As U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne looks on, President George W. Bush delivers a statement on energy Wednesday, June 18, 2008, in the Rose Garden of the White House. [White House photo by Luke Sharrett]
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President George W. Bush delivered remarks at the White House on Wednesday
calling on Congress to help American families by removing barriers to domestic
production of oil and gasoline. "For many Americans, there is no more
pressing concern than the price of gasoline," said the President. "Truckers
and farmers and small business owners have been hit especially hard. Every
American who drives to work, purchases food, or ships a product has felt the
effect. And families across our country are looking to Washington for a response."
President Bush asked Congressional leaders to move forward
with four steps to expand American oil and gasoline production:
1.
Increase access to the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Experts believe
that areas under leasing prohibitions on the OCS could produce about 18
billion barrels of oil.
2. Tap
into the extraordinary potential of oil shale. In one major deposit – the
Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming – there lies the
equivalent of about 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. If it can be
fully recovered, it would equal more than a century's worth of currently
projected oil imports.
3. Permit
exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. With a drilling
footprint of less than 2,000 acres – about 0.01 percent of this distant
Alaskan terrain – America could produce an estimated 10.4 billion
barrels of oil. This is the equivalent of roughly two decades of imported
crude oil from Saudi Arabia.
4. Expand
and enhance our refinery capacity. It has been 30 years since
our Nation has built a new refinery, and upgrades in our refining capacity
are urgently needed. Refineries are the critical link between crude oil
and the gasoline and diesel fuel that drivers put in their tanks. America
now imports millions of barrels of fully-refined gasoline from abroad, imposing
needless costs on American consumers and depriving American workers of good
jobs. more
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