Byron Dorgan: “But renewable fuels, ethanol, providing renewable energy, all of that is very important. The area where we would perhaps…”

“But renewable fuels, ethanol, providing renewable energy, all of that is very important. The area where we would perhaps not agree is ANWR, which in my judgment ought to be a last resort rather than a first resort. But I might say to my colleague from South Dakota that particularly with respect to the Outer Continental Shelf, if you measure where oil exists, the best resources and reserves of oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf first are in the Gulf of Mexico; second, off California; third, off Alaska. One of the things we have recently done on a bipartisan basis in this Congress was to pass something called Lease 181, which opened up a portion of the Gulf of Mexico for development of oil and gas. I was one of the four Senators who led the effort on that. I was pleased to do that because we are now producing and are going to be producing more oil and more natural gas from one of the most productive areas in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.”