Congressional Record, Volume 160 Issue 115 (Tuesday, July 22, 2014)

[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 115 (Tuesday, July 22, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H6641-H6648]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

ENERGY ACTION TEAM

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. Madam Speaker, as part of the House
Energy Action Team, it is important for us to address the hardworking
American taxpayers that are concerned about their rising energy costs
and who want to know what their United States Congress is going to do
about the issue of energy independence, the cost of fuel, the cost of
electricity, and the fact that they have got less money in their wallet
after a week of driving back and forth between work and taking the kids
to school and ball games and church and all the things that we, as
average Americans, do. After they pay for the fuel to do all of that,
to drive their vehicles to and fro, they reach in their wallet for
extra cash, and there is none left. What is the United States Congress
going to do about the rising cost of energy?
I came to Washington to focus on three things: jobs, energy, and our
Founding Fathers.
Jobs. How about unleashing and unbridling the innovative and
entrepreneurial spirit of Americans that will actually turn this
economy around by putting Americans to work, lessening the number of
Americans on the welfare rolls, and actually having Americans earn
their way? Jobs.
Energy. Energy is a segue to job creation in this country. Look at
the States that have energy-driven economies like Oklahoma, Texas,
Louisiana, and North Dakota. North Dakota has a 3 percent unemployment
rate or less. In fact, McDonald's is paying a finder's fee. If you have
got somebody who wants to go to work at a McDonald's in North Dakota,
they will pay you a finder's fee.
Jobs and energy. Energy is a segue to job creation and putting
Americans to work. We are not just talking about the men and women
wearing the hard hats and the oil uniforms out on the drilling
platforms or in the Bakken up in North Dakota, turning those drills and
producing that, whether it is through horizontal drilling or hydraulic
fracturing or shallow water or deep water offshore. Yes, those are
good-paying jobs. Those are hardworking American taxpayers. But think
about all the other jobs that support the offshore industry and the
onshore industry.
These are Americans that are working doing pipefitting and welding.
And guess what. Pipes fall on truck beds,

[[Page H6642]]

and the beds have to be repaired. So there are auto body mechanics and
engine mechanics. All these people work in that industry. It can be
those in HVAC. Folks are going out on the rigs to fix the air
conditioner or provide the food service or the transportation or the
supply vessels carrying the drilling mud and the diesel fuel.
Everything that it takes to support energy production in this
country, guess what. Those folks are going to the local restaurants and
they are eating and they are giving tips to the waitresses. They are
going to their churches and they are tithing. They are joining the
United Way and they are sponsoring ball teams. They are supporting our
local communities.
You see it all up and down the Texas and Louisiana highways. You see
it in North Dakota and Oklahoma. And guess what. We want to see it in
South Carolina.
In fact, there are some gentlemen here that want to see it off their
coast or may want to see it expanded in their States, whether it is
onshore or offshore. They understand that energy production is a segue
to putting Americans to work.
Jobs, energy, and our Founding Fathers. Limited government, free
markets, individual liberties, unleashing that entrepreneurial spirit
that Americans have within us to go and create and do and put Americans
to work and, yes, pay taxes to the government so the government can do
its constitutional role.
Jobs, energy, and our Founding Fathers is a great acronym. It spells
``Jeff,'' and I am all about Jeff.
We want to see the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf opened up. We
want to see some seismic work done first. That is the first step. Let's
see what is out there.
They are looking at 30-year-old seismic graphs, trying to figure out
are there recoverable resources off the coast of South Carolina, North
Carolina, Virginia, the States that want to see that area opened up.
Using 30-year-old technology and 30-year-old graphs, let's see some
21st century technology drug in the Atlantic, like 4-D and 3-D
technology, to actually see down in the Earth and see what sort of
resources might be recoverable.
Let's allow the seismic work, and let's allow universities like the
University of South Carolina do it. Being a Clemson graduate, it pains
me to say that the University of South Carolina and Dr. James Knapp are
leading the way, teaching the young, new minds to use that seismic
technology and look at those graphs and figure out where those
resources are. He is doing tremendous work there at the University of
South Carolina. Let's open up more areas.
It is hard for me to applaud the Obama administration on a whole lot,
but I will applaud them on a transboundary hydrocarbon agreement signed
by then-Secretary Clinton with Mexico that opened up a million and half
acres in the Gulf of Mexico, shared resources right under that maritime
boundary between the United States and Mexico.
Mexico just denationalized their energy company, Pemex. They are
opening up to more private investments. We are going to see great
things happen in the transboundary area. But even though she signed
that agreement, the administration failed to send to this Congress the
implementing language to actually make it happen and to include those
areas in the next 5-year plan. That took an act of Congress. That took
a bill that passed out of this body last year. That took efforts like
Paul Ryan had in the omnibus to get the transboundary hydrocarbon
implementing language in the omnibus so that we could open up that
million and a half acres and we could put more men and women here
in America, hardworking American taxpayers, to work developing the
energy resources that we have in this country.

