[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 11, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H3189-H3193]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          REVERSING PRESIDENT OBAMA'S OFFSHORE MORATORIUM ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Broun of Georgia). Pursuant to House 
Resolution 257 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the 
Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the 
consideration of the bill, H.R. 1231.

                              {time}  1534


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill 
(H.R. 1231) to amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to require 
that each 5-year offshore oil and gas leasing program offer leasing in 
the areas with the most prospective oil and gas resources, to establish 
a domestic oil and natural gas production goal, and for other purposes, 
with Mrs. Miller of Michigan in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIR. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the 
first time.
  The gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Alaska.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Madam Chairman, the Americans suffering from $4 
a gallon gas today, $5 a gallon gas next month must feel like they're 
experiencing a sense of deja vu. It was just three short years ago, in 
2008, when gasoline prices reached a record high of $4.11 per gallon. 
Those high prices cut deep into the pockets of Americans that summer 
and generated enough public outcry to force Congress to act.
  That fall, the Democrat-controlled Congress and the Republican 
President took bipartisan action to lift the offshore drilling ban that 
had been in place for decades. This monumental step opened up all of 
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to new offshore energy production. 
Three years later, most Americans would likely be shocked to learn that 
no energy development has happened in these new areas and that they 
have actually once again been placed off-limits.
  The progress that was made in 2008 by lifting the drilling moratorium 
has been completely reversed by the Obama administration. The President 
says he wants to ``win the future,'' but his policies are taking us 
back to the past.
  Now American families and businesses are once again facing $4 
gasoline, as I said, $5 the first of June; and we're no further ahead 
in expanding American energy production than we were 3 years ago. 
That's outrageous and unacceptable.
  The House has already passed two bills to increase offshore energy 
production, create jobs, and lower prices. Today, we will vote on a 
third offshore drilling bill, H.R. 1231, in order to reverse the 
moratorium that President Obama has single-handedly placed on new 
offshore drilling.
  This bill requires the administration to move forward with offshore 
lease sales in areas containing the most oil and natural gas. For the 
2012-2017 lease plan being written by the Obama administration, this 
would include areas containing at least 2.5 billion barrels of oil or 
7.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Based on the government's own 
estimates of our oil and natural resources, this would open up areas in 
the north and central Atlantic coasts, the southern California coast, 
and offshore Alaska.
  Even in the face of rising gasoline prices, the President wants to 
drill nowhere new. This bill says let's move forward with leasing and 
drilling in those areas where we know America has real and significant 
resources. In contrast to the President's drill nowhere new plan, this 
is a drill smart plan.
  This bill requires the Secretary to set specific production goals for 
5-year plans. For 2012-2017 it sets a goal of 3 million barrels of oil 
per day and 10 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day by the year 
2027. By comparison to today's levels, this increase of oil equates

[[Page H3190]]

to a tripling of current American offshore production and would reduce 
foreign imports by nearly one-third.
  This bill will not only significantly increase American energy 
production; it would also create good-paying American jobs. Economist 
Dr. Joseph Mason testified that this bill would create 250,000 jobs 
short term and 1.2 million jobs long term.
  This bill will also generate hundreds of millions in new revenue to 
help strengthen our economy and pay down the national debt. According 
to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill will generate $800 
million in revenue over the next 10 years.
  Recent polls show that the majority of Americans--Republicans, 
Democrats, and independents--all support increased offshore drilling. 
They recognize that our national economic security should not be left 
in the hands of Iranian-led OPEC and that expanding American energy 
production will translate into more jobs, more revenue and lower 
gasoline prices.
  Madam Chairman, the Obama administration is trying to lead us into a 
supposedly new era of time without understanding the importance of 
fossil fuels. It is the largest tax on every family. Approximately 
$1,100, Mr. and Mrs. America, you're paying to the Obama administration 
in taxes because of the high cost of oil, high cost of gas to you.
  It's time America steps up and becomes independent from those that 
have been selling this oil for the past 25 years. It's not just this 
President. This has been going on for a while. But next year we're 
going to send $400 billion overseas to the countries that do not like 
us, that do not create one American job, not anything for America--send 
the money over and buy foreign oil.

