Pete Domenici: “just last week the price of natural gas was at $7.79 per million Btu's. That is nearly double the price it was 2 months…”

“just last week the price of natural gas was at $7.79 per million Btu's. That is nearly double the price it was 2 months ago. In October, natural gas was selling for $4.01 on the spot market. This kind of price instability it brings harms consumers, harms businesses, is devastating to manufacturers, and is a threat to our economy. On August 1, 71 Senators in this Chamber cast what I consider one of the most important bipartisan votes of the year. We voted for the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, a bill that will open 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas exploration. The exploration could bring an estimated 1.26 billion barrels of oil and 5.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to market over the next several years. That oil and that gas will be American. It will be extracted from American territorial waters, will be extracted by American companies and American workers, and will be on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and will also share the royalties with the adjoining States, which has not been done before, sharing in a different way where they get much more of the proceeds. That is a precedent which we have never accomplished before and which will do us good as we look around our other States to see if we can't do more like this effort.”