God bless the United States of America. He continues to bless us with
the resources here to be truly American energy independent. We are
working with our neighbors to the north with something like the
Keystone pipeline--which should happen--to bring that Canadian oil into
this country to the refineries where we have idle capacity and to put
that oil into the marketplace in gasoline and plastic and asphalt and
diesel fuel and all the other butanes and all the other elements that
come out of a barrel of hydrocarbons when you put it under pressure and
it separates naturally in all sorts of wonderful God-given elements.
The Keystone pipeline should happen. That is a no-brainer for most
Americans that I talk to, but apparently the administration just
doesn't get it. They don't get that the Keystone pipeline will put
Americans to work.
We are talking about jobs. We are talking about energy. We are
talking about less government. The Keystone pipeline and North American
energy independence includes working with our neighbors to the south in
Mexico as they decentralize, denationalize their energy industry, and
more private investment, more American companies going down there
developing those resources so we can possibly have North American
energy independence, if not just American energy independence.
I am joined by a number of Members of Congress here that are part of
the House Energy Action Team. One gentleman from the neighboring State
to my north understands what I talked about with the Outer Continental
Shelf and that mid-Atlantic, south Atlantic OCS area that we believe
has resources. If you look at the geology, North Africa and the Middle
East and England were all together one time with the United States, and
the resources and geology are very similar. We believe that in the
south. I know in South Carolina we may have some recoverable resources,
and we can be players in that.
I know the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hudson) wants to talk,
I am sure, about that North Carolina offshore area.
Mr. HUDSON. I thank the gentleman, my neighbor from South Carolina,
Mr. Duncan. I appreciate your leadership on this issue. I couldn't
agree with you more.
Many of our constituents back home in North Carolina and South
Carolina are entering the second half of the summer. They are preparing
to take trips to the beach, maybe trips to the mountains, maybe going
to visit relatives. Many of our constituents are contemplating those
trips and, frankly, are experiencing a little sticker shock as they
factor in the cost of gasoline and what it is going to cost their
family.
Many of our constituents are struggling. They either are not in the
job they want to be in or they are looking for a job, and it is tough
to make ends meet. If you add the high cost of energy to that, it is a
real burden on people. It affects real people back home.
Frankly, it doesn't have to be that way because we have got
tremendous opportunities to have American sources of energy. It is just
a shame we are not going after them.
I agree also with my colleague there are not a lot of things that
President Obama and I agree on, but I do applaud his decision to allow
us to do seismic mapping off the shore of the Atlantic Coast. We have
tremendous opportunities in North Carolina, as well as Virginia and
South Carolina, to find these large reserves. We know there is natural
gas there. We know there is petroleum there. We need to find out what
is exactly there.
So this is an important first step to get this seismic permitting so
that we can know what kind of energy resources we have exactly. But I
want to get North Carolina in the energy business. We have got the
opportunity to put people to work.
As my colleague mentioned, North Dakota pays a $2,000 signing bonus
at McDonald's because they can't find enough people because everybody
has a job, and I look at North Carolina and my neighbors who are
struggling to find work. Let's put people in energy jobs. Not only will
it bring down the cost of energy for us at the pump, but it will put
people to work.
There is another phenomena happening out there. We have lost a
tremendous amount of manufacturing jobs in North Carolina, particularly
in my part of the State, but we are seeing some of those jobs start to
come back. The reason they are starting to come back is because of
energy costs.
Even despite the fact that the current President won't allow any new
permitting on publics lands, through fracking and other technology, we
find it on private lands. We are being able

[[Page H6643]]

to bring down some of our energy costs through exploration.
Imagine what we would do if we could unleash American energy by
allowing us to go after all of our resources, whether they are on
public lands or offshore. We can have a manufacturing renaissance in
this country by having affordable American energy. We can start
creating jobs like you wouldn't believe. There is no reason why we are
not doing that.
So I am happy to be here tonight with my colleagues to talk about the
importance of this. I am just ready to unleash the American energy and
ready to bring those jobs back.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman from North
Carolina.
This is a picture of the State newspaper in South Carolina. It says:
Oil Exploration OK'd Off South Carolina and the Entire East Coast.
The Department of the Interior has actually said: You know what? We
are going to allow some seismic to actually happen off the coast of
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia so we can see
what is out there.
This is good news, America. This is good news because we are actually
going to see that there are recoverable resources of our coast.
And I ask the question again of the Americans that may be tuned in:
How much more is your regular travel costing, with gasoline prices
being well north of $3 a gallon in this country? Or to ask a different
way: How much less money do you have in your wallet after you travel
back and forth to work--your normal travel and not summertime vacation
travel--your normal travels from home to work and back, taking the kids
to school, taking them to the ball games, going to church, going to the
grocery store, all the things that you do, how much less money do you
have?
I know in North Carolina and South Carolina, our constituents have
experienced that.
Another member of the House Energy Action Team from Texas--and Texas
gets it, because, God bless Texas, with Spindletop, Eagle Ford,
Barnett, and a lot of other resources, they understand energy and they
understand the jobs that come about from energy production.
I yield to Mr. Weber of Texas, because I know he has got a great
story to tell.

