Published Monday, June 16, 2008

Lawmaker petitions Congress to drill for oil

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Newnan Times-Herald

Common sense, change and drilling for oil were the main topics discussed by Coweta's Congressman Lynn Westmoreland as he spoke at a question and answer session hosted by the Coweta County Republican Women Monday.

Oil and gas are, of course, the topics on everyone's minds, and that's what Westmoreland concentrated on during his presentation.

Westmoreland said he was contacted by a constituent about a petition asking the U.S. Government to "drill here, and drill now" for oil. "I hope you will all go and sign that," Westmoreland said.

But it gave him an idea, and he's drawn up a petition just for congressmen. Bills in Congress can become so convoluted that it can be hard to tell whether someone is for or against something.

But Westmoreland's oil drill petition is very simple. The petition was rolled out last Thursday, Westmoreland said, and asks congressmen to sign if they support more land-based drilling, more offshore drilling, and more refineries.

At that, Westmoreland was met with thunderous applause by the crowd gathered in the community room at the Publix at Thomas Crossroads.

"That is as simple as it gets. So there is no wiggle room in there for anybody to say that they were for something or against something," Westmoreland said.

Westmoreland was asked whether congress members just won't sign at all.

If they don't they'll have someone to answer to. Westmoreland said he has been on several television news shows and will be on radio and television promoting the petition and letting the American people know what is going on.

"We need to have the ability for us to use our own natural resources," Westmoreland said. The Democrats are asking the U.S. to go to other counties and beg for their natural resources.

"Some people are real happy with us and some people are read mad at us," for introducing the petition, Westmoreland said. "But you know what? I don't really care."

Westmoreland was asked how Republican voters can let John McCain understand how much they want more oil production in the U.S.

"People are really working on him today, as we speak, trying to convince him that he needs to get on the right side of this issue," Westmoreland said. "I understand that somebody is going to start the same petition in the Senate that we started in the House."

In 1995, Westmoreland said, the Republican-controlled House and Senate passed legislation to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It was vetoed by President Bill Clinton. If that drilling had moved forward, Westmoreland said, ANWR could be producing one million barrels of oil per day.

The U.S. uses approximately 21 million barrels a day.

The high gas prices are part of the key to getting the United States to get serious about its own oil production Westmoreland said.

"Oil has kind of eased down a little bit because the American people are talking about doing something for themselves," Westmoreland said. That has the oil speculators driving the market getting worried. The market speculation is driven by the assumption that the "American people are not going to do anything because we are controlled by a party that is controlled by radical environmentalists," Westmoreland said.

Once bills get passed to allow more drilling, to use slant drilling and to start getting oil out of oil shale, to build nuclear power plants, "the price is going to fall," Westmoreland said. "There is no other country in the world that is dependent on somebody else's natural resources. China is drilling 45 miles off the coast of Florida. That's our stuff, we need to be getting that," Westmoreland said.

Part of it is just making the decision to do it.

In 1965, Norway was dependent on foreign oil. The country is pristine, and tourism and fishing are major industries, Westmoreland said.

Back in the 60s, Norway decided to start looking for oil. Oil is now the country's number one export.

Oil companies have approximately 68 million acres of leases where they can now drill for oil. That might sound like a lot, Westmoreland said, until you realize that there are 1.76 billion acres on the outer continental shelf, and 700 million other acres of federal land. But oil companies aren't allowed to drill on that. In the current leases, he said, 54 percent of the exploration sites have been dry.

Some people claim that the oil companies are just trying to stockpile leases, Westmoreland said. But if a company is not drilling on leased property, the federal government can take the lease back, once the lease period has expired.

"That argument is useless," Westmoreland said. But most Americans "won't take time" to figure out what is really going on.

State Rep. Lynn Smith, R-Newnan, added that Georgia is well suited to take advantage of renewable energy alternatives, including woody biomass.

Local governments have a lot to do with the future of renewable energy, Westmoreland said. A biomass power plant was going to go to Meriwether County. "Meriwether County said we don't want it. Yet they let a landfill go in," Westmoreland said.

Speaking of landfills, some landfills are using the methane gas created by rotting garbage to produce energy. But in Columbus, he said, a company wants to buy the methane that the Columbus landfill is just burning off. "They can't get the contract from the city. There is something wrong with that," Westmoreland said.

When it comes to energy independence, "don't just look at it from a federal level. You have to look at it from a city, from a county, and from a state level, to use all the resources we have locally, whether it is biomass, whether it is methane."

There are plenty of regulations that make things more difficult, Westmoreland said. Waste wood takes up more space in landfills than anything else, he said. There are technologies to recycle the wood, the concrete, the dirt and the gypsum, "but they can't get the local permits to do it," he said.

"We live in a different world today than we used to live in," he said. Nobody wants a landfill in their backyard, but environmental regulations tell people they can't bury construction debris on their property.

That is "creating another problem. So there's got to be a common-sense solution."

He also mentioned the suspension of deposits into the strategic petroleum reserve. Democrats voted to stop making deposits into the reserve, and he said he thinks there are now plans afoot to start taking oil out of the reserve.

Westmoreland is very much against that.

"You think our oil prices are high now? Wait until we deplete our oil reserves," Westmoreland said. To see what would happen, "ask Jimmy Carter."

"We would be held hostage. We would not have that emergency oil," Westmoreland said. Doing that is the last thing we want to do.

It's a matter of national security. Westmoreland said he would like to see the president declare a national security emergency and "order drilling on ANWR and the other continental shelf."

At that, there was thunderous applause and whistles.

Westmoreland was asked about those "radical environmentalists" and how to stop them.

It's a small group of people, he said.

And being against radical environmentalists doesn't mean he doesn't care about the environment.

"We all want to be conscious of our environment. God gave us the command that we were to take care of this earth and we need to take care of it," Westmoreland said.