[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 8, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H629-H636]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HOUSE ENERGY ACTION TEAM HOUR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Gardner) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GARDNER. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to address 
the House tonight on American energy. Tonight's gathering again brings 
together people from across the country to talk about energy policies, 
rising energy costs, and what it means not only to American families 
but what it means to the American economy.
  Tonight's organization is brought to us by the House Energy Action 
Team. It's a group of people throughout the United States elected to 
Congress who are committed to doing everything that we can to solve our 
Nation's great energy crisis, to make sure that we are addressing the 
price of gas at the pump and to make sure that we are taking advantage 
of all of the great resources that this country has to offer, whether 
they are traditional energy resources, be it natural gas and coal, or 
whether it's renewable energy and the opportunities we have around this 
great country.
  This country faces a significant challenge. We all know the 
situation. Unemployment stands at over 8 percent, just as it has for 
the last 36 months in a row. Along with high unemployment, the American 
people have a new worry now: rising gas prices. The average price for a 
gallon of regular gasoline has risen to $3.45. That's up from 11 cents 
from just 1 month ago, 33 cents from 1 year, and up a full $1.66 since 
President Obama took office.
  We cannot allow these high gas prices and energy prices to continue 
to stymie our economic recovery, and the American people cannot afford 
to continue to pay these unnecessary costs. Just yesterday, in fact, 
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified in the Senate, ``a 
major disruption that sent oil prices up very substantially could stop 
the recovery.'' This is a serious matter we're facing. The Federal 
Reserve chairman has recognized that if gas prices, if energy prices 
escalate, if they spike, that disruption that sent oil prices up very 
substantially could stop the recovery that this Nation so desperately 
needs.
  The chairman went on to note that price spikes feed inflation and act 
as a tax on American consumers. The government can approach this 
problem in a very direct way. We can take steps to increase domestic 
oil production and refining. Unfortunately, fighting high gas prices 
doesn't seem to be a high priority for this administration. Offshore 
leasing has fallen behind previous projections. Other administration 
policies have also curtailed onshore production.
  In 2007, the United States Energy Information Administration 
projected the total 2010 U.S. oil production on Federal lands to be 850 
million barrels. Actual production was 16 percent beneath that. About a 
year ago, the Energy and Commerce Committee had an opportunity to hear 
from Secretary Chu, the Department of Energy secretary. As he was 
testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, I asked a 
very simple question: What is the administration's plan to address the 
rising price of gasoline to help relieve the pain at the pump for 
millions of Americans who are trying to get to work and help their 
families make ends meet? After a lot of hemming and hawing the answer 
was, well, in 10 years from now--and I stopped him, I interrupted, and 
I said, the administration's plan to address high gasoline prices is 
something that we can count on in 10 years from now? As we have seen 
with gas prices that have already risen $1.66 since the President took 
office, their plan is still not in effect.

                              {time}  1830

  Permitting agencies across the Federal Government need to work to

[[Page H630]]

streamline, speed up, and improve the permitting process in order to 
close that production gap on Federal lands.
  Energy exploration can lower energy costs while driving the economic 
recovery. Economic recovery and job creation is the number one priority 
of this Congress, and it is time that the President and our friends in 
the Senate get on board.
  Creating jobs and getting people back to work is not a partisan 
issue. It is past time that we get some wins in the fight against high 
unemployment and economic stagnation. For instance, it's been 3 years 
since the application was filed to build the Keystone XL pipeline, 
which would create a pipeline stretching from the oil sands in Alberta, 
Canada, to the gulf coast, bringing significant oil supplies to the 
United States.
  The Alberta oil sands development would create 6,000 jobs in 
Colorado. It's estimated that it would create 6,000 jobs between 2011 
and 2015. The Keystone pipeline is an important part of that 
development. These are good-paying, solid, reliable jobs--20,000 direct 
jobs, 100,000 indirect jobs--and yet this President has vetoed the 
Keystone XL pipeline. He has said ``no'' to jobs, ``no'' to North 
American energy.
  I'd just like to show a recent survey that was taken a couple of 
weeks ago. The American people support construction of the Keystone 
pipeline. You can see right here the number of Americans from across 
the political spectrum, Republicans and Democrats, a variety of income 
levels, a variety of age levels, all people, the majority of whom 
support the Keystone XL pipeline because they know in this economy we 
can't say ``no'' to jobs. We should be saying ``yes'' to jobs. They 
know that if we say ``no'' to the Keystone pipeline, we're saying 
``yes'' to sending our jobs to China. Mr. Speaker, I don't think the 
American public wants China to win our energy race. I think they want 
to make sure that we are doing everything we can for energy security in 
our own backyards.
  We need pro-growth solutions to create jobs, but there's only so much 
that Congress can do to directly create those jobs. Real job creation 
comes from the private sector, from small businesses and private 
employers. Unfortunately, our government has a regulatory climate that 
makes it incredibly hard for businesses around this country to do what 
they do best: to innovate, to excel, to expand, and to hire.
  The EPA and other Federal agencies have been writing new job-killing 
regulations at record pace. These agencies are actively working against 
the number one priority of the American public, to create jobs--job 
creation.
  At a hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee in April of last 
year, an EPA assistant administrator, Matthew Stanislaus, admitted to 
me that the agency doesn't directly consider job losses when analyzing 
a new rule, when coming forward with an economic analysis. Not only is 
that just unacceptable, it's shameful that an agency would create 
rules, issue rules without taking into account the impact, in an 
economic analysis, that regulation would have on jobs.
  Under this administration, the Obama EPA has proposed unnecessary and 
costly new rules on cement manufacturers, industrial boilers, farmers, 
power plants, energy providers, along with general ozone rules that 
will affect every sector to the economy with no thought as to what the 
consequence will be on the American job creator.
  To be clear, the regulatory killing field is not the only problem. In 
the financial sector, Federal regulators are forcing banks to hoard 
capital, prohibiting community banks from effectively working with 
their borrowers. Businesses are struggling to operate in the face of 
damaging overregulation, and the financial sector is not there to 
support them because of even more damaging regulations. It's no wonder 
that unemployment is still above 8 percent. It's no wonder this is the 
longest stretch of unemployment exceeding 8 percent since the Great 
Depression.