{time} 2045

Mr. WEBER of Texas. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, the things that make America great are the things that
America makes.
Now, how do we do that?
We have a stable, reliable, affordable energy supply.
Mr. Speaker, I want you to think with me here for a second. We have
to have a strong America. Whether it is a typhoon or whether it is a
hurricane or whether it is famine or flood or pestilence or civil war--
no matter what it is--when the world has a catastrophe and they dial
911, who is it who answers?
It is the Americans--isn't it?--with our military, with our might,
with our goodness, I would argue. So I would argue that, for the world
to be a safer place, we must have a strong America.
How do we do that?
Like I said, a stable, reliable, affordable energy supply.
Mr. Speaker, this is not just about jobs and the economy. This is
about a strong America that leads this world and makes the world a
safer place to live in. I would further argue, Mr. Speaker, that you
are seeing the result of an administration's policy. Around this world,
we are seeing the results of people who understand that the current
policy is weak, ineffective, and to be trampled upon.
It is bewildering to me and, quite frankly, to many Americans that
the President and his administration continue to stand in the way of
the potential that this country has to offer with respect to domestic
energy production for the reasons I just stated. In fact, the President
has canceled lease sales and has effectively closed off 85 percent of
our offshore resources from exploration. Yet the majority of Americans
support tapping these resources so that we can make our country more
energy independent--and again, so the world is a safer place to be.
This country needs a President who will empower our energy sector,
not suffocate it. I always say, as I did in my opening remarks, that
the things that make America great are the things that America makes.
Mr. Speaker, when more things are made in America, more Americans will
make it in America. When government gets out of the way, we can create
thousands of good-paying jobs and a whole lot of affordable, reliable,
dependable, secure energy. Then and only then, when more things are
made in America, more Americans will make it in America.
The energy sector, as the gentleman said, is one of our Nation's
leading job creators, and much more can be done to unleash our energy
in these United States. Just look at my home State of Texas. Texas has
been responsible for close to half of all new jobs created in the
United States since the end of the recession. Texas has allowed the
energy industry to flourish while, at the same time, protecting the
environment.
Shale gas development, which is booming because of innovations like
hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling--despite this
administration--is leading to billions in new investments in my
district alone, billions in my District 14 on the gulf coast of Texas,
for example. Chevron Phillips Chemical Company is investing $6 billion
to build two polyethylene plants in Sweeny, Texas, bringing 400 new
permanent jobs and 10,000 new construction jobs to my district alone.
You all know polyethylene is used to produce common plastic products we
use every day, and it is derived from natural gas. In addition to many
other projects, two companies in my district are waiting to invest
billions--with a ``b''--of dollars in liquefied natural gas export
facilities, which would bring an untold number of new construction jobs
to my State and the Nation.
It is a puzzle to me that this administration, instead of encouraging
more of this kind of private investment nationwide, has decided that
what we need now are more regulations. Are you kidding me? Just this
past March, the administration announced that it is in the process of
developing regulations on methane emissions from various sources,
including from hydraulic fracturing sites. This is despite the fact
that methane emissions have fallen by 11 percent since 1990. Such
government overreach, which, undoubtedly, will also encompass emissions
from cattle--if you can believe that--will raise costs for consumers,
destroy jobs, and hurt energy production. This administration is so
extreme it is proposing to regulate cow emissions. Now, in Texas, we
call that a lot of bull. This Obama administration is out of touch with
everyday Americans and is out of control with energy regulations. The
administration's announcement on methane emissions is just one small
piece of a much larger regulatory strategy.
Take the EPA, for example. The EPA is requesting millions of dollars
to conduct a study of hydraulic fracturing, which is a technology that
has been safely utilized by the oil and gas industry in Texas since at
least 1947. In at least three cases, the EPA has blamed hydraulic
fracturing on water contamination. In all three of those cases, they
were forced to retract their conclusions. Therefore, I suspect the
purpose of their study is only to justify further regulatory actions.
Most importantly, we cannot forget that the administration is
planning to repropose a new rule on ozone this December. When
originally proposed in 2010, this regulation was widely cited as the
most expensive regulation in history, which would cost hundreds of
billions of dollars and put over 80 percent of our Nation out of
compliance--80 percent of our country in nonattainment when it comes to
ozone regulations. Mr. Speaker, I would offer that the EPA needs to use
common sense when it comes to the common sense of their nonattainment.
Unlike our counterparts in the Senate, the House has passed
legislation to expand domestic energy production. It has acted to hold
the Obama administration accountable for its regulatory agenda. On June
26, with my support, the House passed H.R. 4899, Lowering Gasoline
Prices to Fuel an America that Works Act. If enacted, this legislation
will require the administration to move forward on the new offshore

[[Page H6644]]

production that the gentleman was referring to in areas that are
projected to contain the most oil and natural gas resources by
requiring new lease sales and by streamlining permitting. I could go on
and on and on.
I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, even though, when he was running, the
President said he had an all-of-the-above energy strategy, the truth is
it is none of the above. He is in the process of killing the coal
industry. Make no mistake. Fossil fuels will be next.
Let me close by saying I call on the President, as the gentleman did,
to permit the Keystone pipeline. Let it get built. Let America continue
to be an energy leader in the world. Let America be solid and strong,
and let us, once again, have a safe world.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman from Texas. As I
said earlier, Texas gets it.
I remember a colleague of ours from Louisiana who said that drilling
equals jobs. That sums it up--drilling equals jobs. I appreciate the
gentleman from Louisiana, Jeff Landry, our former colleague, for
sharing that with us.
I drive a diesel truck. I was filling up just recently back in the
spring, and there happened to be an off-road diesel pump right beside
the on-road diesel pump that I was at. I was paying about $3.59 a
gallon for diesel fuel for my pickup, and I noticed the off-road diesel
fuel price was about 10 cents less, about $3.49. I took a picture of
it, and I shared it on Facebook because I wanted folks to realize
America's farmers are paying $3.49 a gallon for off-road diesel fuel.
This is a fuel you can't run on the highway because the Federal
Government and the States don't collect any highway taxes from off-road
fuel. It is just pure diesel fuel. If this is what America's farmers
put in their tractors, it is off-road for a reason. If they are paying
$3.49 a gallon for off-road diesel fuel, that is an input cost. That is
a cost of production.

