Romney even adopted Palin’s language in his speech at a Consol Energy research facility:

PALIN: “It’s time for the greatest nation on earth to tap into its full potential, and one surefire way to do so is to tap into what is beneath this earth.”

ROMNEY: “The course that I will put us on is to take advantage of what comes from above the ground as well as what comes from below the ground so that America can finally become energy-secure and independent of the oil cartel.”

“Romney’s energy and environmental platform calls for stripping EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and expanding oil-and-gas leasing to include areas that are currently off limits, including the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, among other measures,” The Hill’s Ben Geman writes.

Romney denied that global warming is caused by burning fossil fuels at a Consol Energy facility last year. Consol has given $5000 to the Romney campaign and $150,000 to the Romney SuperPAC.

We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We have quadrupled number of operating rigs to a record high. We have added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the earth and then some. So we are drilling all over the place, right now. That’s not the challenge. That’s not the problem.

Watch it:

Obama announced that he is expediting the construction of the southern leg of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which will connect tar sands and oil shale production from the north to Gulf Coast refineries for tax-free export to foreign markets.

Obama concluded by saying that the “future I want for our kids” is one in which “we’re going to keep on drilling.”

Climate scientists have warned that the prevention of catastrophic climate change would require that 80 percent of known fossil-fuel reserves will have to remain unburned.

This morning the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing entitled “Harnessing American Resources to Create Jobs and Address Rising Gasoline Prices: Families and Cost-of-Life Impacts.”

Rather than focus on actual solutions to rising gas prices, Republican committee members advocated for more drilling, a policy which would increase big oil profits but does not decrease gas prices.  In his opening remarks, Chairman Doc Hastings’ (R-WA) stated:

In order to address rising gasoline prices, we must do everything we can to increase production here in the U.S. We have the energy resources; we just need the federal government to get out of the way.

Unfortunately, more drilling does not decrease gas prices.  As the Associated Press reported this morning:

It’s the political cure-all for high gas prices: Drill here, drill now. But more U.S. drilling has not changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, math and history show.

A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.

This is because oil prices are set on the world market, and are “relatively insensitive to what happens here in the United States with regards to production,” as Senator Jeff Bingaman put it recently.

So why are Republicans continuing to advocate for more drilling as a panacea to high gas prices?  Perhaps because 88 percent of all political contributions from oil and gas companies go to Republicans.  The Natural Resources Committee itself takes an astounding amount of campaign money from oil and gas, as seen in this chart that ThinkProgress put together in November 2011.

In addition to promoting more drilling as a solution to high gas prices, witnesses called by the Republicans at today’s hearing went so far as to oppose additional solutions to high gas prices.  Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) asked each majority witness if they would support keeping the oil and refined products from the Keystone XL pipeline in American, and each stated he or she would not support.  This mirrors the voting pattern of Republicans—all but nine in the entire House voted against a similar amendment to keep American oil on American soil in February of this year.

Additionally, the facts show that under the Obama administration, we are drilling more in America than everywhere else in the world combined.  As of March 16^th, there were 1,984 rotary rigs operating in the U.S., while only 1,721 in the rest of the world.  The number of oil drilling rigs in the U.S. hit a record in February, and have quadrupled over the last three years.

Rather than having hearings about real solutions to gas prices, Republicans on this committee insist on perpetuating myths about the role of domestic drilling in decreasing gas prices.  Next week, they are having another hearing on the subject, and it remains to be seen what “solutions” they will address.

AP writes:

U.S. oil production is back to the same level it was in March 2003, when gas cost $2.10 per gallon when adjusted for inflation. But that’s not what prices are now.

That’s because oil is a global commodity and U.S. production has only a tiny influence on supply. Factors far beyond the control of a nation or a president dictate the price of gasoline.

When you put the inflation-adjusted price of gas on the same chart as U.S. oil production since 1976, the numbers sometimes go in the same direction, sometimes in opposite directions. If drilling for more oil meant lower prices, the lines on the chart would consistently go in opposite directions. A basic statistical measure of correlation found no link between the two, and outside statistical experts confirmed those calculations.