  We have government agencies saying they don't care about jobs, and we 
have an administration and a Senate that aren't doing anything about 
it.
  With that, I'm joined by my colleagues from around the country. I 
would yield to my good friend and colleague, somebody who has 
championed job creation, who has sponsored legislation to create jobs, 
the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).
  Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I want to thank the gentleman from 
Colorado for his leadership on this issue, not only on the Committee on 
Energy and Commerce, but also as a leader on the House Energy Action 
Team, someone that understands that there is no national security 
without energy security. It's been said many times by not only Members 
of Congress but by leaders from all across the administration, this 
administration and past, and so it's something I firmly believe in.
  Let me remind the American people that just recently the President of 
the United States decided that he was going to kill the Keystone XL 
pipeline, a pipeline that would come from our friends to the north in 
Canada, where technology has allowed them to harvest the oil from the 
oil sands in Alberta and bring that crude oil down to refining capacity 
that we have here in this country. That's why the Keystone XL pipeline 
was so crucial. Not only would we be buying oil from a country that 
likes us, our largest and best trading partner, Canada, but we would 
also be bringing oil to the refineries in the Gulf States, the 
refineries in Oklahoma, the refineries in Mississippi, Alabama, 
Louisiana, and Texas that have the capacity due to the policy of this 
administration creating a moratorium on expanded offshore drilling in 
the United States and the moratorium and poor policies that have kept 
us from harvesting American resources to meet American energy needs.
  I believe in American energy security and American energy 
independence and lessening our dependence on foreign sources of oil, 
lessening our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, a lot of times from 
countries that don't like us very much; but let me read you the 
President's own words when he decided that he was going to kill the 
Keystone XL pipeline, when he was going to kill the hundreds of 
thousands of jobs that would have been saved and created--true--not 
only shovel-ready jobs, Mr. Speaker, but jobs that exist today in the 
refineries in the Gulf Coast States; so not only kill those jobs, but 
hurt American energy independence.
  Outside of having American energy independence, why not North 
American energy independence? Why not trade with Canada? But this is 
the President's own words. He said: I'm disappointed that Republicans 
in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my 
administration's commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs 
and reduces our dependence on oil. Not reduces our dependence on 
foreign oil, not reduces our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, but 
listen clearly, the President said: lessen our dependence on oil. That 
is the policy of this administration, to end our dependence on oil and 
promote green energy; to throw your tax dollars at companies like 
Solyndra instead of relying on the free market to pick the winners and 
the losers, allowing what works to work and what doesn't to fall by the 
wayside and allow American ingenuity and American entrepreneurism to 
chase the things that work and throw their investment dollars, personal 
investment dollars, into the technologies that they believe in, the 
free market, the investors believe in.
  Instead of doing that, he took your tax dollars, America. He decided 
that he was going to pick winners for you and he was going to invest 
those dollars in companies like Solyndra and many others. As the weeks 
unfold, we'll realize that your tax dollars were invested in companies 
that you wouldn't have invested in yourselves because you would have 
made smart decisions. America can make smart decisions. That's what 
makes us great. But his own words said that he wants to reduce our 
dependence on oil.
  I go back to Secretary Chu, the Secretary of the Department of 
Energy, in his own words, that he thinks we ought to be paying the same 
for gasoline as those in Europe are paying, $8-, $9-a-gallon gasoline. 
And trust me, we're headed there. Last month was the most expensive 
January ever for retail gasoline as prices averaged out at $3.37 a 
gallon, according to the Oil Price Information Service in New Jersey. 
That's compared with the previous record average for the month of 
January that was $3.09\1/2\ cents a gallon, and that was set last year. 
In 2010, January gasoline prices averaged just $2.71 a gallon.

[[Page H631]]

  It's the policies of this administration and its moratorium on us 
harvesting American resources. We're not talking just about offshore 
oil in the deep waters off the Gulf of Mexico or off the coast of 
Alaska. We're not talking about just ANWR and it being off limits. 
We're talking about the Bakken oil fields. We're talking about oil 
reserves on Federal lands that are currently off-limits from American 
energy development and American energy production.
  But guess what? That same Bakken oil field spills over into North 
Dakota. That Bakken oil field is on State-owned and private-owned 
property. And you know what? North Dakota has a 3 percent or less 
unemployment rate. It's an energy economy that is booming because it's 
on State and Federal land. And they said, hey, come harvest our oil 
resources.