They are putting $3.49 a gallon of diesel fuel in their tractors to
plant our crops and, in the fall, to harvest our crops. I think about
the cost of fertilizer right now, which should be low because natural
gas is abundant in this country--and I think the gentleman from
Pennsylvania is going to talk about this in just a minute and what they
have found in Pennsylvania. Natural gas is a huge component in the
production of fertilizer, but fertilizer is at an historical high
still. So you have got the input cost for farmers of off-road diesel
fuel at $3.49 a gallon--that input cost and the cost of fertilizer.
We know of the regulations the gentleman from Texas was talking about
that the EPA continues to push down on Americans, and America's farmers
are feeling the brunt of it on where they can spray their pesticides or
their herbicides and how far from ditches they need to be. There is
some common sense there, I understand, but there is regulation after
regulation. We have even combated, since I have been in Congress, the
regulation of farm dust. Now, can you believe that the EPA would want
to regulate dust created through the normal agricultural process?
The input cost of farmers will be affected and will affect the price,
rather, of the commodities that moms and dads buy when they go to the
grocery store this fall after harvest time. You think about commodity
prices being high, and we are already seeing historically high milk
prices, historically high beef prices, historically high fuel prices to
go back and forth to the grocery store just to buy those commodities.
It means less money for the hardworking American taxpayers at the end
of the day who are having to pay extra for ObamaCare, extra in taxes to
pay for the large government and government spending that we see. We
can help. This Congress can help by lowering the price of fuel--
gasoline for America's truckers and for America's moms and dads who
travel back and forth.
We have got an abundance of natural gas in this country. It gets a
bad rap when you use words like ``hydraulic fracturing.'' I will tell
you it is working in Marcellus in Pennsylvania and Ohio. It could work
in New York if they would get off their can and open up those areas.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus) understands. He
understands the area of Marcellus, so I yield to the gentleman so he
can talk about that area.
Mr. ROTHFUS. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding
and for organizing this important discussion about energy.
Mr. Speaker, I talk a lot in my district, District 12 back in western
Pennsylvania. Western PA is where you had the start of the oil industry
back in the 19th century and, of course, the development of coal, and
we are seeing this explosion in the development of the gas industry out
there that is creating lots of jobs.
I talk a lot about energy in western PA because I contend that we can
relight America from western Pennsylvania. We need to relight America.
We need to boom again. A lot of people have given up on the idea that
America can boom again, but for us to get this economy growing, energy
is a huge part of it.
Again, we are seeing thousands of jobs throughout Pennsylvania
because of the gas industry, and we are seeing people who are able to
stay on their farms. Imagine that. They are fracturing the shale in
Pennsylvania to release the energy. They are not fracturing families,
because the families can stay on those farms and get the revenues from
that gas to help them keep their farms in business. Growing our energy
economy means more family-sustaining jobs and lower energy prices for
families in western Pennsylvania and around the Nation. Developing our
Nation's plentiful natural resources and being good stewards of the
environment need not be mutually exclusive.
I want to bring attention, Mr. Speaker, to a little known area of
energy that uses something known as refuse coal. Refuse coal was coal
that was mined decades ago, often for the steel industry, and it was
determined not to be of sufficient quality for use in the industry, so
it was left. It was left on hillsides throughout Pennsylvania,
throughout Appalachia, but technological advancements have allowed
certain power plans to turn piles of this low-quality coal that has
been left throughout Pennsylvania's countryside into cheap domestic
energy. This has allowed for cleaning up the environment and restoring
landscapes and rivers.
Just take a look at the remarkable difference here in these before
and after pictures of the Barnes-Watkins coal refuse pile in Cambria
County, in my district.

{time} 2100

Plants across Pennsylvania and States including Illinois, Montana,
Utah, and West Virginia are doing tremendous work to clean up the
environment and generate affordable electricity.
Unfortunately, the unelected Federal elites at the EPA with their
one-size-fits-all rules are threatening to shut down the plants that
use this waste coal and stop the progress on cleaning up places like
what you see right here.
This will cost middle class jobs. It will raise energy prices for
many Americans and put an end to the positive work that these plants do
to clean up our environment.
To address this very problem, I introduced H.R. 3138, the Satisfying
Energy Needs and Saving the Environment; it is the SENSE Act, S-E-N-S-
E, because it makes sense.
This commonsense legislation recognizes the important energy and
environmental benefits that power plants like the ones in Cambria
County provide. The SENSE Act offers a reasonable balance that keeps
these plants open, saves local middle class jobs, preserves important
domestic electricity generating capacity, and helps to continue
cleaning up the environment.
I would urge my colleagues to take a look at this legislation and
help us get it through.
But, again, we need to boom. We need to boom again because when
America is booming again, that is when the jobs come in. And when we
get people back to work, every person we get back to work, that person
is paying Social Security tax, that person is paying Medicare tax, that
person is paying income tax that allows us to pay for the critical
social service programs that we need like Social Security, Medicare,
veterans benefits.
A booming economy is going to do that, and a key to the booming
economy is the booming energy sector.