                              {time}  1540

  I watched the President say this down in Brazil, We want to be your 
partner. You are developing new oil fields, and we want to buy your 
gasoline. So Mr. And Mrs. America, keep in mind, we have the fossil 
fuels, we have the opportunity, and it's time that we open the offshore 
for development of the good State of America.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Ladies and gentlemen, we are at a historic juncture in our country's 
history, as northern Africa and the Middle East explode. And what we 
have, of course, is a real instability in the oil marketplace, and we 
have to do something that fundamentally responds to that challenge.
  In the first 3 months of this year, Exxon-Mobil made $10 billion off 
of the American consumer--in January, February, and March of this year. 
Shell reported that they had made $8 billion. BP reported that they had 
made $7 billion. So what are these companies asking for? These 
companies are now asking that we open up the beaches of California to 
drill for oil, we open up the beaches of Florida to drill for oil, we 
open up the beaches of New Jersey and New England to drill for oil.
  I will tell you right now, in most of those places--actually, in all 
of those places, the only oil the people who live near those beaches 
want is the suntan oil that they use when they're out on those beaches. 
They don't want oil coming in the way it did in the Gulf of Mexico. And 
why are they concerned? They're concerned because the oil companies, 
exercising their power--and right now, those oil companies are centered 
down in the Gulf of Mexico--those companies have exercised their power 
to block any new safety reforms from being put in place that would 
protect against another catastrophic spill.
  So the temerity of these oil companies is that they are coming out 
here today, and they're saying: No safety; no lessons learned from what 
happened in the Gulf of Mexico, devastating the beaches of the gulf. 
Now we want permission to drill off of the California coast, the 
Florida coast, the New England coast, the New Jersey coast without any 
new safety. And by the way, although we've made a fortune just in the 
last 3 months, with the skyrocketing prices that people who travel here 
to Washington--they've been coming down all of the highways towards our 
Capitol, watching the price of gasoline go up even as they are 
traveling, heading up to $4 and, in some places, $5 a gallon--they're 
saying that the Congress shouldn't take away their tax breaks. Don't 
even touch those tax breaks, the oil companies are saying. Cut Medicare 
for grandma. Exxon-Mobil and Shell, they are advocating cutting 
Medicare for grandma, to take that money and to give it to the oil 
companies as tax breaks to put on top--kind of like a cherry on top of 
the sundae--to put it on top of all of these profits that they are 
making off of the American consumer. That's what they're trying to do, 
and that's what this debate is all about.
  So what we're saying as Democrats is, let's implement the safety 
recommendations to make sure that the drilling doesn't endanger the 
beaches of the east coast and the west coast the way they did in the 
Gulf of Mexico. The oil companies are coming in here, with the 
Republicans as their advocates, saying, Don't worry about it. Yes, 
we're going to block any safety measures from being put on the books, 
but that's our prerogative because we have the votes here. The 
Republicans are going to make sure that the votes are there to block 
any safety--we want to keep the tax breaks; the Republicans say fine. 
We don't want any new safety regulations; the Republicans say fine.
  By the way, we don't even like the idea of this competition from wind 
and solar, so we would like to ask you, as the Republican majority, to 
cut the solar and wind budget by 70 percent--and they did it, believe 
it or not. It's 2011. We're watching the Middle East explode, and the 
Republicans cut wind and solar in the United States by 70 percent. Keep 
the tax breaks for the biggest oil companies, and ask grandma to take a 
lower Medicare benefit to pay for it all for the oil companies. This is 
2011, ladies and gentlemen. This is a message. It is so dangerous for 
our country.
  We have to oppose this bill because, first of all, they already have 
60 million acres of American land--the size of Minnesota they already 
have to drill on, that they haven't drilled on yet, which has about 11 
billion barrels of oil underneath it and an equivalent amount of 
natural gas. So vote ``no'' on this Republican bill. It's just a 
giveaway to Exxon-Mobil and Shell, and they're the last people in the 
world right now that need a handout.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia 
(Mr. Broun).
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Chairman, as record high gas prices are 
causing American families to suffer in their daily routines, like 
buying groceries at the grocery store and driving to work each morning, 
it is inexcusable that this liberal administration continues to turn 
its back on the problem. Just last month, Americans spent around $368 
on average just to fill their tanks, about the same amount a family 
would spend on groceries for 2 weeks. Yet the Democrats' only solution 
to the pain at the pump is to raise taxes on domestic oil producers, 
and they've already admitted that it will not lower gas prices.
  I fully support H.R. 1231, a real proposal which would lift the 
President's ban on offshore drilling and get the ball rolling on 
domestic energy production. I urge my Democrat colleagues to pass this 
bill because both our cars and our economy should be running on 
American resources, not on their empty promises. Pass this bill to 
create American jobs and a strong American economy.
  Mr. MARKEY. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pascrell).
  Mr. PASCRELL. Madam Chair, I rise today in strong opposition to the 
rule and the underlying bill. Look, we have preserved millions of acres 
in Alaska. We want to preserve the shores of New Jersey. Now if you 
don't understand that, there are even more major problems.
  Since last night, my friends on the other side have voted down no 
fewer than four amendments dealing with the safety of drilling. You 
could be for drilling. But I think it's common sense that we preserve 
and not take the chances that large companies are taking, and we saw 
what happened in the South. The Gulf of Mexico is still recovering from 
billions of dollars in economic and environmental damages caused by the 
Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
  It's almost unbelievable. When you watch it, one blamed the other, 
and

