WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, appeared on CNBC’s Kudlow Report today to speak about new estimates of U.S. oil resources. While President Obama continues to claim the United States has only 2 percent of the world’s resources (campaign rhetoric that earned the president two Pinocchios from the Washington Post Fact Checker), new data shows the country really has 26 percent of the world’s recoverable oil.

“The president is fond of saying that we only have 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves so we might as well give up. That statistic is purposefully misleading and doesn’t count any of the places where we haven’t already drilled,” Murkowski said. “The president’s ‘scarcity narrative’ is also directly contrary to the latest USGS and EIA analyses, which show we actually have 26 percent of the world’s oil resources.”   

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The U.S. Geological Survey released an analysis on Wednesday that showed the world outside of the U.S. holds 565 billion barrels of undiscovered conventional oil. While that study did not address U.S. resources, earlier analysis by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has pegged U.S. supply at 198 billion barrels, which equals 26 percent of the world’s total supply.

“We can choose to produce these resources – a move that will create jobs, generate revenues, insulate us from global price shocks and reduce our massive federal debt – or we can continue to leave the oil in the ground, and let countries that our not our friends continue to profit from selling us the energy we need,” Murkowski said.

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 For further information, please contact Robert Dillon at 202.224.6977 or Robert_Dillon@energy.senate.gov or Megan Hermann at 202.224.7875 or Megan_Hermann@energy.senate.gov.

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