[[Page H6645]]

I, again, thank my colleague from South Carolina for highlighting the
important role that the energy economy is going to play in relighting
America.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman from
Pennsylvania. He has been a leader in his short time in Congress as a
freshman on energy issues because he gets what is going on in his home
State.
I keep returning to the State of Texas because Texas, they have been
developing energy resources for a very, very long time. When you think
about Texas and Oklahoma, that is where it began in this country, the
immense resources they have.
I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), one of my heroes and
good friends who wants to talk about what is going on in his home
State.
Mr. POE of Texas. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
Duncan) for sponsoring this leadership hour and bringing the issue of
energy to the attention of the House and the American public.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, we consider where I live, Houston, Texas, the
energy capital of the world because it is the energy capital of the
world. And it is because of our location. Fifty percent of the Houston
ship channel exports exports are energy-related, not just energy
itself, but everything that is used in the development of energy
throughout the world. Fifty percent of the economy of Houston is based
upon the Houston ship channel.
We are experiencing a phenomenon in this country that nobody thought
would happen 5 or 6 years ago, and that is the abundance and surplus of
natural gas and what we call Texas sweet crude, or light crude, an
abundance of it in this Nation. There is so much natural gas being
produced in this country that in south Texas, in the Dakotas, they are
flaring gas wells. They are capping wells in west Texas.
What does that mean?
That means that when they flare wells, there are over 1,500 wells
that are being flared. That is enough energy to take care of a million
homes. We are talking about a lot of energy. We are talking about a lot
of natural gas.
So what do we do with that?
Well, we should sell it.
There is an ice cream company down in Texas. It is a little creamery
in Brenham, Texas, a German community, called Blue Bell Ice Cream. It
is the best ice cream in the world, Mr. Speaker, by the way. Their
motto is simple about their ice cream: We eat all we can and we sell
the rest.
Well, that should be the American motto for our natural gas: use all
we can, then sell the rest throughout the world. And yes, there are a
lot of buyers who want to buy American energy, natural gas.
When I was in India, I talked to the Prime Minister, and all the
Prime Minister wanted to talk about was getting natural gas from the
United States to India. Mr. Speaker, there are a billion more people in
India than there are in the United States. They can take it all. They
will buy it all if we will just make it happen.
When I was in the Ukraine, right before the Russians invaded the
place, that is all that the Ukrainians wanted to talk about: getting
natural gas from the United States, mainly from Texas, to offset being
held hostage by the Russians where they get gas from. You know, the
Russians turn off the gas in the Ukraine when they don't like the
politics in Ukraine.
Give them an alternative. Give them a free market alternative. Sell
them American natural gas. The same with other Eastern European
countries. Same with Western Europe. Give them an alternative to
Russia. It is not only an energy independence thing for those
countries, but it takes them politically away from the stranglehold of
Russia. That is one thing we can do to offset Russian aggression: sell
American natural gas throughout the world.
Then why aren't we doing it?
Well, we are, but it is slow. It is very slow. It takes forever to
get the Department of Energy now to grant those permits.
Here is the way it works. Since we are now permitting to sell natural
gas or exporting that product, it not only takes FERC to have a permit,
but then the company has to get the Department of Energy to permit them
as well, and it takes too long. So we don't get to sell the gas, and we
lose out on that opportunity to competitors throughout the world who
will sell their natural gas, who don't have to deal with the Department
of Energy.
We need to expedite that, expedite the sale of natural gas. That
helps the United States with jobs, as the gentleman from South Carolina
has said. It helps us with American jobs. But it also makes us energy-
independent.
We can make, Mr. Speaker, the Middle East irrelevant, not just their
energy and all the turmoil. We can make them politically irrelevant
because we can take care of ourselves, not only exporting natural gas
but, of course, exporting what we call Texas sweet crude, or light
crude, throughout the world. That is what we should do.
We should export. We should be willing to use all we can and then
sell the rest. We should adopt the motto of the best ice cream company
in the world.
A couple of other matters, if I may. The Keystone pipeline: How
ridiculous is it that we haven't started building it? You have got to
get that crude oil to market some way. What do you want to do, put it
on ships? We have already found out that is not such a good idea.

How about railcars? Well, I think we have had some problems with
railcar transportation of crude oil.
You want to use thousands and thousands of trucks to move that crude
oil around? That is kind of dangerous too.
The safest way to move crude oil is through a pipeline. There are
thousands of miles of pipeline. The XL pipeline, why it hasn't been
done is because of political reasons, not because there is common sense
involved in it. We ought to get through the politics and build the
Keystone pipeline.
It comes from Canada down to southeast Texas to where the refineries
are. My former district, Mr. Weber now represents that area where they
are waiting.
How much crude oil are we talking about? We are talking about as much
crude oil, Mr. Speaker, as we get from Saudi Arabia. Now we are talking
about a lot of crude oil.
Once again, make America energy-independent but energy-secure, and it
is a national security issue as well. It is just sense. It is common
sense. It also brings in revenue to America, to the American people to
be able to sell throughout the world natural gas and crude oil.
I want to thank the gentleman for the time.
And that's just the way it is.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman from Texas. He
has been a leader as long as I have known him on energy issues,
representing Houston. I have been to Houston. I have seen the activity
around the oil and gas industry, and I can tell you there are some
States that want a little piece of that. South Carolina is one of
those.
You are exactly right on the LNG terminals. Ukraine, Western Europe,
Eastern Europe, they are all reliant on Russian gas now and they are
concerned about the posturing of Russia, and they are concerned about
whether that spigot might be turned off, that pipeline might be
interrupted that supplies the much-needed energy that they enjoy
currently.
They are looking west. They are looking to the United States. How
about exporting your natural gas? You have got a ton of it. How about
giving us some of it? We will buy it. We will pay you for it.
India, as the gentleman said. It is a geopolitical advantage that the
United States has.
I was mentioning earlier about the areas that are opened up for
development, and I wanted to show America this. I know it is small, but
you can see the orange. That is right around South America. All that
area in orange is open for energy development.
But look at North America. There is a lot of blue water. There are a
lot of areas outside of the Gulf of Mexico, outside of the area off of
Alaska, that are not available to energy production. They should be and
they could be.
We have got a letter, a Dear Colleague letter, that we are sending to
Secretary Jewell, saying, Look, we need a new 5-year plan for leasing
the Outer Continental Shelf area. We want to see certain areas like the
mid- and South Atlantic included in that area, want to continue opening
up more and more of the gulf.

