Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I come on the heels of the minority leader speaking about or at least attempting to define what he and his party believe in. I watched him struggle this morning to try to shape what they are versus what we are, and that is really what we heard discussed a few moments ago. But he kept going back to the issue of high energy costs and the soccer moms and their inability to fill their gas tanks today. So I am going to focus on that part of what he struggled to define this morning and speak to the realities that are out there and what has transpired over the last several decades as it relates to the inability of this country to produce energy and why that inability exists.
A couple of weeks ago, I came to the Senate floor to inform this Senate and awaken America to the reality that just 50 miles off the coast of Florida, China is drilling for oil--Not the United States but China. And the reason China is drilling for oil is that we have prohibited our own companies from the opportunity to drill in the northern Cuban zone, so that Cuba is now leasing out to other countries in the world except the United States.
Then I watched a rush to judgment on the other side as there was a flurry to say not only do we have to stop Cuba, we dare not let America, American companies, experts in deepwater drilling, experts in environmental soundness, ever drill in that region.
Today I wish to expand on that idea. I wish to talk about why America is in trouble today with energy and why that soccer mom is paying more at the gas pump today than she ever has. The answer is really right here. It happened right here in the Senate over the last several decades, starting in 1950.
From the 1800s to 1950, we were energy independent. We were the great producer of oil. But as folks came home from World War II and as our economy began to expand, we began to use more oil. Then, starting in the 1960s and 1970s, we began to say about oil: We need it, but we can't drill here and we can't drill there and we will drill elsewhere.
Here is our problem today, so clearly defined in a supply and demand environment in which we have become 60 percent dependent upon foreign countries to produce our energy for us. America now knows that. Two weeks ago, we watched the other side blame and blame again somebody, including this administration, for a failure to produce. But they failed to tell you what they had not done, had denied over the last two or three decades.
I went to the White House during the Clinton years and asked President Clinton to work with us, to floor what we call marginal wells in west Texas and Oklahoma so they could continue to produce. Why? Because oil was below $18 a barrel and there was no economy there. They couldn't make money and they were shutting the wells in. We said: Let's floor it and keep them producing.
We couldn't do it because of the politics of that Democratic administration. What happened? Those wells went off line. They were filled with concrete, and they stopped producing what would be a million barrels of oil a day into this market right now. So to the American consumer who is paying those high gas prices, you are lacking a million barrels a day into our markets by a Democratic administration that denied its happening. Darn it, that is a fact. That is reality.
What transpired during that other time? Let's go on to the next chart that talks about our failure to get certain things happening. The Presiding Officer knows all about ANWR. He knows all about Alaska and Alaskan production. It was Bill Clinton who vetoed, a decade ago, the ANWR bill which would have put upwards of 10 billion barrels into the market at about a million barrels a day. Let's do the math now. We shut in a million barrels a day in Texas and Oklahoma because of the politics of that administration, and then they vetoed ANWR at 10 billion or a million a day. That is 2 million barrels a day to which they said no. So the answer to the minority leader as to why the soccer moms are paying the highest price ever today for gas is quite simple. It is because they said no. They said no to stripper wells, they said no to ANWR.
Now let's talk about the rest of the story because what I am interested in is the reality of the "no" politics, the "no" production, the "no" refinement. That is the answer to our problem today. You saw it on the last chart, the chart of supply and demand and 60 percent dependency on foreign sources. We cannot even drill in our own hemisphere. Then let's go to this map. I call it the no zone. Why is it called the no zone? Because you can't drill here and you can't drill here and you won't drill here and you can't drill here. Why? American politics today. It is the no-drill zone.
If we could drill in the no-drill zone, it is possible that we could find, through U.S. geological surveys already under way, 115 billion barrels of oil and a phenomenal amount of gas. But the answer is no. Who said no? They said no. Republicans didn't say no.
Let me talk about that for just a moment. President Bush comes to town. We meet over here in the leader's office. He says: My first priority is to allow the Vice President to assemble a group of the experts and put together a national energy policy. We have to get this country back into production. He said that as his first initiative. Five years later, after they kept saying no, last August we got a bill. We are beginning to produce. But this is still all "no." Mr. President, 115 billion barrels are outside the reach of the American consumer today, even though our technology is the best in the world and even though, after the worst natural disaster ever, we proved ourselves out in the gulf. In this little clean area right over here where we have not said no--at least the States of Texas and Louisiana didn't say no--we found out that wells went off line, rigs got blown off their foundations, but no oil was spilled. Why? Because of the phenomenal technology today and because of environmental rules and regulations that we have asked for and demanded compliance and received it from the major oil companies that drill in deepwater and the Outer Continental Shelf.
The reason I bring these issues today is quite simple: We have to quit saying no. The other side can demogog and they can try to blame, but the reality is here. The facts are here.
Let's run down the rest of the chart. We have said no to ANWR, no to OCS, no to 181 leasing, no drilling in the northern Cuba zone--at least American companies--while China drills in our backyard. American consumers need to know that the answer to their problem is not no. It is, yes, we can produce and, yes, we ought to produce and, yes, we ought to be energy independent and, yes, it ought to happen in our hemisphere, and, yes, we ought to be less dependent on foreign oil.
If we put all of those things together, America can be independent today. But you are not independent by saying no. And the answer has been no, no, no, no. That is why we ought to talk about the "no zone" and the naysayers and the minority who have said no for so long.
Reality is at hand. The American consumer is being squeezed at the gas pump like never before, and the answer still remains no. Americans are demanding that this be resolved. We are rushing to new production in all kinds of alternatives, but you do not get away by denying the obvious.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. MARTINEZ). The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. CRAIG. I thank the leader for that time.
I will conclude by simply saying 115 billion barrels of oil are denied because somebody--and it was over here--said no, and now we enter the "no zone." Americans do not believe it. Americans are going to demand a change, and we ought to be able to deliver.
I yield the floor.