                              {time}  1840

  North Dakota is thriving on an energy economy, and you'll hear from 
the gentleman from Texas momentarily. They will show you in Texas and 
Oklahoma and other States that had energy that you're seeing an energy 
economy thrive.
  But that's not the policies of this administration. The policy of 
this administration is to chase green energy jobs, to chase wind power 
and solar power and promote it in areas that really it shouldn't be 
promoted. So, let me just say one other thing, that President Obama is 
definitely being misleading when he's talking about that 75 percent of 
our offshore resources are open. The real number should be in acres.
  Listen to this: of the 1.76 billion acres on the U.S. Outer 
Continental Shelf, only 38 million acres, or a mere 2.16 percent, is 
actually leased for energy development. North America possesses 1.79 
trillion barrels in recoverable resources, enough oil to fuel every 
passenger car in the United States for 430 years; more than six times 
approved reserves in Saudi Arabia. In the last 30 years we produced 
over 150 percent of our approved resources.
  But let me talk just quickly about jobs, because when the attack from 
the administration is on Big Oil and on the oil industry and natural 
gas industry that's trying to help with American energy independence, 
the attack's just not on big oil companies that are harvesting and 
exploring and producing oil offshore in the western Gulf of Mexico. 
That image may be conjured up as we talk about that.
  But it's the attack on the jobs. If you think about an oil platform 
that's out there drilling for oil, you're thinking about an oil 
production platform that's out there producing the oil after the oil 
well's drilled. And we put a moratorium in place, and we say we're not 
going to do anymore of that; we're going to cancel all the lease sales, 
and keep in mind, it takes years to plan the next lease sale.
  I was on the 5-year planning subcommittee that dealt with that, and I 
know that it's a multi-year process before the first lease sale 
happens; and when that lease sale happens, oil companies have to drag 
those rigs out there. They've got to first figure out where that oil 
might be on that grid square that they just leased, and then they've 
got to bring the drilling platform out there and they've got to drill 
that well, ofttimes going many miles down into the Earth's surface to 
find the oil, and to decide whether it's recoverable, whether there's 
enough resources there for them to plant a platform and start producing 
that oil. That's a multi-year process.
  But set that aside a minute. When we have a moratorium on that 
process, here's what happens. It's not just Big Oil and the oil 
companies that are penalized in that. It's the guys that work on those 
drilling rigs out there in the Gulf of Mexico. It's also the guys that 
take them supplies, their diesel fuel to run their generators, their 
food, to transfer the men back and forth that are doing the work from 
on shore out there to those facilities. It's the companies that 
manufacture the pipe and the casing that support that industry.
  And as Jeff Landry will tell you, Louisiana's economy is hurting. 
It's hurting not because of Big Oil hurting; it's hurting because of 
the little guys back home that don't get to supply that pipe. They 
don't get to thread that pipe and fit that pipe. They don't get to 
weld, and they don't get to service that industry. They don't get the 
opportunity to go out there and work on those rigs. They don't get to 
take that drilling mud out there.
  You know, it takes a lot of effort to go out into the Gulf of Mexico 
and actually start harvesting those natural resources. And it's the 
little guy back home that is now bankrupt because his small company 
that provided the welding necessary for the piping, he doesn't have 
that work now.
  And so the Gulf Coast States, due to the President's moratorium out 
there, not only lost the revenue that they would get from the royalties 
of offshore drilling that other States would benefit from as well. As a 
side note, if we allowed more drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf 
on the eastern coast and off the coast of Alaska. But it's the little 
guy. Louisiana is not getting the revenue.
  And then the guys that are being put out of work that are providing 
the welding and the pipe fitting and the pipe itself and the offshore 
industries, they're not able to work either. And so they're drawing 
unemployment benefits, which further cramps the strained budgets of the 
Gulf Coast States. So they're drawing unemployment benefits. They're 
not paying taxes, so the State revenues in Louisiana, Mississippi, 
Alabama, Texas are strained because they're not receiving those tax 
revenues.
  They're not receiving the corporate revenues from thriving energy-
based companies that are providing jobs and payroll and paying into 
unemployment and providing corporate tax returns. It is a tremendous 
trickle-down effect when we stop harvesting resources. It's a 
tremendous trickle-down effect to those gulf states' economies.

  But I will tell you, in South Carolina, when my constituents have to 
pay more and more of their hard-earned dollars to put fuel in their 
vehicles, whether it's gasoline or diesel fuel in their vehicle to go 
to work, and they've got to think about that first hour that they're 
working just went to pay the gas that it took them to get there; when 
they're digging deeper into that wallet to take out money to buy more 
and more gasoline just to go earn the money that they're going to turn 
around and use to buy the gasoline, it's a vicious cycle.
  We've got the ability, gentleman from Colorado, we've got the ability 
to lower gas prices in this country. And I simply look at natural gas, 
and the prices have come down in natural gas because we found an 
abundance of it in this country. We found new technology that allows us 
to harvest those natural gas resources, as you'll hear from the 
gentleman from New York later, when he talks about the Marcellus gas 
shelf and harvesting natural gas in New York and Pennsylvania.
  But we also talk about Oklahoma and natural gas there. We have an 
abundance of natural gas. We've seen the price go down. Even in an 
adverse regulatory climate, even in an adverse tax climate that we've 
got in this economy under this administration, natural gas prices have 
gone down because there's two factors that affect pricing of any 
commodity: supply and demand.
  Now, world demand is down. World demand is down on a lot of things 
because we have a bad economy. But the number one driver for natural 
gas in this country is supply. The supply is going out the roof. We're 
an exporter of natural gas. America is sitting on the reserves to be 
energy independent and to provide other parts of the world with the 
natural resources that we've been blessed with here in this country.
  So America needs to realize that the policies of this administration 
are keeping this country from harvesting its resources and being truly 
energy independent and providing the good-paying, long-term energy-
sector jobs.
  And if you're looking for a job, America, I recommend you go to one 
of these energy-producing States, whether it's Oklahoma or Texas or 
even to North Dakota, where the unemployment rate is 3 percent or less, 
where you can earn up to $70,000 a year driving a water truck, if 
that's any indication of the good-paying jobs that are out there.
  Energy as a segue to job creation is the answer to get us out of this 
economy.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman for his comments. And he touched 
on a great point, the fact that it's not just energy creation itself, 
energy development itself that creates

[[Page H632]]

the jobs that this country so desperately needs. But it's all the 
indirect benefits. It's the economic cycle of energy production.
  If you have abundant, affordable, cheap energy, you're going to have 
a successful economy because people are able to afford their gas. 
They're able to use their natural gas in manufacturing at an affordable 
price.
  But it's also the businesses that benefit from the production itself. 
Our family, my dad owns a farm equipment dealership. I grew up working 
at the farm implement dealership, selling parts to farmers and 
ranchers. Over the past several years we've seen a boom in natural gas 
development. We see those same people coming in off the rigs into the 
dealership looking for hydraulic hose, looking for filters for their 
pickups, looking for work for their maintainers, the work they're doing 
on their road, the excavators, all of which benefits a rural economy, 
when they go into the car dealership, when they go into the 
restaurants. Talk about economic benefit and the ability to grow our 
economy. Energy production is key.
  Before I yield to the gentleman from Texas, just a couple of quotes 
to hear it directly from President Obama and directly from Energy 
Secretary Steven Chu. These are just two quotes. If you want to know 
where they stand on energy policy, I think these two quotes really 
define where they have been over the past several years.
  President Obama in January of 2008: Under my plan of a cap-and-trade 
system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.
  Energy Secretary Steven Chu, December of 2008, and I quote: Somehow 
we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels 
in Europe.
  Now, that doesn't sound like a recipe for economic success to me. 
That sounds like a recipe for economic disaster.
  With that, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores).