Domestic oil production is at its highest level in eight years. According to the AP, if drilling dictated gas prices, they should already be at the $2 Republicans promise. However, gas prices fluctuate based on a variety of factors, including speculation and tensions in the Middle East.

These facts haven’t stopped Republicans from rallying around “drill, baby, drill.” President Barack Obama quipped last week on the GOP’s drilling fever: “I guess there’s some empty spots where we’re not drilling. We’re not at the National Mall. We’re not drilling at your house.”

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. and Conoco Phillips Alaska told the Senate Resources Committee there are projects the companies could do on Alaska’s North Slope to increase oil production, but those projects will have trouble attracting capital investment because of high state taxes. . . . Conoco Phillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman said the company “has committed to spending $5 billion in the next 3 to 5 years jointly with our co-venturers if there is a tax change similar to what HB 110 proposed.”

BP and Conoco Phillips testified against SB 192, which would only cut oil company taxes by $200 million a year.

Gov. Sean Parnell (R-AK), formerly the director of government relations for ConocoPhillips, supports House Bill 110.

Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) is only in his first term as a member of the U.S. House. But he’s already collected nearly a quarter of a million dollars in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests. It’s by far the number one industry that supports his budding political career.

Little surprise then, that Gardner is a reliable Capitol Hill ally for big oil. Little surprise either, that in serving the oil and gas industry agenda, he gets his facts wrong, as the Denver Post recently reported.

This week, he stepped up to the petroleum plate again, saying he’s introducing legislation to link any sales of our emergency oil supply from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increases in oil and gas leases on federal lands. Sell five percent of the oil in the reserve, said Gardner, and the Obama administration must draw up a plan to increase the amount of federal lands that are leased by five percent. That five percent would mean leasing nearly another two million acres of public land on top of the 38 million acres already under lease.

Apparently with a straight face, Gardner characterized his bill as something other than a blatant give-away to Big Oil:

This bill is about achieving energy independence and keeping prices at the pump affordable

Give Gardner credit. He makes it hard to know where to start the rebutting and fact-checking.

One might begin with the fact that in a recent report on domestic onshore oil and gas production, the Interior Department found that nearly three-fifths of the federal onshore acreage leased to the oil and gas industry was sitting idle and undeveloped. Surely it then makes sense to give them more when they’ve got leases on nearly 22 million acres they have yet to drill.

Or, consider where the drill rigs already are: in the U.S. As recently reported by Michael Conathan, CAP’s Director of Ocean Policy, the number of rigs operating in the U.S. has quadrupled since President Obama took office, and we’ve got more oil rigs at work now than in the rest of the world combined.

All that drilling activity and increased U.S. production – now at an eight year high — hasn’t lowered gasoline prices here, and it won’t. As Conathan pointed out, gasoline supply is dependent on refining capacity more than oil supply, and oil is a global commodity.

Taking the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a hostage to Republican talking points has now infected both the House and Senate. Last month, several members of the Senate introduced legislation that would prevent President Obama from selling reserve oil unless his administration approves the Keystone XL Pipeline that would bring dirty tar sands crude from Canada to the U.S.

The “battle over energy exports is intensifying” and at the same time we have no coherent national export policy were the primary takeaways from an event called “Power Play:  Fossil Fuels and U.S. Export Strategy” held this morning at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.  Coal, refined petroleum products from tar sands, and natural gas are currently being exported to hungry overseas markets, and the event was designed to look at the implications of these decisions.

Panelists Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA)  bemoaned the fact that the United States does not have a national strategy on exports.  Wyden accused the country of being “on autopilot” to an energy export policy, which could have tremendous economic, social, and environmental consequences.  He expanded:

So I have been somebody who’s been expansionist on trade and think that we ought to have freer trade, have fairer trade, but we also need to have smarter trade.  And allowing energy producers—we haven’t really touched on this—to trade away our international competitiveness and our energy independence by exporting the resources right now without thinking through the implications here of what it means for consumers and our companies doesn’t strike me as a smart trade policy.

