Joe Barton: “I want to try to respond to some of the comments that have been made. One comment that has been made is that the U.S.…”

“I want to try to respond to some of the comments that have been made. One comment that has been made is that the U.S. oil companies somehow control the market. We consume 21 million barrels a day of oil in this country. We only produce 8 million barrels a day. We import 1 million to 2 million barrels a day from Saudi Arabia. We import a million barrels a day from Venezuela. We import a half a million barrels a day from Libya. We import some oil, believe it or not, from Iraq. We import a million barrels a day from Mexico. One thing the U.S. oil companies do not do is control the market. They do accept a world market price. The reason the price of oil is high is because the world is using about 84 million barrels of oil a day and the world is producing about 84 million barrels of oil a day. {time} 1030 Economies like China and India are growing at 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 percent a year. The amount of oil that China is going to need from the world market in the next year is expected to go up perhaps as much as a million barrels a day. So that is one reason the oil prices are high. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) comments that his price gouging amendment does something on natural gas. That is true. I would like to point out that every State PUC in the country already regulates the retail price of natural gas, so in that particular instance, I am not sure that his amendment would do much good.…”