[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 4224-4226]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         OUR NATURAL RESOURCES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Long). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I do echo the comments of my friend from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). Our hearts do go out, our prayers do go out for the 
people in Japan, difficult time there.
  At the same time, there are so many people struggling in this 
country. There are so many people out of work; and although in the last 
week gas prices have come down some, sadly in the wake of the Japan 
tragedy, there is no doubt speculation will eventually go back up 
unless this administration stops, ceases, desists in putting our 
natural resources off limits for our use to help our economy to create 
jobs for our citizens. You know, certainly other countries welcome the 
pigheadedness of those in charge of this administration who are 
determined to keep us from using our own resources.
  We had a hearing today in the Natural Resources Committee, and the 
chairman of the Railroad Commission, the regulating body in Texas, Ms. 
Elizabeth Jones, had indicated--and I was not aware of what exactly she 
had said--but, apparently, this administration is making a big deal of 
reopening and granting a permit that actually was not a new permit. 
This is something that had been pending that was a re-release and was 
not a new permit.
  And how ironic, the ultimate irony, that this administration's first 
supposed new permit would be to a drilling project in which British 
Petroleum, BP, would be the major investor. How about that? This 
administration simply cannot get away from trying to help their buddies 
at BP.
  It was interesting to hear our friend across the aisle from 
Massachusetts in our hearing today indicate that in the European 
waters, off their coasts, they have the same driller, the same 
international companies; and yet, the safety records over there are 
much better than they are in the Gulf of Mexico. Quite interesting 
because the only difference is, in this country, the administration is 
run by those who help out President Obama, and they have sadly looked 
the other way while BP racked up safety violation after safety 
violation, after dozens of safety violations.
  In the meantime, the other major drillers had one, two violations 
over the same period. BP racked up dozens of violations and then 
hundreds of violations until they had reached around 800 safety 
violations. But did this administration rein them in? No.
  And then we later read that actually when this administration could 
not bring itself to really come down on BP after the disastrous blowout 
of the Deepwater Horizon, that BP executives were negotiating and 
working out the day, the time, the place that they would come out in 
support of President Obama's and our Democratic colleagues' great pride 
and joy called the cap-and-trade bill. I don't want to offend people by 
calling it the crap-and-trade bill, so we will call it the cap-and-
trade bill instead of what I really think it is.
  But they were negotiating to come out and be the administration's one 
big international energy company that embraced this whole cap-and-trade 
bill. Why? Because they had special perks they were getting out of it 
with regard to carbon sales, and so they were coming onboard.

                              {time}  1900

  Well, of course this administration did not want to come down on BP 
when they were going to be the big energy company that came out saying, 
Yes, we're for this cap-and-trade bill. Yes, we think it's good. Why? 
Because we're going to get rich off of it even though Americans are 
going to be paying out the nose for energy once this thing kicks in. 
Americans will be losing their jobs right and left; but, boy, we will 
make a lot of money because we're cronies with the administration. So 
they were going to come out in support.
  The administration didn't want to shut them down. They were hoping 
that what BP was telling them about it not really being that big of a 
deal would be true. So of course the President didn't fly down there 
immediately, like he had said about President Bush that he should have 
after Katrina. This President waited and waited, really didn't want to 
come down on BP because these were his buddies that were going to help 
him get across the finish line the cap-and-trade bill. They were the 
guys that had safety violation after safety violation. So it gets a 
little difficult to hear friends across the aisle talk about cronyism 
when we know that when you really examine the facts where the cronyism 
lies.
  We have heard people talk about how offensive it was that there were 
offshore leases that had language removed from the pricing from which 
royalties were paid that cost the United States Treasury billions of 
dollars in royalties that rightfully would have been the U.S. 
Treasury's, except that our hearings indicated that there was actually 
at least one or two people in the Clinton administration who had it 
pointed out, Hey, we need this language in here that allows us to get 
the amount of royalties we should. But they were instructed, We are 
leaving it out here.
  When we had a hearing with a friend of the Clinton administration, a 
former appointee of the Clinton administration who had done his 
research, I asked him why he had not questioned those people who had 
ordered that that language be kept out. He said, Well, they left the 
administration, so we really can't question them. They are in the 
private sector now.
  Well, you do a little further research, and you find out that the 
private sector, these people that cost the United States Government 
billions of dollars and made billions of dollars for the cronies of the 
Democrats in the Big Oil, they actually had gone to work for British 
Petroleum. How about that. So to have heard the former Clinton 
appointee who did the investigations say, Well, I couldn't possibly 
question these people because they left, and they were in the private 
sector, I was surprised because if someone intentionally and knowingly 
defrauds the government, it's a crime. And the FBI doesn't have any 
trouble normally going after folks, subpoenaing records. They know how 
to do it. They do it quite well. But they didn't go after these 
individuals because--well, they had left government service, and this 
one in particular had gone to work for British Petroleum. How about 
that.
  So imagine our surprise in 2009 when we find out that the person who 
was most knowledgeable about the language being taken out that cost us 
billions of dollars and had gone to work for British Petroleum had now 
been brought on to the Obama administration to supervise these offshore 
leases. How about that. Or to quote our friends from Saturday Night 
Live: ``What's up with that?'' It cost the country billions of dollars, 
went to work for British Petroleum, and then you bring them back on and 
put them in charge of the offshore leases?
  Then we find out that those who worked for the Interior Department, 
the offshore rig inspectors who stand between this country and 
disastrous problems off the coast that are man-made, were the ones 
within the Bureau of Land Management that were allowed to unionize.
  Well, that sounds kind of strange because, you know, union 
negotiations--normally, if you go back to the inception of unions, it 
was to overcome issues of corporate greed. It didn't