Watch it:

As the price of natural gas continues to plummet, pressure to export it as liquefied natural gas has increased, and last year the U.S. was a net exporter of refined petroleum products for the first time since 1949.  As well, the coal industry is preparing to significantly increase exports of American coal overseas.  In response to these trends, the members detailed four critical areas that could be impacted by exports, which they believe need more careful consideration:  domestic energy, national security, consumer prices, and environmental impacts.

A second panel addressed different perspectives on coal exports.  Panelists represented the energy finance industry, Pacific Northwest residents impacted by coal export traffic and terminals, landowners concerned about the impacts of mining, and a labor and environmental alliance.

Markey, who released a report at the event entitled “Drill Here, Sell There, Pay More,” summed up the need for serious thinking on exports by saying:

We should first decide what we want to do for the United States of America.

Anybody who tells you that we can drill our way out of this problem doesn’t know what they’re talking about or just isn’t telling you the truth. Young people especially understand this, because, you know, it’s interesting. When I talk to Malia and Sasha — you guys are so much more aware of conserving our resources and thinking about the planet.

Watch it:

The president’s speech forcefully rejected the Republican idea that the solution to all of the world’s ills — including rising gas prices — is to drill, baby, drill. However, not once did Obama directly recognize the reality of climate change. The past burning of hundreds of billions of tons of fossil fuels is already degrading the safety of our planet for human civilization. To keep Obama’s own promise of limiting total warming to no more than 2°C, about 80 percent of proved fossil-fuel reserves will have to remain in the ground.

Last night the House of Representatives passed part of the behemoth transportation bill it is considering over the next month on a 237-187 vote.  This section consisted solely of earmarks to Big Oil including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening Florida coasts to offshore drilling, a plan to develop oil shale (which isn’t even commercially viable), and building the Keystone XL pipeline.  A Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that the drilling proposals together generate only approximately $2 billion, far less than the $50 billion funding gap needed for transportation projects over the coming years.

Even if the drilling could pay for the costs, linking oil and gas development to long-term highway funding is just bad public policy, as Ryan Alexander of the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense has explained:

Paying for a couple of years of transportation funding with expected revenues from an increase in oil and gas drilling that will likely take many years to get rolling is not a responsible budget approach… It’s like buying the Ferrari tomorrow because you are sure a raise is coming sometime in the future.”

Originally the transportation bill (H.R. 7, American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012) was one large bill that included transportation funding, drilling, and changes to federal pensions.  However, Republicans realized that they would not have the votes for the bill, and so split it into three bills to be voted on separately that will then be spliced back together and sent to the Senate.  This was an unusual procedural move designed to shield Republicans from having to take tough votes that won’t be popular with their constituents but also force the bill through.

What is most galling is that none of these bills alone or combined would be able to pay for the costs of transportation generated by this bill.  Traditionally, improvements to roads, bridges, and public transportation are funded by the federal gasoline tax, but GOP leaders in the House are taking the unprecedented step to tie funding to an unnecessary and ineffective increase in fossil fuel production.  Since it doesn’t even begin to fund our highways, the bill can be considered nothing more than a series of earmarks for Big Oil.

The proposal to fund oil shale from Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is a particularly nasty earmark.  The Congressional Budget Office found the bill would generate no revenue over 10 years and in the short term would cost money to implement the leasing program.  The Checks and Balance Project detailed this “boondoogle” in an online ad.

Last night’s vote saw some crossing of party lines, particularly 11 Florida Republicans angered by proposals to drill off of the state’s coasts who voted no on the bill’s passage.

In association with the State of the Union address, the White House released “A Blueprint for An America Built to Last.” Within it, “A Blueprint to Make the Most of America’s Energy Resources,” from which we learn that “nuclear power, efficient natural gas, and clean coal” are “renewable energy” sources:

The President called on Congress to build on our success in positioning America to be the world’s leading manufacturer in high-tech batteries and reiterated his call for action on clean energy tax credits and a national goal of moving toward clean sources of electricity by setting a standard for utility companies, so that by 2035, 80% of the nation’s electricity will come from clean sources, including renewable energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, hydropower, nuclear power, efficient natural gas, and clean coal.