                              {time}  1850

  I would just let the Chamber know and our colleagues know that Mr. 
Flores is someone who has great experience in job creation, putting 
people to work and certainly helping make America more energy secure.
  Mr. FLORES. I thank my friend from Colorado, and you're exactly 
right. I do have extensive experience in the oil and gas business and 
also in the energy service business. So I know firsthand the impact on 
jobs and American energy security that having a robust supply of 
domestic oil and gas can have.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight another missed opportunity by 
the Obama administration to address rising gasoline prices, to promote 
American job creation, and to provide for American energy security. 
While the President may claim his administration supports an all-in 
approach to energy, the facts, however, tell a different story.
  Here are four examples of rhetoric versus reality:
  Example number one, last November, the Department of the Interior 
released a draft 5-year plan that fails to open any new areas to new 
energy production in the Outer Continental Shelf through 2017. This 
proposal will send American jobs overseas, forfeit new revenue to the 
Federal Government, cause higher gasoline prices, and will deny access 
to American energy resources that would reduce our dependence on 
unstable and unfriendly Middle Eastern sources of oil.
  Yesterday, I helped spearhead a joint bipartisan letter with 182 
signatures from this House, which we sent to Interior Secretary Ken 
Salazar, expressing strong support in the House for the consideration 
of new and expanded access offshore for the production of oil and gas.
  The vast offshore areas of the United States serve as a potential 
source of the Nation's energy supply containing significant quanties of 
valuable taxpayer-owned resources in yet-to-be discovered fields. 
Opening up access to new areas of the OCS will bring new jobs, new 
energy, and new revenues to the Federal treasury and all at a time when 
economists expect gas prices to soon skyrocket. Our country desperately 
needs these benefits now, not at some far-off date in the future.
  In addition, new access to American resources will help reduce our 
reliance on unfriendly and unstable Middle Eastern sources of energy. 
For these reasons, it is vital that our country have in place a plan 
that maximizes the opportunity to assess all of these resources that we 
have available so that we can make informed decisions regarding the 
appropriate shape and scope of future domestic offshore activities.
  Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming support of the American 
people for offshore drilling, the Obama administration's 5-year draft 
plan released last November severely limits the outstanding resource 
potential of America's offshore areas, and it neglects our Nation's 
vital energy needs. That is why the Obama administration should listen 
to the strong bipartisan message that the House has sent supporting 
increased access that would allow us to extend offshore energy 
production.
  Example number two, the President buried the Keystone pipeline and 
the thousands of jobs and the energy security that it would have helped 
provide. In light of the fact that his administration approved a 
similar Canadian oil sands pipeline, the Clipper pipeline, in 2009, it 
is obvious to the American people that the Keystone XL pipeline was 
sacrificed solely for political gain.
  Example number three, the Obama administration has directed numerous 
Federal agencies to attempt to regulate and reduce the use of hydraulic 
fracturing. This is the technology that makes our current abundant 
supply of cheap natural gas available to us today. Restricting fracking 
will reduce natural gas, hurt jobs, and hurt American energy security.
  Example number four, this iPad costs about the same amount of money, 
$600, as six barrels of oil. In terms of profit, however, Apple makes 
many more times the profit margin on this one iPad than the American 
oil and gas industry makes on that same six barrels of oil, yet the 
Obama administration wants to raise taxes on oil companies. This 
doesn't make sense. How can we expect American energy producers to 
produce more oil and gas at a lower cost when we raise the taxes on 
them?
  The American people have more common sense than this. The American 
people know that if you raise the taxes on Apple computer, Apple can't 
make more of these available at a cheaper cost. Yet, for some reason, 
the President thinks that we're going to have more domestic energy if 
we go and attack the oil companies with higher taxes.
  Access to affordable energy will always be central to our Nation's 
prosperity. But with new technologies, today's strengthened 
environmental review, and updated safety standards, there's never been 
a better time to develop energy responsibly. But without the option to 
even look, we deny ourselves an incredible opportunity for energy 
security and the promised economic benefits that domestic energy 
production entails to the American people.

  The American people want us to get this right. They want Washington 
to get it right. And they overwhelmingly support an all-of-the-above 
energy approach for American energy, increased offshore drilling, and 
they approve overwhelmingly the Keystone XL pipeline.
  This is important. Just yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben 
Bernanke warned: ``A major disruption that sent foreign oil prices up 
substantially could stop the recovery.''
  Mr. Speaker, House Republicans have a plan to wean our economy away 
from unstable Middle Eastern oil. If we want an America built to last 
like the President referred to in his State of the Union address, then 
we must have access to safe and affordable American energy to build 
that economy, to build that America built to last, and to power that 
America that's built to last.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
support and pass H.R. 7, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs 
Act, so we can work together to grow the economy, to create American 
jobs, to facilitate lower gasoline prices, and to provide energy 
security that this country needs, not only for our current generation, 
but for future generations of American children and grandchildren.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Texas.

