[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 125 (Friday, September 29, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10604-S10605]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ROYALTY RELIEF BILL

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about an 
issue that, of course, many of us have been involved in now for years, 
literally, trying to provide a revenue stream for the Gulf of Mexico--
not just Louisiana but Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. For 40 years or 
longer, they have contributed more oil and gas to this Nation than 
Saudi Arabia and Venezuela combined. In the minds of many along the 
gulf coast, particularly post-Katrina and Rita, two of the largest 
hurricanes to hit the North American continent, people along the gulf 
coast are feeling, on this issue, that perhaps the gulf coast has been 
forgotten.
  I want to say to my colleagues here, Republicans and Democrats, the 
people of the gulf coast are grateful, extremely grateful for all the 
support given this year for hurricane relief--not one, not two, not 
three, but four supplementals.
  Mr. President, you yourself have been down there personally, walking 
the neighborhoods that were destroyed and being a strong advocate for 
us on the Appropriations Committee. So we are very grateful.
  But there are two extremely important bills and issues that we must 
have to complete this package of initial recovery and lay a foundation 
so that the gulf coast can build securely. We know we can rebuild, but 
the question, from Pascagoula to Beaumont is, Can we rebuild safely?
  We have counties in east Texas and parishes in west Louisiana, 
western Louisiana and southeastern Louisiana, and counties in 
Mississippi, that have literally been 100 percent destroyed. I mean, in 
Saint Bernard Parish there was not a house left standing out of 75,000 
people.
  It is so tragic because this particular parish has flooded like this 
not once but twice. Saint Bernard Parish has flooded, not once but 
twice. It flooded in 1965, when Hurricane Betsy poured about 10 feet to 
12 feet of water, sort of in the same way--a storm surge, aided and 
abetted by this channel that the Corps of Engineers dredged to help the 
port and help navigation on the Mississippi River, which helps the 
whole country. But it really didn't help the people of Saint Bernard 
because they lost their homes. President Johnson came down and pledged, 
``Never again.''
  Here we are, 35 or 40 years later, and they have lost everything 
again. Some of these families who built back from Betsy, they are 70, 
80 years old, to have it washed out again. It is just too much for this 
Senator to bear. It is too much for our delegation to bear.
  There are two major pieces of legislation that the Louisiana 
delegation cannot go home without this Congress, and that is the WRDA 
bill, because it is the water resources bill of the United States of 
America. Since we have more water than almost anybody, this is a huge 
bill to us.
  We are not managing our water well. It has flooded our homes.
  We have to pass this WRDA bill to help us build our levies, 
navigation channels, locks, and dams to protect our people--not because 
we are a charity case but because we contribute so much wealth to the 
Nation. The Nation can't do without it. You wouldn't want to try. If 
you did, and our pipelines closed and our refineries closed, and south 
Louisiana, south Texas, and the southern part of Mississippi and 
Alabama closed, you would just as soon turn the lights out in this 
Chamber. There would be no economy in the United States of America.
  That is a bold statement. You say: Senator that is not true. We could 
do without you.
  If I showed you the charts, which I am not going to bore you with, 
you could not get anywhere near the oil and gas we need to fuel the 
economy in this country without it.
  We can't go home without the WRDA bill, and we can't go home without 
the offshore oil and gas revenue.
  As much money as we get in WRDA, and as many projects as we get in 
WRDA, we can't wait every 10 years to authorize our project. We need an 
independent stream of revenue to secure our wetlands, to restore them. 
We have lost more wetlands than the State of Delaware. We lose a 
football field every 30 minutes. We lost the size of the District of 
Columbia in the last storm. I don't know how much more we can lose. If 
an enemy came to our shores to take our land away the way we are 
letting it drift into the gulf, we would have declared war.
  Our delegation put in a bill for OCS revenue sharing. We said we have 
a deal for the country. We will open even more in the gulf. Everyplace 
else is shut down. Nobody wants to drill, so let us even drill more. We 
will open up 9 million acres, and we will share the revenues with 
Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The country gets enough 
natural gas to fuel 1,000 chemical plants for 40 years. That is a lot 
of gas. The Southern States would share in a very fair and reasonable 
way these revenues. We think that would be a good thing for America.
  This is the Jack well that Chevron just found. It is one well, 28,000 
feet deep, and it has doubled the reserves in the United States of 
America.
  When I hear some critics of the Senate approach saying to me--to the 
Senators from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas--that our bill 
doesn't do anything, it is just a wonder of what it might do if we 
could maybe find five more Jack wells here or 10 more. Who knows. There 
is a lot of land.
  The great beauty of our arrangement is we protected the coast of 
Florida, as the Florida Senators and the Governor of Florida, Governor 
Jebb Bush, have asked us to, and we still found enough territory to 
open.
  We are leaving here without this bill that makes a tremendous amount 
of