This is, almost certainly an issue of poor writing. It could have read “nuclear power, efficient natural gas, clean coal, and renewable energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, and hydropower.” That rewrite, however, would have put renewables at the back of the line and hurt the President among those strongly supportive of greater investment in renewable energy deployment and research — that is to say, the majority of Americans. Yet, in last year’s State of the Union address the President said that “clean energy jobs” meant nuclear power, offshore oil and gas drilling, and “clean coal.”

All the uranium on planet Earth was formed 6.6 billion years ago and is not “renewable.” Now, if we wish to speak in terms of tens of millions of years, one could argue that coal, natural gas, and oil are renewable. Today’s biomass will, over that sort of geologic time, create (renew, one might say) new fossil fuel supplies. However, in any rational discussion, these are not “renewable” fuels within any context of human civilization.

This section, however, has far more serious problems — most importantly, the President’s whole-sale throwing in the hat with the “natural gas is good for the environment and economy” propaganda that is a Potemkin village when it comes to addressing the nation’s real challenges.

YOUNG: If you ever want want to see an exercise in futility … That side has already made up its mind and this side has already made up its mind. I call it garbage, Dr. Rice, it comes from the mouth –

BRINKLEY: It’s Dr. Brinkley. Rice is a university –

YOUNG: Well, okay, I can call you anything I want if you sit in that chair. You just be quiet! You be quiet!

Watch it:

After Young’s irate outburst, Committee chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA) castigated Dr. Brinkley for interrupting the Alaska congressman and disrupting the “comity” of the hearing.

“The Arctic plain is really nothing,” Young continued, calling Dr. Brinkley “elitist.” “You can go on all the pontifigurds you want . . . I’m really pissed.”

“Some people love money more than their homeland or where they live,” Dr. Brinkley said later, rebuking Young for his hatred of the undrilled Alaskan wilderness.

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Today, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals will debate a proposal to jump start oil shale production, which could be one of the dirtiest forms of energy in existence if it were to become viable. Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn’s (R-CO) bill would codify midnight regulations on oil shale that the Bush administration passed just as it was leaving office in early 2009.

You’re not alone if you haven’t heard of oil shale, which should not be confused with the viable energy producer “shale oil.” In order to develop the oil shale, a type of rock, power plants must be built to heat the rock up to nearly 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and produce crude oil that still needs to be refined. This takes a large amount of energy and money, as well as 3-5 barrels of water per barrel of oil produced, a dangerous issue in the parched West.

Politicians and oil companies have extolled the virtue of this “new” form of energy since the early 1900s, yet not a single barrel of oil from oil shale has been commercially sold. That does not stop today’s politicians and oil CEOs from using the same language as their decades old predecessors. In a field hearing this summer, the Checks and Balances Project developed a bingo card with old-timey oil shale phrases — all of which but one were used. You can follow along today to see if the same arguments are used yet again (click on the card for a larger version).

Oil companies and proponents of oil shale claim it can “solve our energy crisis,” and Lamborn recently claimed that it is “one of America’s greatest natural resources.” Yet, despite decades of experimentation and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, oil shale has never been produced commercially in the United States. Even the director of the Center for Oil Shale Technology and Research admitted that:

All of the major companies are doing oil shale because they think it’s an interesting and high-potential area, but they’re not in a hurry to make it productive…

Oil companies already have research and development leases on public lands, but they now seeking even more public lands on which to experiment. Lamborn’s bill continues to reward dirty fossil fuel companies for chasing what some have called “the petroleum equivalent of fool’s gold.” Throughout his career, Lamborn has received $126,962 from the oil and gas industry.

On Wednesday, House Natural Resource Committee Republicans held their 20th oversight hearing on how to drill more. In addition to oil shale, todays legislative hearing will feature bills to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to mandate offshore oil and gas lease sales.

Tomorrow, less than a week after issuing the most recent five-year leasing plan for offshore oil and gas development, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is slated to testify in front of the House Natural Resources Committee on “The Future of U.S. Oil and Natural Gas Development on Federal Lands and Waters.” As part of the committee’s 19 previous hearings, members of the committee have accused the Obama administration and the Secretary of “dramatically declined permitting,” imposing “constant obstacles,” and putting “the brakes on” American energy development.

