Kay Bailey Hutchison: “Because what the Dorgan amendment does--and what is also included in our bill--is to ask for a temporary halt on any…”

“Because what the Dorgan amendment does--and what is also included in our bill--is to ask for a temporary halt on any more oil going into the SPR. Halting the daily deposits of 76,000 barrels a day into the SPR would allow 3 million additional gallons of gasoline to be available on the market. If we halted the 13 million barrels of oil the Department of Energy has sought contracts for to go into SPR, it would be more than the total February 2008 imports from Libya, Syria, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Azerbaijan, and China combined. The amendment offered today would halt additional contributions to the SPR for 180 days and ensure that these resources could be utilized immediately in the marketplace. In addition, we would open the grassy plains of ANWR, which is unavailable for drilling today. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there could be as much as 10 billion barrels of oil in ANWR. This would be almost enough oil to replace what we import from Saudi Arabia every day. What would be drilled in ANWR isn't near a forest or a stream. It is a grassy plain. It is 2,000 acres, about the size of National Airport, in an area of ANWR which is the size of the State of South Carolina. So drilling in this grassy plain would be environmentally safe, and it would make America much more independent, much more reliant on ourselves and our resources for our energy needs--a place we need to go.”