[[Page H6646]]

But we would love to see the areas that are reflected in blue and not
open on the map I just showed. Countries like Canada and Mexico and
China, they are ramping up their efforts to develop their offshore
resources and will be directly competing with the United States.
It is past time, America, that we develop the resources that we have
been blessed with here in this country.
This letter, I am a leader on it. I am asking my colleagues, I am
asking Americans to contact your Congressman and say, how about get on
that letter to Secretary Jewell that Congressman Duncan has got, and
let's encourage her to open up more areas that might be available in
the next 5-year plan.
Five years out, let's open up more areas for energy production. Let's
have lease sales. Let's allow exploration.
I know the next gentleman from Virginia, he gets it as well because I
have dealt with Virginia for a long time. Senator Frank Wagner, from
over near Norfolk, I met early on in my delving into the whole energy
spectrum and arena.
I went offshore on the Gulf of Mexico with the Senator, and he taught
me about what Virginia was doing. They were leading with an energy plan
for the State of Virginia. They were leading with looking toward the
offshore areas.
I know the gentleman that represents that area in the United States
Congress, Mr. Rigell, fully understands that. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. RIGELL. I thank my friend for his leadership in this critical
area, and for having us out here tonight to talk about the tremendous
opportunity to really shape the direction of our country in such a
positive way by responsibly opening up our coastal regions for energy
exploration.
The potential is great in job creation. 25,000 local jobs in the
Hampton Roads area--that is southeast Virginia, jobs that would be
going to some of those who need so desperately to have job
opportunities, for our veterans who are coming out of our military
right there in Norfolk and in Virginia Beach and other areas of our
district.
Let me frame this discussion, Mr. Speaker, with this quote. It was
said in this very Chamber. ``This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-
above strategy that develops every available source of American
energy.''
Mr. Speaker, that was shared by President Obama in 2012. So, in words
and in speeches, it surely looks like there is common ground. Now,
there is a disconnect in what the President's been saying and what the
truth is and what reality is. We will get to that in just a moment.
But let's look for a moment at the tremendous opportunity that
coastal Virginia energy represents and really, across the country, if
we open up our shore lines in a responsible, environmentally
responsible, way to improve the lives of Americans, to set our country
on a far better fiscal path that gives us the revenues we need to
strengthen Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and our national
security as well.
I am an entrepreneur in a season of public service, and I have had
these incredible opportunities to look so many in the eye and say, you
are hired. And I have also known the great joy, myself, of being on the
other end of that and having somebody say to me that I have been hired,
and I go home and say, I got the job. We want to hear that more and
more in our country.
These are the kind of jobs we need in America. They are high-paying
jobs. They are skilled jobs. They are tradesman jobs, jobs that we need
in our country.