[[Page 4225]]

seem to fit here because here were people that were supposed to stand 
between our Nation and man-made disasters off our coast. And they were 
allowed to unionize because we know unions, they'll negotiate--oops, 
these folks can't work too many hours, can't work too many hours in 
succession. You have got to do this. You can't go--you know, there are 
all kinds of things negotiated. It would be like negotiating a union 
contract on behalf of the military soldiers. You can't overwork them. 
You can't expect them to work too late into the evening, travel too 
much.
  When people are standing between us and disaster, it just is not 
appropriate to have contracts negotiated in a union manner, because 
they stand between us and disaster. It's not appropriate for people in 
the military, and it's not appropriate for our offshore rig inspectors. 
If they have to work extra hours, if they have to travel extra, if they 
have to do some task to ensure that our country does not get devastated 
because of man-made negligence, a disaster off our coast, they will 
have to do that job; and if you don't like it, go to work for the 
private sector.
  That is the way it was supposed to be, not to have unions organize 
people who stand between us and disaster. Because if you go back to the 
founding, the Founders anticipated--and some of them wrote in their 
letters, in their diaries that we had within our grasp, they indicated, 
the chance to do what philosophers had only dreamed about, to govern 
ourselves.
  We can understand the need for union collective bargaining, to 
overcome corporate greed in cases where it's occurred; but to need 
unions to extort things from the government that is supposed to be 
``We, the people,'' in a democratic Republic? Offshore inspectors 
standing between us and disaster, and they get to have a bargaining 
session where, Gee, we don't want them to work too many hours even if 
it meant saving America, saving thousands of jobs.
  Well, in the hearing where we heard from the director of the Bureau 
of Land Management who was over that whole system, when I asked, What 
are the checks and balances? Since you have these offshore inspectors 
unionized, what are the checks and balances that protect us from 
disaster? It should be these offshore inspectors. So how do you ensure 
that the allegations that we read and have been hearing that some of 
the administration's offshore inspectors had been bribed, have been 
given perks to look the other way with safety violations, and they had 
done so--we've read allegations of that kind of thing. So what is it 
that protects us and ensures there are checks and balances to make sure 
offshore inspectors are not bribed, are not given things to make them 
look the other way?
  And the director indicated they do have a solid system of checks and 
balances for such offshore inspectors. They send them out in teams of 
two people at a time. That way, we can rest assured that if one 
inspector were subjected to some type of bribe or perk, something to 
look the other way, the other inspector would report them, would refuse 
to accept the bribe or the perk to look the other way, so that we could 
rest assured that we were protected.

