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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. DUNCAN) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, the top headline in the Washington Post late last week said: ``Oil Prices Hit Ten Year High.'' Yet, as I drove into work this morning, the CBS Radio National News reported that oil prices had gone up another 90 cents a barrel.
In last Friday's Washington Times, a column in the editorial commentary pages carried the headline, ``Gassed and Going Up.''
This column, written by two economists, said taxes take 43 cents of every gallon and that Federal regulations add great additional costs and have prevented any new refinery from being built for 25 years. They wrote, quote, ``The economy will suffer if the price of oil remains high. Our analysis shows that high oil prices will cost the average family of four more than $1,300; decrease consumer spending by nearly $80 billion and cost almost 500,000 jobs,'' unquote.
Last Friday night on the CNN Moneyline program, one leading stock analyst said higher oil prices are leading us into a recession and much lower stock prices. The stock market fell 278 points Friday and Monday, mainly due to fears about higher oil prices.
One of the things I do in the House is chair the Subcommittee on Aviation. A few months ago, the Air Transport Association told me that each one penny increase in jet fuel costs the airlines $200 million.
Last week, the Christian Science Monitor newspaper had a front page story about protests and some near riots in Britain and throughout Europe over high gas prices.
Sometimes we are told that we are lucky because we are paying much less for gas than the Europeans. Well, the reason is that our socialism is not as far along as theirs is. In Europe, taxes make up as much as 80 percent of the cost of gas. They pay the same world oil price as we do. They simply have more big government than we do, and we have too much.
Other segments of our economy will be hurt badly besides aviation if these oil prices go up even more, as is being predicted. Truckers are already feeling the pinch and are leading the protests in Europe. Agriculture and tourism and those who heat their homes with home heating oil will be greatly affected.
Who do we have to thank for this situation? Well, in this country those who like higher gas prices should write the White House and thank the President. The President vetoed legislation in 1995 which would have allowed production of oil in one tiny 2,000 to 3,000-acre part of the coastal plain of Alaska. The U.S. Geologic Survey has said there is approximately 16 to 19 billion barrels of oil there, equal to 30 years of Saudi oil. The President also signed an executive order placing 80 percent of the U.S. outercontinental shelf off-limits for oil production, and this is billions more barrels.
I heard on the radio last week that oil is the most plentiful liquid in the world after saltwater. Even with increased usage, we have hundreds of years worth of oil available. Yet because this administration is controlled by wealthy environmental extremists, we cannot produce more oil in this country. The environmentalists even want gas to go much higher so everyone but them will have to drive less.
They do not seem to care that the people they hurt the most are lower-income and working families. Most environmental extremists seem to come from wealthy families who are not hurt when prices go up and jobs are destroyed. Then, too, some of these environmental groups probably receive big contributions from the oil companies, the shipping companies, the OPEC countries and others who get rich if we do not produce more U.S. oil.
Due to EPA and other Federal regulations, I am told that 36 U.S. oil refineries have closed just since 1980. Because this administration is held captive by environmental extremists, our present oil policy consists of nothing more than to beg the OPEC countries.
Well, we need to do more than beg. We endanger not only our own economy but also our national security by being too dependent on foreign oil. The price of oil could be reduced dramatically if the President would tell OPEC that we are going to produce more oil domestically and really mean it. He needs also to tell the OPEC countries that their foreign aid will be ended if they continue to gouge us on oil prices. I have co-sponsored the bill of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. SAXTON) to cut off IMF loans to OPEC countries which raise their oil prices, but the liberals in Congress will probably not let us pass this bill.
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Begging OPEC will get us nowhere. We need strong leadership, Madam Speaker, from the White House; but we will not get it. We also need to wake up and realize that the Sierra Club and some of these other environmental groups have now gone so far to the left that they make even socialists look conservative.
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