[[Page H3191]]

those folks still don't have relief. It's almost unbelievable; in the 
wake of such a tragedy, this bill is before us today. There are 60 
million acres of public land already under lease to drill, and I 
wouldn't give 1 more acre up until those companies drill on the land 
that they already have. You blame everything on the President. You're 
going to blame the plague on the President. That dog doesn't hunt 
anymore. Forget about it.
  If we can't come together on issues like this, the one that the 
American people are disgusted with when they do pay their gasoline 
bill--you want to expand offshore drilling to vast new areas of our 
oceans, including the Atlantic coast, without taking any of the 
commonsense steps that the President's bipartisan oil spill commission 
recommended.

                              {time}  1550

  An oil spill on the Atlantic coast, which the Federal Government 
would be required to lease under this bill, would devastate the 
economy.
  The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. HOLT. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.
  Mr. PASCRELL. Tourism at the Jersey Shore supports jobs for over 
500,000 people, generates over $50 billion in economic activity every 
year. These people depend on the responsible stewardship of our waters 
and coasts for their livelihoods.
  Let's set the record straight. This legislation does nothing to 
address the current spike in gas prices. What we need to do is:
  Stop wildly fluctuating oil prices. And that's up to the Commodity 
Futures Trading Commission, which is writing the regulations as we 
speak right now.
  Cap America's oil reserves. For a short period of time, we can afford 
to do that.
  Crack down on gas gouging, which is happening and the U.S. Attorney 
General is correct in investigating this.
  And, finally, evolve to a clean energy economy. It's not just that we 
need to depend less on foreign oil, we need to depend less on domestic 
oil. We know it's going to take time. We need to be reasonable about 
this and be safe about it as well.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. I appreciate the gentleman's comments on why he 
represents the area he represents. But he did vote against ANWR, has 
supported no production, very, very important to me.
  I can say one thing. The Obama administration, I got a big kick out 
of someone saying we can blame the President. I can remember Bush was 
in office for 8 years and we blamed him for the earthquakes and the 
tsunami and I don't know what else.
  What bothers me the most is that this country moves its economy with 
fossil fuels. Our trucks, our ships, our planes, our automobiles and 
our trains are all using fossil fuels and must do so. That's what moves 
our commerce. That's also what will raise the price for everybody and 
every household in this Nation. It is being taxed by these high costs 
of fossil fuel.
  We can stabilize that cost if we're allowed to produce off our shores 
and on our shores. But to not say we're going to produce any more oil--
which is exactly what this administration is saying, because they want 
to transfer into a new era of time. We want to transfigure the country 
into a new era of time. We don't care about jobs. We don't care what 
happens to the economy. We're going to do it because we're right. I'm 
saying you're dead wrong.
  Can we use the fossil fuel in America to use it as a bridge to new 
fuels? Yes. But you cannot stop using fossil fuels. We're buying $400 
billion a year overseas from foreign countries, bleeding this country 
every day. It's time we get on with the job.
  At this time, Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock).
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Chairman, this truly is a tale of two parties.
  The Democrats have been very clear in their approach on this issue. 
Heap additional taxes on producers, which will be immediately passed on 
to consumers, and continue to delay and obstruct the development of 
America's vast petroleum resources. Higher prices at the pump, 
increasing dependence on foreign oil, and thousands more families 
thrown out of work, that is the Democratic plan.
  The Republicans have also been very clear on our approach. Open 
America's vast petroleum resources, triple the current production by 
2027, cut foreign imports by one-third. Even more importantly, this 
bill means hundreds of thousands of new jobs and hundreds of billions 
of dollars of direct revenues into the national and State treasuries, 
not through higher prices for consumers but through growing prosperity 
for our country.
  That's the choice between the two parties, plain and simple, and it's 
the choice I believe the American people are ready and eager to make.
  Mr. HOLT. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. 
Capps), who knows this subject very well.
  Mrs. CAPPS. Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1231, 
the last and most egregious bill in the Republicans' oil addiction 
agenda.
  It's unconscionable that we're voting today to expand offshore 
drilling even before stronger safeguards can be put in place, to 
mandate new leasing off the economically important coastlines of 
southern California, Alaska, and the entire eastern seaboard, each time 
these waters are open to drilling.
  And it's cynical to claim that more drilling will relieve high gas 
prices. More drilling only means more profits for the oil industry, not 
lower costs at the pump.
  We all know oil companies hardly need a boost right now. They're 
receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies and reaping record 
profits.
  On top of that, the oil industry is already drilling more than ever 
before. For example, offshore production has increased by more than a 
third in the last 2 years, and the gulf produced 1.6 million barrels of 
oil per day last year, an all-time record. Yet, despite all that 
drilling, gas prices continue to soar, and the reason is clear: More 
drilling here in the U.S. has little effect on the global oil market.
  Nearly three-quarters of the world's proven oil resources are owned 
by OPEC nations. And even if we expanded offshore drilling 
significantly, we wouldn't see an impact on gas prices until 2030; and 
even then, it would be a matter of just 5 cents a gallon. This is 
according to the Energy Information Administration.
  If, instead, we further raised fuel efficiency standards, we could 
lower driver bills at the pump. Building cars that go further on a 
gallon of gas is the best way to protect American families. It also 
creates jobs. It slashes our oil imports, and it reduces dangerous air 
pollution. This is the kind of solution we need right now.
  We shouldn't be promoting reckless drilling that will fail to lower 
gas prices and endanger our coastlines. Vote ``no'' on H.R. 1231.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Lungren).
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Madam Chair, I rise in support 
of the bill under consideration.
  I heard one of my friends on the other side of the aisle suggest that 
the only thing people in California or other places that live near 
beaches, the only oil they're concerned about is suntan oil. I have to 
take exception to that.
  Even though I represent an inland district now, I was born a block 
from the beach. I was a resident of a beachside community for 42 years. 
I grew up with kids whose parents worked in refineries, worked on oil 
rigs, were wildcatters, worked in offshore drilling in the Port of Long 
Beach, worked offshore, Huntington Beach.
  I just have to tell you, I find it insulting to suggest that those 
people are not concerned about the good of the United States. We're 
talking about the loss of middle class jobs in America. There's nothing 
more middle class than those men and women who have worked for years in 
the oil industry.
  Where do you think it comes from, from the sky? You've got to drill 
for it. You've got to produce it. You've got to refine it. And 
everything I hear on the other side of the aisle is we're not going to 
allow you to drill; we're not going to allow you to produce; we're not 
going to allow you to refine because somehow it's just going to show 
up.