                              {time}  1910

  Apparently, she was not aware that I was aware that the last two-
person team of inspectors that went out, sent by this administration 
out to the Deepwater Horizon before the disastrous blowout, was a 
father and son unionized inspection team. That's who was sent to stand 
between us and disaster.
  Now, there are some disasters, like earthquakes, like tsunamis, that 
insurance companies call acts of God. I still do, too. I don't believe 
that God causes those things to happen to punish people. I think He has 
the power to do so.
  But we do have the power to build and to inspect and to prepare for 
disasters so that we can mitigate and minimize damages after such 
things occur. But you can't very well mitigate and minimize when you're 
allowing the kind of abuses that have gone on from this administration 
with the cronies in Big Oil like British Petroleum.
  And it's interesting to have heard, today, friends across the aisle 
trying to wrap British Petroleum around Republicans' necks as an 
albatross when, actually, the group that has protected British 
Petroleum over and over has allowed them to continue to drill, and when 
this administration finally got around to granting a new permit that 
really wasn't new after all, it happens to be to their cronies, their 
buddies--good old crony capitalism--where BP is the major investor. How 
about that? Another ``and what's up with that?''
  BP gets the latest right to drill in the gulf when others have lost 
thousands of jobs, families have been left destitute. And that means 
not just that the workers who work on those oil rigs have been hurt, 
their families have been hurt, and then all the places where they did 
business have been hurt. The restaurants, clothing stores, everybody 
who did business with those have been suffering because this 
administration did not punish the company responsible for nearly 800 
safety violations. It punished all those who were not their cronies.
  And how ironic that the biggest financial supporter of this 
administration and Democratic politics, in George Soros, had as his 
biggest individual investment in Brazilian drilling, oil and gas.
  How ironic that when this administration granted a $2 billion loan 
from the United States of money--we don't have over 40 cents of every 
dollar of that $2 billion that we have to borrow and pay interest on--
we loaned it to Brazil to do offshore drilling that we won't allow 
here.
  Oh, but by the way, that helps the Democrats' biggest supporter 
financially, George Soros, with his biggest individual investment; so, 
therefore, it's okay to drill off the coast of Brazil with money 
borrowed from America at low interest rates that we have to borrow from 
other countries at a different interest rate. That's just astounding.
  And then we have calls to eliminate the method that has produced over 
100 years, perhaps 200 years, of natural gas reserves. We've been 
provided information that indicates that if all of the 18-wheelers in 
America started utilizing natural gas instead of gasoline or diesel, 
then we would cut our dependency on those who hate us by 50 percent. 
But no, we're not going to do that.
  In fact, there are measures being pushed by this administration and 
the EPA to eliminate our ability to utilize over 100, 200 years of 
natural gas that could provide our electricity, even cutting the need 
for more nuclear power plants. It could be of tremendous assistance in 
cutting our reliance on foreign oil. And this administration wants to 
eliminate that ability. It makes no sense.
  Our hearts still go out to Japan for the decimation that's occurred, 
for the loss of life and the livelihoods, and this administration has 
expressed that so eloquently. But not so for this administration's 
actual activities to help the lives and livelihoods in the gulf coast 
area of those who this administration didn't save their job. They cost 
them their job. They cost them their livelihood. They caused gasoline 
prices to go up because we will not help ourselves.
  We were told when gasoline reached $4 a gallon that probably 25 
percent or more of that was speculation. Well, when speculators see 
that we're doing nothing to help ourselves with our own energy needs 
and, in fact, we're making it more and more difficult to produce our 
own oil, gas, natural resources to take care of ourselves and instead 
are going deeper and deeper in debt to countries that don't like us--
thank goodness we're friends with Canada, and they're helpful in our 
energy needs. But we're funding some of the very terrorism we're 
concerned about in the Middle East because we refuse to use our own 
natural resources.
  I was told by a Chinese gentleman that he thought he had figured out 
what our energy policy was, because often the Chinese, they look 
farsighted. They look down the road. They try to examine issues and 
policies in a farsighted manner generations down the road, when we here 
in America sometimes have a hard time looking at what we're going to do 
tonight. Certainly, tomorrow is a stretch.