As described in more detail below, we are drilling more in this country than we have since 1987. So why are we sitting through a 20th hearing on oil and gas drilling when the committee has only held four on wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower combined? Follow the money. We have compiled a chart of the members of the Natural Resources Committee who can count the oil and gas industry among the top five contributors to their election campaigns over the course of their careers.

Using data from opensecrets.org, ThinkProgress has also determined that Republicans on the committee have already taken in $485,506 for next year’s election, compared with Democrats who have received at most $79,000 in donations. So, the party holding a majority of seats in the House — and therefore in charge of setting the hearing schedules—has taken six times as many campaign contributions from Big Oil in 2012 cycle compared to the minority.

Although the committee’s leadership have tried to make the case that the Obama administration is standing in the way of oil and gas development on federal lands and waters, the facts show that we are drilling for oil and gas more than anywhere else in the world. Here are some important pieces of information to keep in mind for tomorrow’s hearing:

- The Wall Street Journal reported in late August that U.S. oil drilling is “up nearly 60% in the past year and the highest total since at least 1987, when oil services company Baker Hughes Inc. began keeping track.”
- A June 2011 report by Headwaters Economics found that U.S. onshore drilling activity was at 91 percent of the 20-year high.
- There is more drilling in the U.S. than the rest of the world combined. As of today, there are 2,016 drill rigs operating in the U.S. and 1,697 rigs operating in the rest of the world, according to industry statistics.
– In 2010, total U.S. oil production (onshore and offshore) was the highest it has been since 2003.
- In 2010, the BLM processed 5,000 drilling permit applications; in 2011, that number is projected to be 7,200.
- Shallow water permits have averaged more than seven per month since fall 2010, about equal to 2009.
- Earlier this year, the administration announced a massive sale of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico
- Despite serious misgivings from the public, conservationists, and the Coast Guard, the administration approved initial permits for Royal Dutch Shell to commence exploratory drilling in the Arctic.

Meanwhile, the Big Five oil companies have posted $101 billion dollars in profits so far this year, which does not necessarily mean they will spend that money to put people back to work. From 2005-2010, BP, Shell, Exxon/Mobil, and Chevron combined to make more than half a trillion dollars in profits, and they reduced their U.S. workforce by over 11,000 jobs. In 2010 alone, while oil drilling increased nearly 60 percent, and they pocketed $73 billion, they handed pink slips to 4,400 Americans.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) placed blame for sagging education funding on a peculiar source: insufficient oil and gas drilling.

Bishop, who serves as chairman of the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, told the Western Republican Leadership Conference this month that disparities among Western states’ education funding could be placed squarely at the feet of regulations preventing unrestrained drilling and mining. “You want to fund education and help our kids?” Bishop asked the Republican audience. “You have to do the resources.”

BISHOP: Everything in red are the states that have the hardest time funding their education systems. The states that have the slowest growth, and it’s almost a 2-to-1 growth. The states in yellow increase their funding by education by 92 percent, the rest of them by 56 percent. [...] The fact that our land is not in our control means we don’t get property tax for it, we don’t have the development of it which produces income tax or severance tax. [...] Let me show you the difference between Wyoming and Montana. The blue is what Wyoming was able to pay their teachers in every one of those classes, the red is what Montana did. I promise you the difference between what Wyoming and Montana is Wyoming has resources and they actively develop them. You want to fund education and help our kids? You have to do the resources.

Watch it:

Bishop’s concern for education funding is somewhat spurious, considering his record of consistently voting against education funding during his five terms in the House. Just last fall, in fact, Bishop voted against a $26 billion state aid bill designed to prevent thousands of teachers from being laid off.

As such, many might view the Utah Republican’s supposed concern for education funding as little more than a stalking horse to open up more western lands and public parks to drilling. Indeed, at the same conference, Bishop told the audience about his belief that federal control of public lands is unconstitutional. He also told ThinkProgress afterward of his desire to mine an area around the Grand Canyon the size of the state of New Jersey.