{time} 2115

I have seen it firsthand, Mr. Speaker. I led a bipartisan delegation
to go down to Port Fourchon in Louisiana. They are so proud of their
economy. They are proud that their young people are having
opportunities. It is just a bustling place. I think of it as booming
and growing and optimism.
They are also proud of their schools and their roads and their
bridges. Why? Because they have got the revenue that they need--this is
how they are generating their revenue, through growth.
They are also, Mr. Speaker, so proud of their environment. They are
so proud of the fisheries that they have there and the gulf waters that
are such a part of their lives and have been for generations.
Some would present it to us as we are faced with this choice: either
you are for the environment or you are for job creation and coastal
energy.
Look, I reject the premise, Mr. Speaker. It is a false premise. We
have a moral obligation to leave our children with clean air and clean
water and clean soil. This is common ground, and we also have an
obligation. Indeed, I think it is a moral one, to have a strong economy
and to leave our children free from a heavy burden of debt, and energy
really represents, I think, the principle way that we can grow our
economy.
There are some, as I mentioned earlier, who present this false
argument about either we protect the environment or we grow jobs
through coastal energy. We need to really wrestle with these issues of
safety, and I am ready for the debate, Mr. Speaker. I welcome the
debate.
As I mentioned, I have been to Port Fourchon, and that was really the
epicenter of the Macondo challenge that we faced there, so much of what
we have learned from that has been integrated into the safety policies
that we have.
We can open up the coast and also create jobs, like they are doing in
Norway, like they are doing in Canada. It is not this either-or
proposition.
So what we have to do is we have to make the words that were spoken
by the President--to go beyond a talking point, and to make it a
reality, and I thank my friend from South Carolina for his leadership
on this issue. I am with you on that letter, and I appreciate your
leadership.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for
getting on the letters, the right letter to include that area.
Energy production in the United States means lower energy costs for
Americans. It is as simple as that. Energy independence through
production here at home in our own backyards keeps Americans safe from
the turmoil around the world.
The U.S. Atlantic and the entire OCS is a missed opportunity, but it
is not an opportunity we are going to continue missing. It is an
opportunity we are going to continue to propose, we are going to
continue to support, because when Americans are free to dream and
innovate, they will always find a cheaper, safer, cleaner, and more
efficient way to produce energy and use energy. We need to make it
happen.
I will now ask my colleague from Oklahoma--who I believe will be the
next Senator from Oklahoma and will take a tremendous amount of
experience over to the United States Senate, where I know he will talk
about what is going on in Oklahoma now and what has gone on in Oklahoma
in the past because he has educated me.
They have been fracturing down in Oklahoma for about 50 years. I
remember the comments he made to us on the floor one day, right here in
a HEAT Leadership Hour. He said: come to Oklahoma, and drink our water.
So I will now yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford).
Mr. LANKFORD. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina, and the
invitation still stands. Come to Oklahoma. We have been fracking since
1948, and I would encourage folks to come drink our water, see the
beautiful land, breathe our beautiful air, and understand that you can
do this.
Oklahoma is one of the places where we do all-of-the-above energy. We
have solar. We have wind. We have coal. We have oil and gas. We
understand all-of-the-above energy, and we understand all that can work
together.
For viewers that are on C-SPAN and the lights in this room, we
understand that energy drives our economy. We don't interact with
anything in our economy, whether it is food, whether it is
transportation, whether it is home heating, whatever it may be and
however we operate, it operates because of energy.
If at some point this administration's policies are fully
implemented, we will watch the price of energy, the price of food, the
price of everything we do in America go up, simply because of
preferences, not because of reality.
We can do this in an environmentally friendly way and also build a
strong economy. If you want to come to Oklahoma, unemployment right now
in

[[Page H6647]]

Oklahoma is 4.5 percent. We are one of the top energy producers in the
country.
If you want to go to North Dakota, the unemployment rate is 2.7
percent. In fact, technically, they have a negative unemployment rate.
They actually have more job listings than they have unemployment there.
Why? Because they are finding a way to be able to tap American energy
to produce an American economy that can grow and thrive, and in those
places where energy is thriving, the economy is also thriving.
Just look at one simple statistic here: from 2007 to 2012, private
sector employment increased by 1 percent or about 1 million jobs. In
oil and gas, however, they added 162,000 of those jobs and had an
increase of 40 percent in employment. Just in that one sector, there
was a 40 percent increase in employment.
What affect does that have on us? Obviously, that is Americans that
have jobs, those are families that are taken care of, but it is also
our trade deficit.
From 2012 to 2013, just in Saudi Arabia, our trade deficit declined
13 percent. That is oil and gas produced here in the United States,
offsetting what we are purchasing from the Middle East. The positive
effects of that are overwhelming, and we understand it full well.
We understand that, in the 1990s, our economy had a huge boom from
the Web. The Internet and the expansion of the Internet created
incredible entrepreneurial opportunities and an incredible expansion of
our economy.
That boom in the economy right now is solely around energy, and the
energy development that is happening and the revolution that is
happening and the opportunity for people to be able to get good-paying
jobs is happening strongly in one sector in our economy, energy.
Let's not blow it. Let's expand it. In the days ahead, we should be
able to export oil and gas. That should be a prime something that we
do.
You can send grain all around the world, just like you can send
flour, but right now, you can't send oil all around the world. You can
only send gasoline or diesel. You have to literally refine the oil
before you can send it out.
Well, let's fix that. If you send grain, you should be able to send
flour as well. If you can send timber, you should be able to also send
lumber. It makes basic sense that you can send oil as well as you can
send gasoline out.