[[Page H633]]

  He talked a little bit about the Keystone pipeline. I would point out 
that the development of the Alberta oil sands for the State of Texas--
and this was a statement that was given to the Energy and Commerce 
Committee early last year by the Alberta representative in Washington. 
In the State of Texas, the development of the Alberta oil sands could 
mean as many as 27,000 jobs in 2011-2015, 27,000 jobs that could be 
created as a result of the development of the Alberta oil sands, and 
the Keystone Pipeline is a critical component of that. That's also not 
to mention the fact that there are numerous firms that do business with 
suppliers and the contractors that would be building the pipeline and 
the people who would be working throughout the Alberta oil sands as 
they develop it. So 170 firms in Texas would benefit from the 
development of the Alberta oil sands.
  With that, I would yield to another gentleman from Texas who serves 
with me on the Energy and Commerce Committee, a great colleague, 
somebody who has championed energy development and certainly has been a 
strong advocate for American energy security, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Olson).
  Mr. OLSON. I thank my good friend from Colorado and my brother in 
arms on the Energy and Commerce Committee fighting for U.S. domestic 
production of energy.
  I'm going to start my comments tonight by focusing on gas prices.
  We all know that gas prices have risen dramatically under the current 
administration. This chart here shows exactly what's happens in 
America. Our President took office right here about February of 2009 
and gas prices were just over about $1.90 a gallon. You can see it 
spiked up to almost $2.70 a gallon, and last summer almost $4 a gallon. 
It's come back down. So it's over doubled in price since President 
Obama took office.
  These gas prices are a hardship on American families and American 
small businesses, families that have to take the kids to school, 
families that have to drive the kids to practice, families who have to 
go to the grocery store, families that have to go to church. No one is 
immune to these price increases.
  I'm privileged to represent part of the energy capital of the world, 
a suburb of Houston, Texas, and we're not immune to these price 
increases. These are articles from a local online paper over the past 
month. I'll read them to you, just selected portions of them.

                              {time}  1900

  On January 10, 2012, Fort Bend gas prices jumped more than 11 cents.
  On January 17, 2012, one week later, gas prices in Fort Bend have 
risen another 2.2 cents in the past week.
  One week later--there is a theme here--in Fort Bend County, Fort 
Bend's gas prices have risen another 8.3 cents in the past week.
  That's 3 weeks with a 25-cent per gallon increase in prices in my 
home county of Fort Bend County. Again, families and small businesses 
are struggling to survive with these incredibly high gas prices. Why is 
this happening? Uncertainty. Uncertainty in one particular region of 
the world. The uncertainty is coming from one country, Iran, and its 
threats to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
  I've had a unique opportunity here in Congress. I served in the 
United States Navy for 10 years. I was a naval aviator, not necessarily 
a naval pilot, but I've actually flown missions right through the 
Strait of Hormuz. Iran is threatening to shut down the straits because 
the United States and the European Union have put sanctions against 
Iran because of its threat to build a nuclear weapon, which is a direct 
threat to our security. Most importantly, it's a direct threat to the 
security of our best ally and friend in the world, the great country of 
Israel. We have to take Iran's threats very seriously.
  Let me tell you a little bit about the Strait of Hormuz. As you can 
see, it's a very narrow body of water, about 30 miles wide. If you've 
been to southeast Texas, do you know where the Johnson Space Center is? 
Drive 30 miles south, and you'll be on Galveston Beach. It's a very, 
very narrow body of water. It's shallow--200 feet, two-thirds the 
length of a football field.
  As you can see, the transit lanes for the ships are close to Iran. 
There are all sorts of little islands out here that they cannot 
maneuver through. They've got to go close to Iran, again posing a 
greater threat to them. Right here is Abu Musa. That is an Iranian 
base, a military base, so all the tanker traffic flowing through 
there--all our military ships--have to pass right through Iran, right 
through Abu Musa.
  Let me tell you what Iran has there as a threat to the Strait of 
Hormuz. This is the Persian Gulf here. All along here, in Abu Musa, 
there are missiles--surface-to-ship missiles aimed at our ships and 
aimed at our tankers--going through every single day. I know this 
because when I flew my plane through there, we were tracked by Iranian 
fire control radar. That's just the way the business works there in 
that part of the world.
  They've also got mines, mines that can lay anywhere here throughout 
the straits--again, a very narrow body of water where ships have little 
room to maneuver. These mines, you don't have to run into them. They're 
modern mines. They can detect some sort of a change in pressure or some 
sort of sounds from an engine of a ship coming through and then blow up 
when the ship gets close. That's a big threat.
  There is another big threat, too. This is the most lethal threat the 
Iranians have in the Strait of Hormuz and the biggest reason for the 
uncertainty. This is the Iranian Kilo class submarine. It was sold to 
the Iranians by the Russians in the early 1990s. I actually flew over 
the second one. We caught it up on the surface just like that when I 
was deployed in the region in 1994. The reason this submarine is so 
lethal is that it's a diesel-powered boat, meaning, right now, it's on 
the surface and it's running on diesel engines, but when it submerges, 
because it can't get atmosphere necessary to run internal combustion 
engines, it runs on batteries, quiet, quiet batteries. It is the 
quietest submarine in the world, but it can't stay submerged forever. 
It has to recharge its batteries at specific intervals.
  Look at all this traffic in the Persian Gulf, and that's just an 
example. There are all sorts of fishing boats all over there that have 
diesel engines. This little thing here is called a snorkel. This guy 
could come up, and he can push that up just above the surface of the 
water and get the air he needs to run his diesel engines to recharge 
his battery. While he does that in the mix of all of these boats with 
their diesel engines, it is very, very difficult to find him.
  In fact, the only way you can find him is with your eyeballs. It's 
very much a challenge, and, actually, he can go down and sit on the 
bottom if he wants to while waiting for the proper traffic--whoever he 
wants to target--to come through. This is a very real threat. This 
creates uncertainty in the markets. This is why gasoline prices are 
spiking.
  What's the solution? And House Republicans have one: it's the 
Keystone XL pipeline.
  Very briefly, the orange line there is the Keystone pipeline, the 
singular Keystone pipeline. This pipeline is already up and running. As 
you can see, it's coming from Hardisty, Alberta, Canada, all the way 
down to the Midwest United States--Steele City, going to Cushing, 
Oklahoma, and going across Patoka, Illinois, to St. Louis. Oil is 
already flowing through that pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline starts 
at the same place and comes down a little bit west of the Keystone 
line. It intersects at Steele City. Then it goes down to Cushing. As 
you can see, it goes right down to the energy capital of the world, 
where my district is, in the greater Houston area in Port Arthur, 
Texas.

