Phil Gingrey: “I thank the chairman for yielding. The previous speaker, the gentleman from Minnesota, it sounds like his policy on his…”

“I thank the chairman for yielding. The previous speaker, the gentleman from Minnesota, it sounds like his policy on his side of the aisle is: No oil, no matter what. This is a very good bill. If it becomes law, H.R. 4480, the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, will put people back to work. It will be a great giant step toward creating energy independence for this country. And, yes, indeed, my colleagues, it will bring down the price of gasoline at the pump, which has actually doubled in 3\1/2\ years under President Obama's watch. As a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, let me focus on one specific title of this legislation: The Strategic Energy Production Act. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve that we have in this country is about 700 million barrels of oil. Mr. Chairman, that reserve is there for a situation of a domestic crisis, not a political crisis. We use 20 million barrels of oil a day in this country. If you assume that 60 percent of it was domestically produced and we had to import 8 million barrels of oil a day, then think about how many days it would last if we truly had a crisis and OPEC cut us off completely from what we import. That reserve would last about 90 days. That is a 3-month period of time. Yet, President Obama wants to take that reserve and use it for political purposes. This title of the bill, Mr.…”