by Plantagenet » Fri 23 May 2008, 00:38:32
For years Roscoe Bartlett has been the only "peak oil" advocate in the entire congress. His new bill, jointly sponsored with Don Young, says:
"We must act now and illustrate that we are serious about bringing down the high cost of energy and generating good paying jobs in our communities. Abundant, affordable, and secure supplies of energy are essential to this Nation's economic and national security.
Unfortunately, our energy supplies are neither secure nor affordable, and much of the reserves of untapped energy we have right here at home has been placed off-limits by the federal government. As a result of our failure to provide access to our own energy supplies, we now depend on foreign nations for two-thirds of the energy we need to keep America’s economy running. And at today’s prices, the cost of our failure to produce is $1.85 billion per day. This is our energy reality.
We simply cannot afford to ignore this reality any longer. The only real solution to our energy crisis is to increase the domestic production of all available forms of energy with an emphasis on renewable and alternative energies and enhanced conservation and efficiency. We need aggressive federal support for technological advances in efficiency and all domestic sources of energy including coal, oil, and natural gas, nuclear solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydroelectric, and ocean energy.
For these reasons, we have introduced H.R. 6107, the American Energy Independence and Price Reduction Act.
Through this legislation, 0.01% of the northern coastal plain of the 19.6 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area specifically set aside by a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress for the purpose of future energy exploration and development, will be brought online to help alleviate the burden on American families. At the same time, all of the federal revenues from this bill will fund efforts to boost efficiency, production, research, development, and demonstration of already authorized cleaner, renewable and alternative energy technologies essential to completing the puzzle – and it will do so at zero cost to the American taxpayer.
H.R. 6107 will:
• Allow for the environmentally responsible development of ANWR's 30 year, 1 million barrel/day supply.
• Bring online ANWR's additional supply of 1 million barrels per day – the equivalent of what Texas produces daily – in less than five years.
• Deliver more than $200 billion in corporate tax income and royalty revenue to the federal government.
• Bring in $3.5 billion in bonus bids alone.
• Create 250,000-750,000 well paid American jobs; and
• Fund a comprehensive range of renewable and alternative energy provisions authorized – but not fully funded – under current law (EPACT 2005 and EISA 2007).
While there has been significant talk on what to do about energy prices, there has been little action. By increasing domestic supplies of oil by 1 Million barrels per day, H.R. 6107 will increase domestic oil production by 20 percent and fully fund 18 authorized alternative and renewable energy provisions in the process at zero cost to taxpayers.
We need all the domestic energy we can get, folks. Under H.R. 6107, we can produce ANWR's 10.4 billion barrels of American oil and boost efficiency and alternative and renewable energy production at the same time.
Go home this Memorial Day with a REAL Energy Plan in your pocket. Get your representatives to Support or Cosponsor H.R. 6107 today.
We look forward to working with you on this important legislation.
Sincerely,
Don Young, Member of Congress
Roscoe Bartlett, Member of Congress