  As we know, the administration and our President have delayed or 
canceled the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline because radical 
environmentalists and Hollywood elites disapprove of the pipeline.
  What has that done to our economy?
  There are 20,000 shovel-ready jobs that are in jeopardy. Over 800,000 
barrels a day flowing from that pipeline to southeast Texas to these 
most up-to-date, technologically advanced refineries in the entire 
world, that's not happening.
  Energy security. National security. We don't have to worry about 
what's happening in the Persian Gulf. We don't have to worry about Hugo 
Chavez. Just this single pipeline with

[[Page H634]]

800,000 barrels a day replaces what we're getting in from Venezuela 
right now.
  What are the solutions? The Trans Alaska pipeline.
  The American people may get confused. They hear about the Alaska 
National Wildlife Refuge and the Trans Alaska pipeline. Here is just an 
example of what it is just to show you. ANWR, the Alaska National 
Wildlife Refuge, is the light green area right here in the northeast 
corner of Alaska. As the listeners know, this is the great State of 
Alaska, and it's about half of the mainland of the United States. 
Basically all of Wyoming, almost to the Mississippi River, that's the 
size of Alaska. Do you see this little, little, tiny point up here? 
That is where the drilling to support the Trans Alaska pipeline is 
being done. It's one little spot. Do you see the point?
  We have some problems. Just to let you know, let's talk a little bit 
about the Trans Alaska pipeline. It was designed to be built in 1973 
right after the OPEC embargo on our country. OPEC shut the valves off 
for all of their oil--again, all that oil flowing through the Persian 
Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz. Why? Because we sided with our good 
friend and ally, Israel, in the Yom Kippur War. Because of that, we 
realized that we needed to develop American sources of energy and that 
we should not be dependent upon the Middle East for our oil, and we 
built the Trans Alaska pipeline, with all the hoopla and all the 
conflicts with the environmental groups. It finally came online in the 
mid-seventies.
  At the time before that, Alaska had the highest State income tax in 
the country--14.5 percent. Because of the Trans Alaska pipeline, Alaska 
now is the most tax-free State in America. With one pipeline, taxes go 
away. Here are the numbers: 2.1 million barrels a day were flowing 
through the pipeline in 1988. Today, 671,000 barrels a day are flowing 
through the pipeline. That's 17 percent of our U.S. domestic crude 
production.
  As you can see, though, there has been almost a 75 percent decrease 
in the oil that's flowing through the pipeline, and that is a huge 
problem because if the pipeline doesn't have a minimum amount of oil 
flowing through it in that extreme environment, in the extreme cold, it 
is going to crack and break. It will not be able to be used again. But 
there is a solution for that, too, and it's happening in the Energy and 
Commerce Committee with the leadership of my good friend from Colorado.
  I yield to him to talk about Shell Oil and the Chukchi Sea up there 
and all the reserves that we have available in that part of the 
country, offshore Alaska.

                              {time}  1910

  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman for his comments on our resources 
in Alaska and the little poster that you have there on drilling in 
ANWR. You can see that little tiny dot--it's almost difficult for me to 
see from here. It is just a little tiny pinpoint within the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge. I've heard it described many times as having 
a footprint similar to a postage stamp on a football field, and that's 
the area that you're talking about that would be used to help 
revitalize our energy resources with American-made, American-produced 
energy.
  But you are exactly right. Earlier last year, the House Energy and 
Commerce Committee passed H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting 
Act. It would help do a great deal to spur development of areas that 
have already been approved for resource development, areas like the 
Beaufort and Chukchi Sea areas. This isn't opening up new areas. This 
is actually an area that's already been approved for leasing, and 
leases have been sold. They've already said, Hey, this is an area where 
we can have the energy production take place. So we're just trying to 
make sure that that energy doesn't get stopped and bogged down by 
bureaucratic and regulatory processes.
  What we did in the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act is pass a bill 
which had great bipartisan support on the floor of the House. It has 
now been introduced in the Senate by a bipartisan group of Senators who 
say that, look, you can't use an Environmental Appeals Board that was 
bureaucratically created to hang up a permit for 5 years, as in the 
case with one particular project in the Beaufort and Chukchi Sea area 
of Alaska. The end result of this project could be as many as 1 million 
barrels of oil a day and nearly 50,000 jobs being created across the 
country. As witnesses said before the committee, it would help reduce 
the price at the pump. And I think when you are talking about energy 
prices that have risen $1.66 since President Obama took office, we've 
got to do everything we can to lower the price of gasoline and help 
American families make ends meet.
  I thank the gentleman from Texas for the opportunity and yield back 
to him for further comments.
  Mr. OLSON. I will just follow up on my friend's comments: So 1 
million barrels a day is the estimate, 50,000 jobs? Basically if we do 
the Keystone XL pipeline, we would get rid of Venezuela. This would get 
rid of Saudi Arabia?
  Mr. GARDNER. Yes. We are taking nearly 1 million barrels of oil a 
day. That's almost enough to replace our imports from Saudi Arabia. So 
between the two, the Keystone pipeline and the Beaufort Chukchi Sea 
development, I mean, we're talking significant--as much as 2 million 
barrels of oil a day, significant resources for this country, made in 
our own backyard.
  Mr. OLSON. Yes, sir. And I thank my colleague again for his 
leadership in getting this bill through the House. Unfortunately, it's 
a jobs bill. That means it's over there sitting in the majority 
leader's inbox over on the other side of the Hill.
  But also, tying this into the Trans Alaska Pipeline--I understand 
that the development plan also includes the construction of four 
offshore production platforms, offshore pipelines that go across the 
National Petroleum Reserve to Alaska and link it to the Trans Alaska 
system. So that oil that's in the Beaufort Sea, the Chukchi Sea is 
actually going to go on the Trans Alaska Pipeline, build up the mass 
flowing through there, and give that the heat, the integrity it needs 
to use it for another 10 years. Is that true?
  Mr. GARDNER. That's true. And one of the biggest challenges we face, 
as you mentioned, is the possibility that we could lose out on one of 
this Nation's great works, the Trans Alaska Pipeline, if we don't 
properly take care of it and make sure that we are actually utilizing 
it to its fullest extent. So you are exactly correct.

