Glenn Beck: Why gas is so expensive
The Bear on Jun 20 2008 at 8:26 am | Filed under: Energy Policy
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All of these areas were subject to a 1998 presidential withdrawal oh, that’s so loaded a presidential withdrawal from leasing in 2012, okay? So in 1998 President Clinton said you can’t lease anything here for oil until 2012, and there are just a few places here: Washington, the entire state; Oregon, the entire state; Northern California, Central California and Southern California. The eastern Gulf of Mexico except for a portion of land. The South Atlantic, the Mid Atlantic, the North Atlantic, all national marine sanctuaries. All of these are indefinite. The Olympic Coast, Cordell Bank, California, Monterey Bay, California, the Gulf of the Farallones, California, the Channel Islands of California; the Flower Bank Gardens Gulf of Mexico, Straits of Florida and the Florida Keys, Gray’s Reef South and Atlantic, Monitor Mid Atlantic, Stellwagen Bank, North Atlantic.
Gee, I wonder why prices are so high for gas. That’s weird, isn’t it? This isn’t to excuse congress from their responsibility because they started their moratoriums back in 1982, stopping the leasing in 1982 of Central and Northern California. Then in 1984 it was Southern California.
Then in 1990 the North Aleutian Basin in Alaska. Then in 1991 Washington, Oregon and the Florida Panhandle. Gee, I wonder why gas prices are so high. It’s weird, isn’t it?
And this isn’t to excuse the Republicans. The administration says they’re for all of these things, with the exception of the Alaskan Aleutian Basin which hasn’t been included in the ban since 2004. Gee, I wonder why gas prices are so high. But it’s not like the outer continental shelf is important to our energy needs. That’s what the Democrats yesterday said in a subcommittee when they killed going to the outer continental shelf. It’s not that important, it’s really not that much, we’ve got other things we can do. And actually with all of the bans, it still provides 30% of outline domestic oil production, which is more than we import from any other nation on the planet. Do you have that? The part that we have opened, it provides 30% of all domestic oil production, more than we import from any other nation.
By the way, the Government estimates that the outer continental shelf, the one they said no to yesterday, has 76 billion barrels of oil in it that are recoverable and that’s with today’s technology. Let me put that into perspective. 76 billion barrels is enough to replace every single barrel of oil that we import from everywhere outside of North America for the next 34 years at our current pace. That’s in the one place, one, that congress said we couldn’t go into yesterday.
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Outer continental shelf operations are more than five times less likely to cause a spill than oil tankers who are importing oil. You listen to this next time one of these environmental pinheads talk to you about the risks of drilling. You remember these words. Imports present an environmental risk of spills 13 times greater than domestic production. Let me say it again. Imports present an environmental risk of spills 13 times greater than domestic production. And, natural seeps account for 150 to 175 times more oil in the ocean than outer continental shelf oil and gas operations
AGAINST
Chair: Norman D. Dicks (WA)
James P. Moran (VA)
Maurice D. Hinchey (NY)
John W. Olver (MA)
Alan B. Mollohan (WV)
Tom Udall (NM)
Ben Chandler (KY)
Ed Pastor (AZ)
Dave Obey (WI), Ex Officio
FOR
Minority
Ranking Member:
Todd Tiahrt (KS)
John E. Peterson (PA)
Jo Ann Emerson (MO)
Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (VA)
Ken Calvert (CA)
Jerry Lewis (CA), Ex Officio
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