madam speaker , i thank the gentlewoman and commend her for organizing this hour that we can talk about this energy bill , but we all hope we not only hope can pass on this floor but can actually in this congress become law because we have waited too long . 
the american people have waited too long to have an energy policy that is a little bit more than one day at a time . 
so i do , again , commend the gentlewoman . 
anwr has been an issue in this congress and much of the united states for years and years and years . 
when i got elected to congress in 2002 , anwr was very much on my mind because one of the first issues we talked about was an energy bill . 
i had an opportunity to go up and see that much talked about , much described , very valuable piece of real estate in august of 2003 with a few of my congressional colleagues . 
i have in front of me tonight a map that puts alaska in relative size to the lower 48 states in proper perspective . 
anwr is in this region . 
the area we are actually talking about exploring is represented by that green dot , just 2 , 000 acres . 
2 , 000 acres is roughly the size of the st . 
louis airport that most of us and many americans have landed in . 
i have also heard that in relative size it is about like dulles , which we are all very familiar with back here in the washington , d.c. , area . 
it is about the same size as the land dedicated to the dulles airport as compared to the entire state of virginia . 
so we are talking about a relatively small part of a massive piece of real estate . 
this map very quickly puts in perspective one other key thing , the amount of oil represented by 1 million barrels per day coming from that one small piece of real estate , and that is a conservative estimate of the amount of oil that can be generated from this anwr reserve , over 1 million barrels a day . 
several other energy sources are addressed in this bill , wind power , which i certainly embrace coming from colorado . 
we produce a little wind power ourselves , but so do our friends from rhode island and connecticut represented in gray by about 3.7 million acres dedicated to wind energy . 
to generate the same amount of total energy is 1 million barrels of oil from anwr . 
in red , down at lake okeechobee , where they utilize solar , as we do also in colorado , but some 448 , 000 acres are dedicated to solar energy generation , to again apply the energy to 1 million barrels from anwr in one day . 
or in green , again the coastal plain , or in black the acreage , as i mentioned , from the lambert airport . 
ethanol is in yellow . 
massive piece of ground . 
we have heard much about ethanol already tonight on the floor of the house . 
ethanol is also of interest to the eastern plains , especially in colorado , where we grow a whole lot of corn . 
i see one of my colleagues from iowa here tonight grinning a bit . 
i know it is important to him . 
but you see the massive amount of land acreage , 80.5 million acres that would have to be dedicated to growing corn to produce as much ethanol as we get from a million barrels of oil a day in alaska . 
now , to the point i really wanted to address , and this is the point . 
we ought to remember that there are precious few people who actually live in that very difficult , very hostile environment in the world , anwr , which is literally on the coast of the arctic ocean . 
i went up and visited that . 
if i can put this map back up , i will put it in proper perspective . 
prudhoe bay , which we often talk about , is located here , again literally on the edge of the arctic ocean . 
a small village of kaktovik is roughly where that green dot is . 
we actually flew over in a very small plane , landed on a gravel runway and visited these people in kaktovik ; about 270 of them actually manage to survive in that very , very difficult environment . 
how do they do that ? 
they still hunt the whale . 
they go out when the arctic ocean opens up a little bit and get in the open water and they are allowed to get three whale a year . 
they fish for arctic char and they survive on them . 
and , yes , they hunt and kill and eat the caribou meat , as they have for generations and generations . 
that is how they survive . 
i submit to this body and submit to the american people that if anyone is concerned about preserving that environment , it is these people . 
not because it is pristine , not because they like the view , not because the air is very , very clean , but it is about survival . 
it is about their very existence . 
if that environment changes , these people have a very , very serious , life-threatening problem . 
if anybody is interested in maintaining that environment unchanged , it is them . 
and we all know what the environment is supposed to look like . 
it looks like this for a small window of the year . 
it is covered with caribou and a little bit of short grass , as i saw it in august when i was there . 
and , actually , the caribou , from 1972 to current days , in about a 30-year window , have increased , not decreased . 
since we did the prudhoe bay development , they have actually increased by about tenfold , a thousand percent . 
and we have heard much about that . 
that is how anwr looks some of the year . 
this is how anwr looks most of the year . 
that is not the moon , that is actually ice , and that is about all that is there . 
it is frozen and it is ice covered . 
how much oil is there ? 
the experts , the scientists tell us that if we would develop anwr , and frankly , had we gone ahead and done it in 1995 , when congress actually approved it and president clinton vetoed the bill , today we would be bringing over a million barrels a day to the lower 48 from anwr . 
how much is a million barrels a day ? 
actually , they project almost 1.4 million a day from anwr . 
that is almost as much as we import daily from , yes , saudi arabia , our largest single source of imported oil , almost a direct offset to saudi arabia . 
now , what do the people in anwr think ? 
final point . 
we asked fenton rexford , who is the president of the native indian corporation that populates that little piece of real estate , well , that very large piece of real estate but very small group of people . 
what should we do with anwr ? 
i asked him the question . 
two-word answer : drill it . 
i said , really ? 
he said , yes , drill it . 
i said , is that what your villagers think ? 
he had already told us there were 271 people living there that day . 
he said , well , at least 270 of them agree . 
that is close to unanimous . 
one of my colleagues said , but what about the caribou ? 
this was after he told us how they depend on the caribou for their very survival . 
he said , what about it ? 
well , my colleague said , if we happen to drill there , explore there , develop there , we might scare them off or change their migratory pattern . 
and the president looked at us and he said , you are missing something here , and we all leaned forward in eager anticipation . 
he said you are missing something here . 
we said , what is that ? 
we hunt them and kill them and they come back . 
and we all said , oh , yeah , you do . 
we hunt them and kill them and they come back . 
you are not going to scare them off by exploring for a little bit of oil out here . 
he said again , drill it . 
with that , madam speaker , i yield back . 
