Joe Barton: “Mr. Chairman, I want to echo what the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) just said. But, as chairman of the…”

“Mr. Chairman, I want to echo what the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) just said. But, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, I want to make several points before we go to final passage. We have several bipartisan groups in this Congress willing to deal with energy policy. One is called the Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce, which I serve on. One is called the Committee on Ways and Means, which many other Members serve on. One is called the Committee on Resources. One is called the Committee on International Relations. There may be other committees. What we need to do is begin to address some of these fundamental problems on a long-term basis, not bring a piece of legislation to the floor that, while well-intended, does nothing but exacerbate the problem and nothing to solve the problem. Let me elaborate on that. We currently consume in the United States about 17 million barrels of crude oil and refined products. We currently produce about 8½ million. So we are importing around 9 million barrels per day. That is a number that none of us are happy with. What have we done to maximize domestic oil and gas production in the last 7 years? Absolutely nothing. In fact, we have gone just the other way. We have taken more of the OSC leasing program and put it in moratorium. We have taken the on-shore programs on Federal lands and put them in moratorium.”