A $100 fill-up?

By By Trent Lott / u.s. senator
May 31, 2004
In Mississippi last week I fielded many questions about our high gas prices. People demand to know, and we deserve to know, why Mississippians from the Coast to Corinth are paying anywhere from $1.85 to $2.15 a gallon for gas and spending $40 or $50 per fill-up.
I've been talking to key players in the global energy arena from our existing suppliers, to our domestic policy makers, to potential energy vendors trying to determine why gas is so high and what America's next move should be.
It's clear there's really only one way to avoid $3 per-gallon gas prices. Congress must quit stalling and pass a national energy policy this year, before America's dependence on foreign oil tops 60 percent, and filling our tanks takes $60 or more.
Record prices
I called Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham to tell him that Mississippi's gas prices are at record levels, and the administration must take immediate action to force down gas prices nationwide. I said we must be more aggressive with OPEC countries, particularly the Saudis, and pressure them to step up production.
When OPEC chooses to decrease production, as they did a few weeks ago, that causes supplies to dwindle, as demand increases. The result is skyrocketing prices.
Thankfully, the Saudis now have agreed to increase production. With the Saudis committed to producing more oil, gas prices should soon start to fall.
Yet, we can't be complacent. It's just a temporary fix, as would be releasing the country's emergency oil reserves, which are set aside for national security uses.
I've talked to the Saudis directly, as well. Saudi Arabia is OPEC's engine and the largest energy producer in the world. I frankly told them that people in America were getting fed up with OPEC's on-again-off-again price and production game. The Saudis blame America saying that even when Saudi Arabia produces the maximum amount of oil they can send here, America can't refine it. I'm afraid they're right.
America hasn't built a new refinery in about 20 years, severely limiting our ability to keep up with energy demand. Ditto for nuclear power, coal and other energy-producing facilities.
Clearly, America must invest in our energy infrastructure on a variety of fronts, upgrading it to meet our 21st Century demand.
I've also courted the Russians as a non-OPEC energy supplier. I've been to Russia twice in as many years because Russia represents a huge market for American goods and services, and they're also a huge resource for energy.
Russians buy a large quantity of Mississippi's poultry products. They've got huge oil resources. Mikhail Margelov, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council (Russia's counterpart to the U.S. Senate) told me Russia wants to sell its oil without joining OPEC. I told him America would like to buy it. The more suppliers America has, the more energy independent we become.
We can start playing suppliers against one another, haggling for better prices. Russia needs our money, our agricultural products, our durable goods and we need their oil.
Untapped resources
I've talked to many people in our domestic oil and gas industry, including Jeet Bindra, President of ChevronTexaco Global Refining. While America remains the biggest consumer of energy, we also have the potential to be one of the biggest producers. We have vast untapped energy resources, particularly in Alaska and along our outer continental shelf. Yet, time and time again, liberals in Washington bowing to environmental special interest groups have thwarted incentives for more domestic energy exploration.
Given their way, these groups would take away your car or truck. That's not realistic, and it's not going to happen. Their stubborn attitude is hurting America's ability to become more energy independent.
Energy policy has to be broad. Support initiatives for domestic production and I'll support incentives for alternative fuels and experimental technologies. I've always believed a workable energy policy has to include the whole package: incentives for conventional domestic energy production like more drilling, more refineries, more power plants; incentives for new technologies like solar power, fuel cells or even wind power and incentives to wean us off OPEC, finding new sources, like Russia for oil abroad.
The energy policy proposal before the Senate has all these ingredients. It's not perfect, but it's something. And we'd better do something now, before a fill-up takes the better part of a $100 dollar-bill.
Write Sen. Trent Lott at 487 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510.