Don Young: “I was the sponsor of the pipeline bill; and it passed August in 1973 because we were in an embargo. The OPEC countries…”

“I was the sponsor of the pipeline bill; and it passed August in 1973 because we were in an embargo. The OPEC countries placed an embargo and our gasoline went from 23 cents to 54 cents, and we were frankly out of oil. We passed it here in 1973. We told the companies to build it in 3 years, and they did; and in 1976 they had the first barrel of oil that flowed through that line. And by the way, it all went to the United States. It did not go to Japan. All of it went to the United States. And we have produced about 16 billion barrels of oil. At the crisis of the Gulf War, for instance, we were producing 2,200,000 barrels a day. It averaged a million barrels a day. It has the capacity of 2 million barrels. But we put that pipeline in with all the safeguards that we can possibly have available in those days. That has been a long time, approximately 28 years ago. We put crossings for caribou to cross over at the cost of about $50 million. And by the way, they do not use them. They crawl under the pipeline because they like to be under the pipeline. The caribou herd has increased dramatically many fold over. Actually, the wildlife all the way around has increased. We have had, they say, a thousand spills. That is pure poppycock if I may say so. Because up there they call it a spill and they are very good about reporting it. If there is one drop of oil somewhere from a squirt gun or an oil can or the bottom of a truck, that is reported.”