Sam Farr: “look, this bill makes no sense at all: drilling for dead dinosaurs and making that more valuable than liveable wildlife…”

“look, this bill makes no sense at all: drilling for dead dinosaurs and making that more valuable than liveable wildlife is just crazy. Even the Governor of California opposed offshore drilling last week. All the people of California oppose drilling in ANWR. I strongly support a ``no'' vote. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 5429, legislation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. It's the same bad idea now as it was the last 12 times we voted on and defeated this issue. The House Leadership just doesn't get it. Last week on a bipartisan basis we defeated an amendment to develop and drill for gas on the outer continental shelf. We cannot drill our way out of high gas prices with this bill or any other piece of legislation. It just isn't possible. We are missing an opportunity here; today's misguided attempt continues to bumble along searching for 19th century answers to 21st century problems. We need 21st century solutions such as conservation and using renewable and alternative sources. Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us today has been touted as a ``fix'' to high gas prices by the proponents of this legislation. It will not lower prices now or later. Even the Bush Administration's own Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that at best the addition of oil from the Arctic Refuge to our supplies would maybe, and this is a big maybe, lower the price of gas by a penny . . . 20 years from now.…”