The Speaker Pro Tempore: The gentleman from California is recognized for five minutes.

Mr. Miller: I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.

The Speaker Pro Tempore: Without objection.

Mr. Miller: I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership on this issue. We have as many have said been to this issue before. But we have never been here in this situation. The suggestion is by those individuals that somehow if we just drill ANWR [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] that we will have lower gasoline prices in the United States. Maybe they don't know it, but they should know it that there's only now one price of oil. It's the world price of oil.

The last time we had lower prices in the United States, the oil companies drilling on ANWR sought to export that oil to japan rather than sell it into the United States. So they did not -- these are not benevolent societies. These are profit making organizations. If the world price of oil is $70 a barrel, it will be $70 a barrel in ANWR. If it's $100, it will be $100 a barrel in ANWR. The identify do that the Americans are going to get this fix out of ANWR just isn't true.

By the time ANWR comes online, it may be 4% of imports. We shouldn't ignore that, but the fact of the matter is that so many people have pointed that there's much more that we can do. Many people have referred to the fact that the President stood here and told us we were addicted to oil. Well, the supporters of this legislation and the president of the United States are acting just like addicts. What they're doing is looking for one more quick fix. One more fix and then they'll get religion tomorrow, one more fix and they'll get well, one more fix and they'll go into treatment. When they're telling us is they've postponed conservation, they've postponed new technologies, they've postponed new sources of energy, they've committed themselves.

This is the most oil-friendly administration in recent times and we still find that we cannot meet the demands of this country because rather than deal with our demands, rather than deal with the technologies and the innovations that are available to us today, they've put all of their money on the oil companies. They put it there with royalty relief, they put it there with incentives, they put it there with bonus bid systems, they put it there with drilling in ANWR. It's a bankrupt policy. What they're now doing in the 11th hour is American consumers suffer from $3.50 gasoline, they're buying a lotto ticket. They're buying a lotto ticket and it's called ANWR, and they're hoping to be able to redeem it. When it doesn't work, America will be deeper in debt, more dependent on foreign sources of oil than they are today because if they can get ANWR, they can once again postponed the commitments to conservation and technology. They can scare you, they will tell you if Venezuela cuts off the oil, well, let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, they may sell that oil to the Chinese, but it's going to be refined in my district because we know the Chinese can't refine that oil. We know by the time the oil leaves one shore and gets to the other, it may change ownership as much as a dozen times and it changes destination. But the fact of the matter is that it's not very attractive oil that Mr. Chavez is trying to sell or put on the market.

So we have to understand what this means. What this comes down to really is about a sense of the future and our values. This ANWR, I've been there, I've explored it, I've slept overnight there, I've stayed out, I've camped out in this area, so let me talk about it. This is about a pristine area that you decide to industrialize or you don't. The 2,000 acres is a hoax. They can build airports, they can do whatever they want. That's the nature of our relationship with the Indian tribes. So the 2,000 acres is a hoax. It's a decision about the value of this place, this very special place and whether or not you're going to industrialize it.

And then it comes down to whether or not you believe in the ingenuity and the creativity of America. When we put together our Innovation Agenda, we met with the CEO's of the most advanced companies in the world, and they said to us, put energy innovation on the table, you will drive a new generation of technology, a new generation of economic activity, new jobs in America. What are they putting on the table? They're putting on the table the old, tired policy that somehow, America can drill its way out of this problem. No, it can't. There's nobody who believes that's the situation. but you chose to stick with the 1960's, a 1970's policy, a 1980's policy, a 1990's policy.

We would like to think about this century and new innovation and new places to go. And the excitement of new technologies where America once again sells to the world those cutting edge technologies. We should not abandon wind energy to the Scandanavians, to the Europeans, to the Spanish. No, we should have those technologies, we should be making the investment in alternative sources of energy, and alternative fuels. That's not what this legislation is about. This is about the one last lottery ticket, the one last gamble that the American people lose with this legislation.