[[Page H3192]]

  We watched the President of the United States, supported by the 
Members on the other side of the aisle, journey to Brazil and laud 
their efforts to use American technology to explore and drill and 
maximize their recovery of their resources. He lauded them for it. He 
thanked them for it. He applauded them for it. Then he turned around 
and said, And we want to be your biggest customer. In other words, he 
promised that we would pay a foreign entity for a resource that we 
need.
  I'm absolutely convinced that my friends on the other side of the 
aisle will oppose any notion that we can have any offshore drilling 
unless we make Brazil the 51st State. That's how absurd it is.
  The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Madam Chair, as someone who grew 
up with family members, with people whose families worked in this 
industry and did not consider it a dirty industry, considered it an 
all-American industry, how far have we come that now we denigrate it 
from top to bottom?
  We also hear from the other side, well, it won't have any impact 
because it takes 5 to 10 years to develop it. I heard that on this 
floor 32 years ago. I heard that on this floor 27 years ago. I heard 
that on this floor 22 years ago. I heard that on this floor 5 years 
ago, and it is correct. My friends on the other side are correct. It 
will make no difference so long as they make sure we don't drill now, 
we don't drill 35 years from now, we don't drill 10 years from now.
  We are harming ourselves. It's time to stop the harm.

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. HOLT. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Chair, here we go again, considering legislation that is 
written as if the largest oil spill in U.S. waters did not occur. This 
is the third of the amnesia acts that we have seen offered in the last 
week.
  I say to my friend from California, no one is saying that we oppose 
this bill because we shouldn't drill, ever. But let's be smart. H.R. 
1231 would force the Interior Department to open up vast swaths of the 
American coastline to drilling, including California and all of the Mid 
and North Atlantic. It is incomprehensible that the majority would take 
such a reckless radical step before we even know the full cost of the 
gulf spill. Let's be smart.
  This bill in particular represents something worse than the pre-spill 
mentality; it represents an alternative reality: facts evidently don't 
matter. Never mind the fact that, 1 year ago, 11 workers died in a 
Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. Never mind that about 60 died over 
the last decade. Never mind the fact that, prior to the gulf spill, 
offshore drilling in U.S. waters was four times more deadly than 
drilling of the same operations, the same kinds of operations by the 
same companies elsewhere in the world, even in the inhospitable 
territory of the North Sea.
  Never mind the fact that the Gulf of Mexico workforce suffered 1,550 
injuries, 948 fires over the last decade. Never mind that Congress has 
not enacted a single piece of legislation to improve the safety of 
offshore drilling. Never mind the fact that there were 79 reported 
losses of well control in the gulf between 1996 and 2009.
  Never mind the fact that a single blowout caused more than 4 billion 
barrels of oil to spew from the Macondo well for 87 days, coating 1,000 
miles of coastline, closing over 88 square miles of some of the 
Nation's most productive fisheries.
  Never mind the fact that the independent Energy Information 
Administration has concluded that unlimited access to U.S. offshore 
resources would have zero effect on gas prices over the next decade and 
might have an effect of pennies after that.
  Never mind that U.S. oil production will remain above the 2009 pre-
gulf spill levels through 2035, as calculated by the Department of the 
Interior, without the proposed acceleration in leasing and drilling. 
Never mind that the United States cannot drill our way to lower pump 
prices when we possess about 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. 
About 2 percent of the oils reserves.
