House Majority Leader calls for domestic drilling

In his weekly pen and pad briefing, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that Democrats are supportive of using U.S. products to combat the rising oil prices. He said the most viable option, drilling in federal land and water, was still opposed by Republicans who want to drill offshore or in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). He said that there are 68 million acres of federally owned land in the U.S. and this land shelters 107 billion barrels of oil and 658 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Hoyer said the only tool to lower gas prices in the near future is to try and control oil speculation. He told the press that his oil experts said that production cost was not really the driving force behind the colossal rise in gas prices, but that speculation accounted for between 20 and 50 percent of rising gas prices. He said that drilling ANWR would completely ignore the substantial supply already available in federal land.

He said that President Bush has done nothing to encourage conservation since taking office. Hoyer said that the Republicans may want oil prices to go down but instead of taking action he said they just offer subsidies to oil companies. He said that Senator McCain’s (R-Az.) new plan to develop an electric car was created to balance out the four billion dollar tax cut he proposed for the five largest U.S. oil companies.