Pete Domenici: “I will only use 1 minute. First, I have the greatest respect for the distinguished Senator from Maine, but let me say to…”

“I will only use 1 minute. First, I have the greatest respect for the distinguished Senator from Maine, but let me say to everyone here, you all remember, SPR is to put oil in the ground in case we have an emergency. We use it in an emergency. The Energy Information Administration's last forecast predicts by the year 2025--and SPR is future thinking; it is not today; it is thinking in the future--they say by the year 2025, we will be 70 percent dependent on imported oil. The point of it is, we can never have too much oil in SPR. The idea was a good idea. It is even a better idea today. To say we ought to stop filling it so we can start filling gaps in a budget, especially saying we take care of all the inland security problems by not taking care of SPR, seems to me to be the wrong thing to do. I could find a lot of things to do in Government. If we could just sell all the oil in SPR, we could take care of every program in this Government. My colleagues could all go home. We would have about $150 billion. We could just spread it everywhere. That is much the same as saying: Quit buying it and what you were going to buy, spend on other things. I hope we do not adopt the amendment. I thank the Chair.”