A Hill staffer e-mails:
For all of you writing (or reading about) how much ANWR, OCS and other increased domestic production would affect the price of gas, please note what Sen. Schumer just said on the floor about the impact of increased production in Saudi Arabia.
“If they produced half a million barrels more oil a day the price would come down a very significant amount and, at the same time, it would stop the speculation that keeps driving up the price of oil.”
Keep in mind, ANWR alone is projected to produce one million barrels a day, every day. In fact, if President Clinton had not vetoed legislation opening up a small portion of ANWR thirteen years ago (1995), a million barrels a day would be flowing from ANWR right now, helping to keep prices down at the pump.
So if Sen. Schumer believes that a half million barrels a day from SAUDIA ARABIA would cause the price of oil to “come down a very significant amount,” just think what a million barrels—produced here in AMERICA through AMERICAN jobs—would do to lower the price of gas.
Don’t take it from me, take it from the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.