Washington, D.C. – Passage of the energy bill would help the United States achieve the energy efficiencies recommended by the Group of Seven industrial nations following their Oct. 1 meeting here, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Chairman Pete V. Domenici said today. The G-7 nations issued a statement urging increased oil production by oil-producing nations and increased efficiencies by oil consuming nations to reduce oil consumption. Chairman Domenici’s statement: “It is ironic that some in the liberal media criticize our efforts to maximize oil production at existing federal lease sites while global leaders urge expanded production as a necessary step to sustaining economic growth by industrialized nations. “I agree with the G-7 leaders. That’s why my energy bill does everything politically possible to get as much oil as we can from existing oil sites. We extend to existing off-shore Alaska leases the same production incentives given to Gulf of Mexico leases. We renew existing leases in the National Petroleum Reserve. Now is not the time to be shutting down productive oil wells. We give Interior authority to suspend royalties on existing leases in remote areas of the NPR. We streamline the oil leasing process and seek to maximize output from marginal wells around the country. “The G-7 also urged oil-importing nations to implement energy efficiencies that reduce their consumption of oil. The Washington Post noted yesterday “Japan and some countries in Europe have buffered themselves against hikes through forward-looking steps to minimize their reliance on oil. Japan's steel industry, for instance, has abandoned oil altogether, switching entirely to coal-based fuels to heat forges. Japan now also generates 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. Overall, those efforts have reduced the cost of oil imports to 1.2 percent of Japan's gross domestic product, compared with over 4 percent in 1974.” “My energy bill implements precisely those steps and more. We use tax incentives to reinvest in clean nuclear energy, though other industrialized nations like Japan unarguably lead the way in this area. We invest more than $2 billion in clean coal technologies. We build a pipeline to more fully utilize our natural gas resources and we expand 10-fold our investment in wind and solar energies. “Oil-producing nations like Saudi Arabia will reap tens of billions of dollars from this year’s high oil prices while oil importing nations like the United States watch trade deficits climb and economic growth slow. We can blunt these consequences by passing the energy bill.”