  Mr. OLSON. If my friend could confirm this, but for almost 4 years 
now, Shell has spent almost $3.5 billion trying to get that permit to 
drill offshore, shallow water. As my colleague knows, they have a very 
limited opportunity to drill. It is a very tough environment, very 
cold. So they've waited. They've put in almost $4 billion just to get 
these permits done because they want to give American sources of energy 
to our country.
  Mr. GARDNER. And not only were you talking about millions and 
billions of dollars that were spent on trying to go forward to produce 
energy in an area that was already approved to produce energy, but they 
were blocked by the bureaucratic process.
  They went around the world. The number is staggering. It's around 400 
wells that they've drilled around the world in the amount of time that 
it's taken this administration to approve the one permit that they are 
trying to get. So 400 wells around the world, thousands of jobs created 
overseas, thousands of barrels of oil being produced around the world, 
but not a drop right here. So that's the shame of it all when it comes 
to the bureaucratic mess that we're in.
  Mr. OLSON. Well, I thank my colleague for his leadership on this 
issue. The people of Colorado should be very proud. Leaders lead. My 
colleague from Colorado is a leader.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. OLSON. One last chart to close. And this is a plea to our 
President. This is a pitch for the Trans Alaska Pipeline.
  Unlike the Keystone XL pipeline, because of the difficulty building a 
pipeline in the ground, it's been built above the ground. And these are 
caribou, wild caribou that are hovering around the pipeline.
  Mr. President, it's time to stop coddling the Hollywood elites and 
the radical environmental groups. It's time to

[[Page H635]]

listen to the American people. And the caribou enjoy the warmth of the 
Trans Alaska Pipeline, because if these caribou could speak, they would 
say respectfully, Mr. President, drill, baby, drill.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank our colleague on the Energy and Commerce 
Committee for his comments.
  I know you were in the Chamber during the State of the Union address 
when you heard not too far from where you stand the President discuss 
his desire for an all-of-the-above energy policy. Just recently, 
though, when he talks about an all-of-the-above energy policy, he 
forgets to talk about the fact that he nixed the Keystone XL pipeline 
and so many other challenges that his administration has put forward 
when it comes to energy development and our Federal resources. Thank 
you for your leadership on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I 
look forward to our further discussions.
  Our colleague from Texas mentioned that there were a number of bills 
that the House of Representatives had passed that were stacking up in 
the United States Senate. We've got an incredible plan for America's 
job creators. There are 30-some odd bills that are awaiting action in 
the U.S. Senate.
  And I'll just give you a few more bills than the ones you mentioned 
that are all related to energy in some way or another: The Regulations 
From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny that would take a look at 
regulations that impact our economy; take a look at the Coal Residuals 
Reuse and Management Act, H.R. 2273, something that, if it's not 
passed, we could lose a number of jobs throughout this country because 
of a regulatory process that has run amok. The EPA Regulatory Relief 
Act of 2011, H.R. 2250. The Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of 
Impacts on the Nation Act. This is something that takes a look at the 
impact of higher energy prices, rising energy prices, what will it mean 
to our Nation's manufacturers, and how much more it would cost our 
Nation's manufacturers. The North American-Made Energy Security Act; 
Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act; Jobs and Energy 
Permitting Act; Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act; Restarting 
American Offshore Leasing Now Act; the Energy Tax Prevention Act. These 
are all bills that have been introduced in the House and have passed, 
many with very strong bipartisan support; and they're awaiting action 
in the Senate.
  Somebody else in this Chamber, who has done a tremendous job of 
fighting for natural gas development, making sure that those jobs are 
created in his backyard, Mr. Reed from New York, the gentleman from the 
Ways and Means Committee.
  Mr. REED. I thank the gentleman from Colorado and the gentleman from 
Texas for coming down to the floor tonight. I am honored to join you 
tonight to have this conversation about developing a comprehensive 
American energy plan that will lead to energy independence for America, 
but in the short term, put many Americans back to work.
  We've all been talking about it for months now. This Congress is 
focused on jobs, jobs, jobs. And right here, right now, today, tonight, 
we have before us--be it the Keystone pipeline, 20,000 jobs. Here the 
gentleman from Colorado is talking about another project with 50,000 
jobs immediately available to be put back into place. I just do not 
understand why we have not been able to come together and have a 
President that says, You know what, I'm not going to bow to the 
political pressure. I'm going to lead. But yet he bowed to the 
Hollywood elite, to the folks when it came to the Keystone pipeline, 
and rejected the Keystone pipeline, with 20,000 people, families, 
American families who are ready to go to work. And he said ``no.''
  I appreciate the effort that you are putting together here because, 
as you know and as you have indicated--and in my area of the United 
States, up in upstate New York, we're dealing with the issue of natural 
gas development. In particular, Marcellus shale natural gas 
development.
  I did listen to the President's State of the Union. I listened to it 
intently. And I heard his commitment to producing our natural gas, 
because he had come to the conclusion that natural gas is a safe, 
domestic source of energy for today, tomorrow, and for all of America. 
To me, I hope the President was sincere in that statement because I 
joined him in that sentiment in that we have, in our shale formations 
in America, an amount of natural gas equal to 100 years of supply for 
America.