Drilling is not the answer for education funding woes. Prioritizing education is.

Here are the top 10 giveaways to Big Oil in Perry’s plan:

1. End all efforts at federal regulation of fracking by Big Oil. “Hydraulic fracturing has proven to be extremely safe forhuman health and the environment, and is successfully regulated at the state level.”

2. End all regulation of Big Oil’s CO2 emissions. “Greenhouse gases are naturally occurring gases and carbon dioxide (CO2) (the focus of environmental activists) is exhaled by animals, required tosupport plant life, and represents lessthan 0.1% of the world’s atmosphere. … Repeal EPA’s authority over green-house gases (GHG), and eliminate allcurrent and planned EPA programs torestrict carbon dioxide emissions (in-cluding taxes or cap and tradeschemes).”

3. Allow Big Oil to drill on sensitive lands owned by taxpayers. “We also strongly recommend opening other federal lands with known resources for development, particularly in Alaska, the Atlantic OCS, and our western states. Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) Coastal Plain (1002) alone contains as much as 12 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.”

4. End federal efforts to require development of renewable energy, which competes with Big Oil. “We oppose the adoption of national Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), and believe each state should continue to be able to determine how to best regulate electric generation and distribution.”

5. Cripple the EPA by slashing budget by 60%. “We believe we must dramatically reduce the size, budget, and influence of EPA. Instead of empowering a centralized organization of bureaucrats, we should return more regulatory power to state governments. … Our reconstructed,limited EPA would be dramatically re-duced in size and influence, returning more power of regulation and up to 60%of the current federal budget to state governments.”

6. Establishing a moratorium on all new regulations on Big Oil. “During the reconstruction of the EPA, we must institute a moratorium onnew regulation, to establish a predictable business environment and encourage energy development.”

7. Eliminate tax incentives for renewable energy and create additional subsidies for Big Oil. “American taxpayers should not be forced [to]… shoulder the cost of funding billions of dollars in subsidies and loan guarantees for inefficient and uncompetitive green energy programs.”

8. Kneecap groups for filing suit over environmental violations by Big Oil. “Under our current system, federal law gives radical anti-growth activists powerful tools to delay productive economic development. This makes the energy industry uniquely vulnerable to endless litigation delay. Activist groups frequently file suits over ‘Environmental Impact Statements.’”

9. Fast-tracking drilling permits for Big Oil in the Gulf Coast. “The first step towards energy security and job growth is returning immediately to 2007 levels of permitting in the Gulf of Mexico, responsibly making more of the Gulf available for energy production.”

10. Immediate approval of the top item on Big Oil’s wish-list, the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Perry estimates that all this will create over 1 million new jobs. Not surprisingly, this number comes directly from Big Oil’s lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, and has been thoroughly debunked.

You can read more analysis of Perry’s plan by Dan Weiss HERE.

And you can read the full Perry plan HERE.

Last week, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) asking for a formal investigation into the corporate profits and public financial gain from oil, gas, and hardrock mineral extraction (gold, silver, copper, and others) on public lands. The members requested this investigation due to their suspicions that taxpayers are not reaping proper benefits from extractive activities on public lands. As Grijalva said at a press conference last week:

We also feel that there is a taxpayer responsibility that we have as elected officials. Especially in these fiscal times where we are talking so much about fiscal policy, taxpayers, and revenue for government, etc., that we are getting a fair return on our public lands. That there is indeed a net benefit and a cost benefit for the American taxpayer.

From the information that we get, we hope that this debate continues forward. We’ve asked GAO to give us a financial perspective—how much has the taxpayer lost, how much is this land really worth, and what should be the parameters in the future in order to collect a fair return for the American taxpayer.

Watch it:

The request to GAO is simple. The lawmakers asked GAO analysts to study two questions in particular:

- What was the amount of minerals extracted from federal land and the Outer Continental Shelf and what was the estimated dollar value of these minerals?
- How much did the federal government collect for these minerals, including royalties, rents, and bonuses, and how was this amount determined?

