a trivial amount of oil to you?

The next thing I heard is it will ruin the pristine wilderness area. Well, I stood right here in the only village in ANWR called Kaktovik, and I looked south from the Arctic Ocean, and I didn't see any trees. It's a flat, frozen, barren tundra. It's 30 degrees in the middle of August, and it's 30 below in the winter. I sat there with the head leader from the Eskimo tribe, Mr. Fenton Rexford, and I said, ``Where are the trees?'' He says, ``Well, Congressman, there's not a tree within 100 miles of where the drilling would take place.'' So much for the pristine wilderness we hear about.

The next thing we hear is that we'll hurt wildlife. I learned from our fish and wildlife experts that, in reality, there are over 5,000 polar bears in Alaska and 800,000 caribou, and their numbers have increased every year for the past 30 years. In fact, in the current largest oil field in America, Prudhoe Bay, they started drilling in the mid-1970s. At the time, there were 3,000 caribou there. Now caribou have increased tenfold in Prudhoe Bay, and there are

over 30,000 caribou there. I saw them peacefully coexisting.

So, when you take away their real arguments and you see it firsthand that you can drill for oil and that you can do it in an environmentally friendly manner, what is the bottom line for why some of these environmental extremists don't want us to drill? Well, we don't have to guess. This is what the president of the Sierra Club says. His name is Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club: ``We are better off without cheap gas.'' They don't want gas prices to go down.

Tell the single mom in Orlando who just paid 80 bucks to fill up her minivan that she is better off without cheap gas. Tell the thousands of airline employees who just lost their jobs because of skyrocketing fuel that they're better off without cheap gas. Tell the people in Orlando, Florida who are losing their jobs in the tourism industry because tourism is down that they're better off without cheap gas. Tell the small businessman who has just had to lay off his employees because he can't make the payroll anymore because of gasoline prices that he's better off without cheap gas. Tell the school districts that are having to go to 4-day-a-week school because they can't afford the gas for their buses that they're better off without cheap gas.

Let's bring some sanity back into this program. Let's have a vote, up or down, on the American Energy Act. Let's have it right now, this month, before we adjourn.

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