                              {time}  1920

  People have described it as if we are the Saudi Arabia, the United 
States of America will be the Saudi Arabia of natural gas supply for 
the world.
  That type of resource is a game changer. And we are talking about 
thousands of jobs. We are talking about the ability to create an energy 
platform that allows our manufacturers to come back to America. That is 
one thing I think we have joined on both sides of the aisle to be 
committed to is to build things in America again.
  And why does a natural gas platform of energy lead to building in 
America again?
  It's simple. It's simple, and I know my colleagues know it. Because 
if you can drive down utility costs, if you can stabilize them in the 
long term, 40, 50 years, manufacturers will look at America and say: 
You know what? What we make up by going overseas to China because of 
the labor difference--the wage difference that they achieve by going 
over there and tapping into those labor pools they will make up by 
coming back to America because the utility costs will be stable. 
They'll be cheaper, and they will be able to build things again in 
America because they want to build here, because the American worker is 
the best worker in the world. The quality of work and products that 
come from the American worker are the best by far. And the logistics 
that they don't have to deal with by having manufacturing items over in 
China and other areas of the world are gone because we're manufacturing 
in our backyard.
  So this energy policy all relates to not only energy independence, 
but it relates to the manufacturing sector of America and bringing 
America back to the forefront of being the leading manufacturer in the 
world.
  That is why I am so committed to the issue of developing natural gas. 
Now we have to do it safely. We have to do it responsibly. The 
President has conceded that point. Many scientists, the data and the 
information that is out there, have come to the conclusion we can do it 
safely and responsibly, but we need to lead and formulate a 
comprehensive approach to tapping that resource and bringing people 
back to work through the development of that resource in a responsible 
manner.
  One last point I wanted to bring up, and I so appreciate all of the 
comments you've made here. Right today we have before us in this 
Chamber, or will soon have before us in this Chamber, the American 
Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, and what a commonsense piece of 
legislation that I think this bill represents.
  What it is essentially saying is we're going to take our natural 
resources in America and we're going to use the dollars that come from 
developing those natural resources on our public lands to rebuild the 
infrastructure of America. That, to me, is commonsense policy coming 
from Washington, taking our natural resources from the ground and 
putting it into our bridges, our highways, our roads, so that 
generations of people will have the infrastructure in place with its 
water, sewer, roads, bridges, in order to have the manufacturing of 
tomorrow, to have generations of people working.
  With that, I have come here tonight to show my support to you on the 
issue of developing American energy. And I haven't even touched on the 
national security issues, and I haven't even touched on the final point 
that I will make.
  My final point is that I have gone all over this Nation and I have 
gone all over my district and I've gone all over the northern tier of 
Pennsylvania where Marcellus Shale is being developed, and I have 
talked to so many people. We have spent so many taxpayer dollars here 
in Washington to try to educate people and bring them out of poverty.
  You know, Mr. Gardner, from my conversations with the people in the 
northern tier of Pennsylvania, I have heard repeatedly because of this 
resource development, this natural gas

[[Page H636]]

that we're developing in a safe and reliable manner, I'm able to put my 
kids through college. I'm able to maybe go out and venture into a 
business that otherwise I wouldn't be able to do because I didn't have 
the cash to do it. That is going to empower generations of American 
families for many generations to take them out of poverty and get them 
an education; and it's all being done on private capital, capital not 
coming from taxpayers but coming from good old-fashioned American 
business, coming out of the free enterprise system, utilizing those 
natural resources that are owned by those individuals that are 
empowering people for generations. And it's not being done on the 
taxpayer dollar.
  To me, we should be joining hands and applauding that type of 
development of natural resource and commit ourselves to this 
comprehensive policy.
  Mr. OLSON. If my friend from Pennsylvania would stay a minute longer, 
would you talk a little bit about the Marcellus Shale plate and how it 
has impacted your State?
  Mr. REED. Well, I tell you, being from New York, being down in the 
northern tier of Pennsylvania, right now New York is in the process of 
finalizing its regulations to make sure that it can be done safely and 
responsibly, but I have the honor of representing the 29th 
Congressional District, which is right along the Pennsylvania border.
  What we have seen is we have seen the spillover effect from the 
economic opportunities and economic development that is going on in the 
State of Pennsylvania from the development of the Marcellus Shale. One 
of the counties in my district, Chemung County, is leading the State in 
sales tax revenue numbers because of the economic impact coming across 
the border for our hotels, our restaurants, all of the activities we 
have talked about.
  I've heard from retailers and I've heard from a dry cleaning outfit 
in my hometown of Corning, New York, that was raising an additional 
$6,000 a month by cleaning the overalls and the uniforms from the 
Marcellus Shale workers that are performing work in the State of 
Pennsylvania. Do you know what that means? That means he was able to 
give his employees a bonus for the first time in years. He was able to 
hire more people in our home area. I mean, this development touches so 
many lives and so many people, from the actual pulling of the natural 
gas out, and all of the indirect benefits and everything else that's 
out there.
  Mr. OLSON. I thank my colleague from New York for those comments. As 
you know, shale formations do not know State boundaries.
  Mr. REED. Amen.
  Mr. OLSON. So the Marcellus plate runs from Pennsylvania all of way 
down through West Virginia.
  Mr. GARDNER. I want to thank both of my colleagues from New York and 
Texas for joining us tonight. We are out of time, but I appreciate the 
opportunity to address the House with your expertise and your 
leadership and know that we are fighting for the American people, to do 
everything we can for American energy independence and American energy 
security.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________