  We are not dominant in this field. Oh, yes, we have some of the best 
companies and certainly the most profitable, but we consume 25 percent 
of the world's oil while we have about 2 percent of the world's oil 
reserves. Prices are determined by OPEC, with fluctuations above that 
basic price determined by speculation on the commodities market.
  Never mind the fact that 79 percent of all of the potential oil 
reserves on the entire Continental Shelf are already available under 
the current leasing; 79 percent, I repeat to my friends, are already 
available under the existing leasing program. Never mind that 60 
million acres are already under lease but not producing oil. That is 
onshore and offshore. And offshore, the existing leases contain more 
than 11 billion, billion with a B, barrels of oil.
  Never mind the fact that the entire Atlantic contains less than 5 
percent of the potential U.S. offshore oil reserves and less than 9 
percent of the natural gas reserves. Never mind the fact that the 
entire Pacific contains only about 12 percent of the potential U.S. 
offshore oil reserves and less than 5 percent of the potential natural 
gas reserves.
  Never mind the fact that, in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil companies 
already hold the drilling rights to 34 million acres, but are producing 
oil on only 6 million acres. Never mind the fact that the 28 million 
nonproducing acres in the gulf have more natural gas and about as much 
oil as you would ever get total from drilling up and down the east and 
west coasts.
  Never mind, my friends, the fact that, from 2005 to 2009, Big Oil 
used less than 10 percent of their profits to explore for oil while 
they used between 60 and 90 percent of their profits to pay dividends 
and buy back stock. These are behaving like financial industries, not 
energy industries.
  Never mind the fact that the majority refuses to end the $4 billion, 
actually more like $8 billion, in tax breaks for oil companies at the 
very time that the top five oil companies took home over $32 billion in 
profits in just the last 3 months.
  Never mind the fact that when the top four oil companies took home 
$485 billion in profits during the 5 years from 2005 to 2009, they 
still reduced their combined American workforce by 10,200 employees. 
And my friends here are talking about jobs, when these companies make 
profits of nearly $500 billion, they lay off more than 10,000 workers? 
What kind of reality are they living in?
  Never mind the fact that the Gulf of Mexico tourism and fishing 
industries employ five times as many people as the oil industry. Five 
times as many. Never mind the fact that the annual value of coastal 
tourism and fishing in the U.S. exceeds that of oil and gas extraction 
by tens of billions of dollars.
  Never mind the fact that this bill before us is one more unjustified 
giveaway to Big Oil. Never mind all of those facts. Ignore the spill. 
Drill, baby, drill.
  No, thank you. I prefer to live in the real world where facts matter, 
and where this bill could have devastating real-world consequences. I 
urge my colleagues, Remember the spill. Vote down this bill.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Chairman, may I say there were no facts 
presented in that last presentation. There were opinions; there were no 
facts. When everybody says never mind the facts, there were no facts 
there. That's all opinion.
  One thing that bothers me most, they talk about what the oil 
companies made. They made it overseas; they made it overseas selling us 
oil. These are international companies. International companies. That 
is something that really disturbs me, when you understand we're burning 
oil produced overseas, yes, by the same companies that work in the 
United States.
  And, yes, they did lay off 10,000 people, because of this moratorium 
this President laid in place in Louisiana in the gulf. There's where 
the jobs are lost.
  The biggest economic impact of the Horizon spill was the loss of 
employment of the people in Louisiana, Alabama, and the Gulf of Texas, 
the loss of jobs, loss of oil to this country.

