the same veto power that other countries like Sudan might have

we can sit here today and have no idea how much oil and natural gas is out there.

It seems like once they retire, things kind of change.

That is the real table when you say a place at the table?

How does it serve our national security interests to send nonappropriated, essentially entitlement spending to an international organization?

Ronald Reagan renegotiated this with the oil companies and gas companies at the table, and they signed on to these royalties.

The economic benefit would be coming from companies that are already in this area.

I do not envy you a bit. You are put in a position--I know a little bit about chain of command because I was in a very lowly position, but I was in the United States Army.

the U.S. Interagency Extended Continental Shelf Task Force said it would be billions, if not trillions.

I do remember that discussion.

I appreciate that. And Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time.

that doesn't sound to me like a very fiscally responsible thing to do.

I don't think it is very responsible or prudent to accede to it.

I appreciate that very much.

I believe it was 16 to nothing. It was unanimous.

But they currently are producing and they're currently able to do that through bilateral treaties.

There would be no loss there. The loss would be $7 billion, and that would affect our national security.

The risk of confrontation goes up. So our force capacity will not go down, but the risk of having it used in a confrontation you do not want goes up.