Monday November 21, 2005 
Monday November 21, 2005
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations November 16, 2005
High Cost of Crude: The New Currency of Foreign Policy
Testimony of R. James Woolsey
It's a real pleasure to appear before this Committee today on this issue. I am appearing solely on my own behalf and represent no organization. By way of identification I served as Director of Central Intelligence, 1993-95, one of the four Presidential appointments I have held in two Republican and two Democratic administrations ...
Just over four years ago, on the eve of 9/11, the need to reduce radically our reliance on oil was not clear to many and in any case the path of doing so seemed a long and difficult one. Today both assumptions are being undermined by the risks of the post-9/11 world, by oil prices, and by technological progress in fuel efficiency and alternative fuels.
... it is important that existing technology should be used ... to this end government policies in the United States and other oil-importing countries should: (1) encourage a shift to substantially more fuel-efficient vehicles within the existing transportation infrastructure, including promoting both battery development and a market for existing battery types for plugin hybrid vehicles; and (2) encourage biofuels and other alternative and renewable fuels that can be produced from inexpensive and widely-available feedstocks ...
STATEMENT OF JAMES SCHLESINGER
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
16 NOVEMBER 2005
I thank the Committee for this opportunity to discuss the quest for energy security, the implications of our heavy dependence on imported oil, the rise in oil prices, and their manifold political an economic repercussions for our nation ...
The underlying problem is that for more than three decades, our production has outrun new discoveries. Most of our giant fields were found forty years ago and more. Even today, the bulk of our production comes from these old - and aging - giant fields. More recent discoveries tend to be small with high decline rates - and are soon exhausted ... the upshot is, quite simply, that, as the years roll by, the entire world will face a prospectively growing problem of energy supply. Moreover, we shall inevitably see a growing dependency on the volatile Middle East. We shall have to learn to live with degrees of insecurity - rather than the elusive security we have long sought ...
... in the longer run, unless we take serious steps to prepare for the day that we can no longer increase production of conventional oil, we are faced with the possibility of a major economic shock - and the political unrest that would ensue. The United States has just over four percent of the world's population and uses roughly twenty-five percent of the world's oil production ... that statistic does underscore our potential vulnerability in an era that we may no longer be able to produce additional conventional crude oil worldwide ...
See also :
1. Congress issues Peak Oil resolution
2. Congressman Bartlett - Peak Oil Speech
3. As Green as a Neocon
(2005-11-21 00:27:39 SGT)
[Energy]
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