[[Page S10605]]

sense because we just couldn't finish negotiations with the House.
  But I am very hopeful that when we return in the lame duck that it is 
a lame duck and not a dead duck because I could get a lame duck 
hobbling out of here, and I can't take a dead duck home. We need to 
take something home that is alive and flapping to give these people 
homes, to restore these wetlands, and for heavens' sake, send some oil 
and gas to the industries in America that are really on the edge right 
now of whether to expand these refineries or not because China looks 
more promising every day.
  If we don't give them hope, they are going to leave and jobs are 
going to be lost.
  I see my good friend from Idaho who knows this issue well. He might 
want to take one of my minutes and add a thought about this because he 
has been a good partner on this issue. I would appreciate his words on 
this chart or anything he wants to talk about.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding. I will be 
very brief.
  This is very important for all of us to listen to. Just because gas 
prices are falling at this moment, we should not walk away from an 
opportunity to continue to build reserves and known reserves in the 
gulf and other areas, for the U.S. Geological Survey says it is 
phenomenally plentiful. The well Senator Landrieu just talked about at 
the 28,000-foot level has contributed mightily to an unbelievable drop 
in gas prices over the last month and a half, coupled with the lack of 
storms. Yes, other things are going on. But the reality is that the 
American producer now knows less of their potential is not at risk 
because it is under the control of the United States. It has taken that 
$20 risk figure off the top of a barrel of oil, dropping it into the 
low sixties range or high fifties range. That is what is reducing the 
price at the pump.
  I thank the Senator from Louisiana for her continued effort. I hope 
this Senate and the House will recognize the potential of building U.S. 
domestic reserves that are safe, out of harm's way, out of the way of 
the political, fragile nature of other countries of the world.
  I thank the Senator for her steadfastness. I and others will help her 
with this goal.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 5 minutes remaining.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I want to call my colleagues' attention 
to this chart which I had my office put together today. I thought it 
would be a good chart to leave with because maybe it will put a little 
energy underneath our efforts to get something done when we get back.
  Production from the gulf coast is over 1 billion barrels of oil. The 
total production from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela together is 973 
million barrels of oil.
  I do not know if the Governors of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and 
Alabama want to shut down production. But if they do, there would be a 
real problem for the country. I know people might say that couldn't be 
done because you don't have jurisdiction over pipelines, and the 
Federal Government could operate that. I would hate to see the court 
battles that would ensue. We actually have one court case pending which 
was filed by the State of Louisiana alleging that the appropriate 
environmental standards have not been attended to. And the judge will 
rule on that in November.
  No Governor other than Governor Blanco has taken that step, and no 
Governor has suggested it. I am not giving testimony that I have heard 
them even privately say it. But I can promise you that the people in 
the Gulf of Mexico are getting tired. Everywhere I go, people in Texas, 
Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana say to me: Senator, why are we the 
only ones producing? And why when you go to Washington and ask them to 
just share these revenues with us they say no? Don't they know that we 
don't have any houses to live in? Don't they know our churches have 
been ruined? Don't they know our children don't have schools? What is 
wrong with Congress?
  I am having a hard time explaining that.
  For people who say the Senate bill doesn't do anything, I think 1 
billion barrels of oil--almost equivalent to 60 percent of what OPEC 
contributes on a yearly basis--is a lot of oil.
  Considering things aren't going real well in Venezuela these days, we 
might want to get this bill passed and help our industry and help our 
people.
  In the last 4 minutes, I want to say in the spirit of cooperation 
that I filed a bill today on the issue of royalty recovery. This is an 
issue with the House of Representatives. It is an issue with us. It is 
an issue with the other House, and it is an issue with us. I thought 
maybe this would help everybody to see.
  We can talk about it when we come back, of course.
  These are the wells that were issued in 1998 and 1999 that did not 
have thresholds. There were over 1,000 of them. I am sorry I can't 
identify the 15 that are producing, but out of these there are only 15 
that are producing. These are the ones which are producing and 
royalties are being generated because there was a mixup in the 
contract. When we get back we should resolve this issue. That is what 
my bill says, and it suggests how to do it.
  Some of this money could go to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and 
Alabama in the earlier years. Some could go to the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund, and a lot of it could go to deficit reduction. We 
could reduce the debt on people and get a little head start on our 
coastal restoration, as well as do something for the Nation on land and 
water.
  We could debate how the revenue should be shared, but I laid a bill 
down today to give us maybe a starting point for people who discuss how 
we might do that.
  I will conclude with this: The Louisiana delegation cannot go home 
for Christmas without the WRDA bill and without the OCS bill. We are 
going to be here a long time until those bills are passed. We want to 
work with people, we want to be cooperative, and I filed a bill to 
solve this problem and meet the House halfway on this issue.
  Then let's do something when we get back and work hard to get 
something out to the American people that could make at least the 
industry have a happy Christmas. Individual consumers might not feel 
the price of natural gas directly. But our industries and big and small 
businesses certainly do, and our farmers most certainly do. It would be 
a good Christmas present to give them.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The next 15 minutes is allocated to the 
Republican Senators.
  Who yields time?.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I yield back the Republican time.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized 
for 15 minutes.

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