This would help our economy. It would also reduce the price of oil
globally. That price would drop because of the competition in the
United States, estimated to be about 8 cents per gallon for a gallon of
gas, if we get on the world market and start pushing back to bring the
price down.
The same thing happens in liquefied natural gas, in natural gas. We
are talking about the production, just to allow the enhanced production
and export of oil and natural gas, around 1 million additional jobs in
our economy.
Now, in a Nation that is looking for jobs, we literally have the jobs
under our feet, and it is time we stand up and provide the opportunity
to be able to explore for additional oil and gas, continue to expand
our use of coal, to be able to export that worldwide and allow the
United States to be the economic leader and the energy leader that she
should be.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for
sharing that. He is exactly right.
It is simple. It is supply and demand. That is simple economics.
Let's put American oil and natural gas out there on the world market,
and I believe you will see the spigot turned on by others that don't
want to see us become energy independent, and I think you will see the
price down go.
You know, I will get criticized because I want to allow seismic to
happen off the Atlantic coast in the OCS areas, and they will say: oh,
you are going to hurt the marine mammals, the dolphins and whales and
other things.
Well, the environmental impact statement came out. There is good
mitigation in there that industry can live with to mitigate any damage.
If the whales are migrating north, they could stop those activities,
but even with that, there hasn't been a single proven instance.
Now, we have been doing seismic all over the Gulf of Mexico, off the
coast of Africa, in the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea, in the Persian
Gulf. All over the world, they have been doing seismic work and not a
single proven instance where seismic testing has caused permanent
deafness or any other injury to a marine mammal, not a single one, but
yet that is the criticism that we will take for wanting to actually
look down on the Earth and see if there are recoverable resources.
I will tell you where there are recoverable resources, and that is in
the great State of Wyoming, where they get energy--about $1 billion of
revenue back to the State of Wyoming through revenue sharing, through
the development of their natural resources and those oil and gas and
coal deposits they have, and the single Member representing the State
of Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis), I am sure can talk about that.
Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina
for gathering us to talk about American energy.
I want to talk about it from a couple of perspectives. My State of
Wyoming had the first national park in the Nation, Yellowstone National
Park; the first national forest, the Shoshone National Forest; the
first national monument, the Devils Tower. We have an abundance of
beautiful scenery and natural resources. We have the smallest
population in the Nation. Our State is pristine.
What you may not have known is that Texas' production of energy is
here. Wyoming's is here, and the next State catching up on us is far
behind those two States. We know how to produce energy responsibly.
Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight because I want to talk about the
people that are affected by the price of energy. I want to talk about a
woman I met at a gas pump.
She pulled up in a very old car. She had a little baby in her back
seat that she was taking to the sitter's before she went to her job,
earning minimum wage, at a convenience store. Her husband, a young man,
was also working at a very lower middle-income job. They were trying to
make ends meet.
She only put $5 worth of gas in her car. I asked her why. She said:
well, I can only afford enough gas to get me to work after I drop my
child off, and while I am at work, I will get enough money to put a
little more gas and pick my child up.
That is how a lot of Americans are living. That is how a lot of our
seniors are living. They are living on an amount of money that squeezes
them every time the price of gasoline goes up, the price of electricity
goes up, the price of heat goes up, the price of air conditioning goes
up.
That is the price of energy to the American consumer. Those are the
people we need to be looking out for. Those are the people who need
abundant, affordable, reliable electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel,
heating oil, and other resources like natural gas, so they can be warm
and protected from the cold, so they can be cool and protected from the
heat, so they can get to work and the grocery store and to their
doctors.
This is the American story, and it is American jobs that pay American
taxes that can help those people make ends meet, that can help fund our
social safety net.
We need Americans to work. We need American energy to put Americans
to work. If it wasn't for the energy economy, there would be no
economic recovery at all in this country. I know that it is a rather
anemic recovery. It would be zero recovery without the energy industry.
The importance cannot be overstated of energy in our economy. The
importance of energy in our daily lives cannot be overstated.
I want to thank the gentleman who recognizes that we can have a clean
environment and we can have affordable, abundant energy, so our quality
of life in America is proudly second to none.
Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I thank the gentlewoman from Wyoming.
She does a fabulous job.
That is one of the things I enjoy about serving in the United States
Congress, is meeting the congressmen from all of the other States that
can educate me and can educate America about what is going on in their
States--what is going on in their

[[Page H6648]]

States to help meet Americans' energy needs, to help us truly become
energy independent, to do all of the things that we have talked about
here this evening.
You know, people back home may say: What have y'all done in Congress?
What have you done in the House to address these issues?
We have sent numerous bills over to the Senate, where they languish
in Harry Reid's office. The majority leader fails to bring the bills
that the House has passed--even if you differ with the elements in
those bills, bring them up. Bring them into a committee hearing, and
let's have a markup.
Let's change those bills and pass whatever meets your desires for
American energy independence or a lack thereof in the Senate. How about
change the bills and send them back? We will go to conference, and we
will work something out.
Instead, we have got a logjam. All these bills are right behind the
dam, and then we could unleash all that power behind the dam by
unleashing the American energy independence potential that you have
heard talked about here tonight.
We just recently passed an offshore energy jobs bill, Lowering
Gasoline Prices to Fuel an America That Works Act, to open up these
areas.
I want to commend Chairman Doc Hastings for his work on the Natural
Resources Committee to really open up those Federal areas where we talk
about those resources. I would like to give a moment of praise to my
Senator Tim Scott who has got the SEA Jobs Act that would address a lot
of the all-of-the-above energy issues that I have got in the EXPAND
Act, to expand Americans' opportunities to pursue their resources and
become energy independent, and it provides resources back to the State
and revenue sharing and jobs. It works, America.
Energy is a segue to job creation, and that is what we are here to
talk about tonight, putting Americans to work, meeting our energy
needs, using those geopolitical levers that we may have to influence
politics around the world, to help our friends and allies in Ukraine
and in Europe that need America's energy resources, that want America's
energy resources.

{time} 2130

So as we wind down our time here tonight, energy production in the
United States means lower energy costs for Americans.
I started out with a very simple question: Americans, how much more
is your regular travel costing you? How much more does it cost you to
drive from your home to work and back, from your home to school and
back, from your home to church and back, and how much less do you have
in your wallet at the end of the day because of the amount of money it
has taken you to meet the energy needs of just transportation and
electricity costs because of EP regulations?
You heard the gentlewoman from Wyoming talk about it and others. We
could do something about it. We could solve it here today by meeting
our energy needs with energy production. That is why the House energy
action team is leading on this issue.
I appreciate the other colleagues being here tonight, and with that,
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

____________________