Hardrock mining companies are protected from paying any royalties to the federal government and taxpayers under the 1872 Mining Law, which was enacted during the years of manifest destiny to encourage mineral prospecting in the West.

This 139-year-old law is still in place, and one study estimates that taxpayers will lose $160 million every year without reforms to it. This is of particular importance because many foreign companies are mining uranium, gold, and copper, and, as one advocate put it, “are taking advantage of that loophole and literally taking the United States citizens’ minerals for free.”

Additionally, oil and gas companies have also historically paid less than what the public lands that they drill are worth. A 2007 GAO report found that one offshore drilling royalty relief bill passed in 1995 will “likely cost the government billions, but the final costs have yet to be determined.”

The “objective analysis of the business of mining and mineral leasing on federal lands,” as Udall put it, is anticipated to be completed next summer.

At yesterday’s House Natural Resources Committee hearing on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reality was nowhere to be found except for reality TV star “Big Daddy” from the hit show Ice Road Truckers who was called as a Republican witness. That didn’t stop Republicans from questioning the validity of data other than that from the oil industry that they had in front of them. Here’s the full exchange:

John Fleming (R-LA): This was paid for by you say the evil oil money…what was your point in saying it was paid for by the oil industry? I’m looking around here on the dais and I can’t find any of your data. Where is your data, sir?

Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters: It’s at the Department of Labor, the EIA [Energy Information Administration], the USGS [U.S. Geological Survey], it’s all from government studies.

Fleming: I don’t see it here.

Other House Republicans, led by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK), regurgitated the same talking points used 10, 20, and 30 years ago to push for drilling in our nation’s last great wilderness place.

Take this quote from a 1995 editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The refuge, with its large herds of calving caribou and a range of other natural riches, is a particular target of Republican legislators hoping to tap it for $1.4 billion in deficit-reducing oil-lease revenues.

A review of the facts is necessary when debating drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:

- Based on a recent study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, House Republicans claim that drilling in the Arctic Refuge would raise $150-$300 billion in revenues for federal coffers. In fact, any estimates of revenue generated from drilling in the Arctic Refuge are wildly speculative and hugely inflated because no one really knows how much oil is out there.
- With 10 years between leasing and actual production, the money wouldn’t start flowing in time to do anything about our current problems.
- The Alaska Statehood Act mandates that Alaskans get 90 percent of all revenues from drilling in the Arctic Refuge (the oil industry study based its numbers on a 50/50 federal/state split) so those wild revenue estimates continue to shrink. Factor in inflated tax rates, underestimated production costs, unrealistic oil prices, lease prices that are 25 times the current North Slope average and more – and those numbers become inconsequential, in terms of the $1.5 trillion we’re trying to shave from the national debt.
- That oil industry study also claims that Arctic Refuge drilling would create 60,000 jobs in Alaska alone. Yet 16,468 jobs are currently attributed to the oil industry throughout the state of Alaska, and already 95 percent of Alaska’s North Slope is open to drilling. The numbers don’t add up.
- The oil industry’s job growth projection is equally rosy outside the state of Alaska – an increase of 55,000 to 130,000 jobs from Arctic Refuge drilling by 2030. Yet the top five largest oil companies have cut their work force by 11,200 workers in the past five years – despite the fact that domestic oil production is at its highest level in the past seven years and those five companies are making record profits.

With no significant job or revenue growth, what does Arctic Refuge drilling do for America? It destroys a place that millions of us have fought to protect for the past 50 years while filling the pockets of those fantastically wealthy oil companies. Luckily, there is an alternative. House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Ed Markey (D-MA) called for cutting the $43 billion in taxpayer handouts to oil companies over the next 10 years, ending royalty-free drilling on public lands offshore in the Gulf of Mexico for another $9.5 billion over the next 10 years, and repealing the royalty giveaway to Gulf states for another $1.9 billion. As he said:

All told, over the next 10 years these Democratic ideas would reduce our deficit 20 times as much as opening up the Arctic Refuge to drilling. To put it in perspective, if these Democratic ideas were the height of the Empire State Building, the Republican plan to drill in the Refuge would occupy only the first five floors.