Kay Bailey Hutchison: “There could be 115 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf. That is more than Venezuela's proven reserves…”

“There could be 115 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf. That is more than Venezuela's proven reserves of 80 billion barrels. We need more refinement capacity. This amendment encourages refinement expansion to alleviate supply concerns with refined petroleum, which is gasoline. This amendment we are voting on today would not do much to bring down the demand because, in fact, we can't control what China and India are demanding in oil and natural gas resources, but it can affect supply. That is what Congress has turned a blind eye to doing. All they talk about is a windfall profits tax on oil companies. We tried that once before and what happened? Jobs went overseas. We had to import more from overseas, so we became more dependent on foreign sources and we lost jobs for our country. The price would not go down. It would just come from foreign sources instead of ourselves. So let's don't talk about things that will not help; let's talk about supply, which we can help by working together to increase our utilization of our own natural resources. This year we will spend about $500 billion to import oil. All those dollars could stay in America, creating good jobs in America and making us self-reliant. If there is anything America stands for, it is the spirit of self-reliance, of knowing that if we are running into a crisis, if our economy is down, that we would be dependent on ourselves because we have the resources to meet this demand. We have the resources.”