Date: 2008-06-18
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. H.R. 4179. the FAST Redress Act. is an important bill. and we should act on it today. and we should try and get concurrence with the Senate and have this on the Presidents desk so he can sign it so that we can take care of the problem of misidentifications on the terrorist screening list that we use for a legitimate purpose. Similarly. Mr. Speaker. I would hope that we might have a fast redress act for the American people who are currently standing in line waiting to pay for their gasoline at larger and larger and larger prices. One of the things we need to do. in terms of this bill. is redress the misinformation thats contained on terrorist screener watch lists. We similarly need to get rid of the misidentification that deals with the issue of Americans need for energy and what ANWR represents. Rather than what weve heard on the floor on a number of different occasions. including today. that somehow ANWR is insignificant with respect to the great question of energy that currently approaches the American people. the facts say something very different. In other words. if we check them against the facts as this bill wants us to check misidentifications against the factual determinations. we would find this: According to the United States Geological Survey. the mean estimate of technically recoverable oil. thats the kind of oil that we can bring up under already existing technology in the coastal plain of ANWR. is 10.4 billion barrels. all of which is now economically recoverable. Now. what is 10.4 billion barrels? More than twice the proven oil reserves in all of the State of Texas. And you know how Texans like to brag about what they got and how big it is. This would be twice the proven oil reserves that are now found in all of Texas. Thats almost half of the total U.S. proven reserve at 21 billion barrels. That represents a possible 50 percent increase in total U.S. proven reserves. That has been categorized on this floor as being insignificant and of having no impact on the current energyscene. I think checking it against the facts. we see thats wrong. Based on the USGS mean estimate. ANWR would provide one million barrels per day for 30 years. Thats one million barrels per day for 30 years. Now what would that represent? Some insignificant figure? No. Thats a 20 percent increase in domestic. or as we would like to call it. American production. Thats equivalent to what the entire State of Texas produces daily. And listen to this. That is the equivalent to 30 years worth of imports from Hugo Chavez. The coastal plain of ANWR. known as the 1002 area. is neither wilderness nor refuge. In fact. when I was here in this House privileged to serve in 1980. it was set aside by this Congress and thenPresident Carter specifically for future oil development. Now. do we ever hear about that? Thats as much as a misidentification of what the reality is of what were talking about in this bill. Development would be limited to the 2.000 acres of the coastal plain. That would bQ 0.01 percent of the entire .19.6 million acre refuge. So Mr. Speaker. as I said. I rise in support of this bill. H.R. 4179. which would correct misinformation contained in official documents that thereby inconveniences the American people. Similarly. if we took action on a Redress Act for energy on the American people. they would be less inconvenienced and we would be on our way to energy independence. With that. I would reserve my time.