[[Page H3193]]

  That's the thing that concerns me, because there are no facts about 
the profits made and the people laid off, other than the fact it was 
done by the Obama administration.
  At this time, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Quayle).
  Mr. QUAYLE. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise today because I support this bill.
  And I do have a fact. The fact of the matter is that we have a gas 
crisis going on right now, and the fact of the matter is, when I go 
home and I fill up my tank, I cringe at how expensive it is. Our 
friends on the other side of the aisle, their so-called solution is to 
increase our taxes and to demagogue oil corporations, because that's 
the classic bogeyman approach that they go to.
  But that is not a solution to get our people back to work, to get our 
economy moving again, because right now we are having some anemic 
growth in our economy. And if we start to increase taxes and have an 
energy increase in costs that is happening at the pump, that is going 
to have a negative effect on economic growth.
  Instead of actually having solutions where we can get the people in 
the gulf back to work, where we can get our economy moving again, where 
we can actually tap the energy sources that we have in the United 
States, we have an administration that only pursues moratoriums on gulf 
drilling, moratoriums on actually having energy supplies.
  The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.
  Mr. QUAYLE. I thank the gentleman.
  If we actually started to look and invest in those sorts of thing and 
get our energy independence going, we could have charts down on this 
floor that show job growth.
  According to CBO, if we pass today's legislation, we will generate 
$800 million in revenue over 10 years. Combined with the energy 
initiatives that the House passed last week, these three votes will 
create an estimated 250,000 jobs in the short term and 1.2 million jobs 
over the long term.
  So I urge my colleagues to support this bill and get our economy and 
our American people back to work.

                              {time}  1610

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now 
rise.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Fleischmann) having assumed the chair, Mr. Campbell, Acting Chair of 
the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported 
that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 
1231) to amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to require that 
each 5-year offshore oil and gas leasing program offer leasing in the 
areas with the most prospective oil and gas resources, to establish a 
domestic oil and natural gas production goal, and for other purposes, 
had come to no resolution thereon.

                          ____________________