John Barrow: “I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, some have said that because we are inextricably part of a world…”

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, some have said that because we are inextricably part of a world market, because we consume more than we produce of this vital commodity that, therefore, we cannot legislate ourselves an island in this process; and since we both produce and consume and produce and export, therefore it follows from that that virtually anything we can get, any new source of conventional energy that we get is going to be a mere conduit, a pass-through to somebody else and a loss to us. I'd like to point out that we produce in this country some 12 million barrels a day. We export some 2.9 million to 3 million barrels a day. So there's both oil being produced in this country and exported, for a net annual production on a daily basis of 8.8. It does not follow from that that any new sources of energy that we get are going to flow right through this country someplace else. In fact, a study commissioned by the Department of Energy addressed the dynamic effect of limiting our access to unconventional sources of this energy in Canada and allowing that energy to go someplace else. And a study compiled for the Department of Energy pointed out what the perverse effect of this would be. If we deny ourselves access to this new source of Canadian oil, what will happen is it will go to other countries. And who will fill the gap? Middle Eastern and African OPEC countries will actually increase their shipments to this country.…”