[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10] [House] [Page 13884] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]NO NEED TO OPEN NEW AREAS AND NEW LEASES (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.) Mr. DeFAZIO. We are going to hear a lot today about the need for new leases. There is no need to open new areas and new leases. Here is Alaska. The former Naval Petroleum Reserve leased by Bill Clinton, authorized by the Republican Congress, has more than 10 billion barrels of oil under it. It is known to exist. The oil industry has the leases; they have drilled 25 wells; they have capped them. They have no plans to connect it to the existing pipeline and bring that oil here to consumers. But they are saying, no, we want to go over here, we want more leases over here in ANWR. We don't even know if there is any oil under ANWR. How about they deal with the known 10 billion barrels here and provide us some relief at the pump? Then we can talk about other places they might want to go in the future. ____________________