[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3694-3695]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 ENERGY

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise to talk in morning business 
about the energy issue facing the country. Anyone who has filled up the 
car or truck in the last month knows we have an energy crisis that is 
building and needs to be addressed. Last week I filled up my pickup 
truck. It cost about $50. Across the Nation, parents are driving in 
carpools. Farmers, small business owners, and commuters are 
experiencing sticker shock at the rising cost to put gas in their 
vehicles. Today oil is over $104 a barrel. That means on average 
Americans are paying $3.52 a gallon. It is going in the upward 
direction from there. We are clearly in an economic downturn. We have 
high unemployment. Now is not the time to sit back and do nothing as 
the price of gasoline goes up at the pump.
  In response, the White House is beginning to talk about tapping the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We know that will not work. The Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve is available for natural disasters and global 
disasters. But experience has shown that any gain from releasing oil 
from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is small and temporary, and prices 
quickly go right back up to their high and rising levels. If we 
diminish our resources, our reserves in the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve, we are even more vulnerable to those who would do mischief to 
the country because they would know we have a diminished supply, or to 
the natural disasters for which we are supposed to be prepared.
  Our problem is, we are the only Nation on Earth that has vast natural 
resources which we will not use. American energy is out there. It is 
under our land. It is under our waters. It is ready to be tapped, and 
it can be tapped environmentally safely. We could bring the prices down 
on our own accord. We know there is upheaval in the Middle East right 
now that could affect further the gasoline prices because of potential 
shortages. We are too dependent on foreign sources for our energy 
needs. It is a little more than 50 percent. That is not strategically 
sound, and it is most certainly not in our national security interest 
to leave us at that level.
  The Gulf of Mexico is one of the biggest resources we have. The Gulf 
of Mexico accounts for nearly 30 percent of total U.S. oil production 
and 13 percent of natural gas production. By failing to take full 
advantage of that resource, we are putting our energy security on the 
line.
  Mr. President, 400,000 jobs across the gulf coast are tied to the 
offshore energy industry. Nearly a year after issuing its moratorium 
and months since the moratorium was lifted, the Department of the 
Interior last week approved its first, its one and only, deepwater 
permit--one in a year. It's one and one only. There are thousands of 
idled leases, people sitting in the Gulf of Mexico idle that should be 
able to be at least exploring to determine if it is worth drilling. Yet 
the gulf is facing a permitorium.
  My constituents know the pain of this ``permitorium.'' One 
unfortunate case is the Houston-based Seahawk Drilling Company. Seahawk 
Drilling used to be the second largest shallow water drilling 
contractor in the United States. It provided high-paying jobs to men 
and women in Texas and across the Gulf of Mexico. I say ``used to'' 
because in February bureaucratic delays in shallow water permitting 
forced Seahawk Drilling to declare bankruptcy. They could not continue 
to have the costs associated with their employment levels, and with 
their company being there without the opportunity to drill and produce 
and keep their employee base. They declared bankruptcy. It destroyed 
1,000 high-paying Texas jobs.
  I received a letter describing the pain and distress the company felt 
when it had to inform the dedicated Seahawk employees they no longer 
had a job. According to the letter, on the day Seahawk was forced to 
sell its assets and lay off workers, the chief operating officer had to 
``fight back the emotions of the day. He took a deep breath and he left 
the conference room for a room full of Seahawk employees to tell them 
that their company was bankrupt.''
  These are real people with real families who lost real jobs--American 
jobs--and it could have been prevented.
  Since the moratorium was enacted, at least 13 rigs--deepwater and 
shallow water--have departed the Gulf of Mexico, taking with them good 
American jobs, and, furthermore, putting us in the position of having 
to import now from the foreign countries where these rigs have gone, 
not only taking away American jobs but forcing us to be even more 
dependent on foreign imports for our energy needs.
  Offshore energy production is expected to decrease by 13 percent in 
2011, due to the slow pace of permitting. This is unacceptable, and we 
must do something that is productive.
  Yesterday, Senator Landrieu and I introduced the LEASE Act, the Lease 
Extension and Secure Energy Act of 2011. All our bill does is extend 
the offshore leases that are impacted by the moratorium and the lack of 
permitting for 1 year.
  The LEASE Act returns to lessees the lease time taken from them 
during the moratorium. This will increase domestic energy production 
and protect some American jobs--those that have not already left. 
Despite being unable to explore for energy resources, the leaseholders 
are continuing to pay the expenses, as time ticks away on their lease.
  The LEASE Act will prevent leases from running out, and it gives the 
lessees the certainty they deserve that they will have the full amount 
of the lease for which they have paid bonus payments to secure.
  In 2009, the industry accounted for $70 billion in economic value and 
provided $20 billion in revenue to Federal, State, and local 
governments through royalties, bonuses, and tax collections.
  I hope our bill will be noncontroversial. It would seem to me that 
anyone would agree that if you paid for a 10-year lease, and you have 
the expenses of exploring to see if that lease has potential, before 
you drill to see if the lease has potential, you would have the full 10 
years, and not 9 years because you have not been able to use the year 
we have had the moratorium and the lack of permitting.
  There has been another suggestion by the administration that perhaps 
we should be proposing energy taxes--up to $90 billion over the next 10 
years. The President suggested that in his State of the Union message. 
Much of the taxes that would go on the oil and gas industry for 
expenses--that any industry, any business can write off, but would 
single out the oil and gas industry not to be able to expense their 
exploration and drilling costs--what would happen? If the prices go up, 
of course, who is going to pay those high prices? The families and 
businesses that are having to fill their cars with gasoline.
  In fact, the administration, through the EPA, is trying to bring more 
expenses to the refining industry by purporting to regulate greenhouse 
gas emissions. The administration is also adding to the refiners by 
saying they should not get the manufacturing tax credit.
  We have been trying to encourage manufacturing in America because we 
want manufacturing jobs in America, and so many of those have gone 
overseas. But the administration proposes to tax refiners who are 
manufacturing the gasoline from the oil and add more expense to the 
product, which is gasoline, and, oh, by the way, take away the 
capability for these refiners to have the same treatment as any other 
manufacturer in our country.

[[Page 3695]]

  Raising taxes on our domestic oil and energy industry is wrong, 
particularly at this time. We need to assure that we are not going to 
drive our energy jobs overseas. Yet what the administration is doing is 
counterintuitive if we all agree we want to keep the jobs in America.
  So here we are with gas at $3.52 a gallon, and the summer driving 
season is upon us. We are looking now at estimates from the experts 
that gasoline could be $4 a gallon. What is that going to do to the 
family who wants to take a vacation at a reasonable price? What is that 
going to do to the workers who have to get to work and who are already 
strapped, and, for Heaven's sake, the poor people who are unemployed 
who are trying to go and interview for jobs with gas at $4 a gallon?
  We cannot sit here and let this happen. It is time we get together 
with the President of the United States and have proactive energy 
ideas, programs, and solutions that are going to keep jobs in America, 
that will allow us to use our natural resources to begin to set the 
stage if we have upheaval in the Middle East that causes the supply to 
go down at a great rate. We need to have our supply go up to meet the 
test we should have of lowering energy prices for our people with our 
own natural resources. It is not to put the SPR out and put us in an 
even more vulnerable position. No. It is to use our resources, with 
Americans to take the jobs, and increase our supply so the price of 
gasoline at the pump goes down for the American people, and so we can 
have the jobs we should have in America stay in America.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

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