[[Page 4226]]

  But, anyway, this Chinese gentleman had said, I think we figured out 
what you are doing. You continue constantly to put your own natural 
resources off limits, and that forces the rest of the world to use all 
of their natural resources. And then eventually everyone will have used 
their natural resources but you, and then you'll be the only one with 
natural resources. You'll still be the superpower, and you'll still be 
the superdominant country in the world because everyone else lost their 
resources. They're used up, and you still have yours.
  And I told him, I wish I could take credit and say you caught us; 
that's our plan. Everybody else used up their natural resources. But we 
haven't been that strategic in our thinking. No, we're just having 
people say it may devastate the economy. Obviously, it is. It does when 
you put your natural resources off limits.
  But they claim that will save the environment, not understanding that 
when you devastate an economy and people are losing their jobs and they 
can't pay their bills, they're not concerned about the environment. 
They're concerned about getting by and just living. And it's only when 
you have a vibrant economy, like we did have, that you have a country 
where we're concerned about pollution of air and water, and we rein it 
in.
  Instead, policies of this administration are sending more and more 
jobs overseas where they pollute four to ten times more than we do 
doing the same job, and yet that pollution goes into the same 
atmosphere and often floats over into our country. Mercury, toxic 
materials come floating up because we ran those manufacturers off in 
thinking we were doing some good for the economy and for the 
environment, and we were hurting both.

                              {time}  1920

  That's not the way it works when you have natural resources, when you 
have been so richly blessed, as we have been in this country, with so 
many resources. You're expected to be good stewards, to use those 
resources wisely, but don't be an idiot and not use them. We've been 
blessed with them. Use them.
  Help the environment, help the economy, and you help the world.
  As I mentioned here before--but I've not forgotten--a West African 
told me last year when I was over in West Africa that they were all 
excited when we elected an African American as President; but they have 
seen this President's policies weakening America, and he asked me to 
make sure people here understood that, when we weaken or allow America 
to grow weaker, we hurt the peace-loving people around the world, 
particularly Christians, who want to live in peace.
  He said, When you allow the United States to get weaker, we don't 
have hope of anyone coming to our rescue when people come after us. 
You're our hope in this world. Please tell your friends in Congress and 
in the administration, Don't keep weakening your country. You're 
hurting those who hope and want peace around the world.
  We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to all of those who want peace 
around the world and who count on us to act responsibly.
  I know the Obama administration and those in the Interior Department 
have said, Gee, we're not going to be allowing these risky ventures out 
in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet they turn around and let the most 
unconscionable violator of safety regulations be the major investor in 
the permit they just released.
  And what about these major oil companies that keep being demonized? A 
moratorium in the gulf has caused many of them to move rigs to other 
countries. They won't be back for a number of years, if at all. We're 
costing ourselves thousands of jobs, and we're forcing ourselves to 
send more money to countries that hate our guts.
  And what about those who are unable to just move because they're 
international, big companies--the independent oil companies--of which 
we have numerous in Texas and in Louisiana and in other Gulf States? 
Well, they can't just take off and go to Brazil or go to other 
countries. They go out of business. They've got nowhere else to go 
because this administration is putting them and those they hire and 
those they buy from out of business.
  It makes no sense to keep shooting ourselves in the foot and hurting 
those who rely on us.
  Now, we've had a temporary cessation in the explosion in gas prices. 
There is a chance here that the administration will take advantage of 
it and will quit running off more jobs with more regulations and 
continuing an actual moratorium, in fact, on offshore drilling. There 
is a chance that the administration will take advantage of this time-
out to say, You know what? We've seen the light. We've heard the human 
cry from across America about expensive gas prices. We've heard the 
human cry about 100-plus years of natural gas, so we're going to 
encourage cars or 18-wheelers to start utilizing natural gas for their 
fuel. It does not produce carbon monoxide, which truly is poisonous and 
dangerous to human life.
  So it's a good idea. My friend across the aisle, Dan Boren, has a 
great bill. I'm hoping that the House will move it, that the Senate 
will take it up and that the President will sign it, and we can help 
ourselves get off such an incredible reliance on foreign oil.
  It's time to start helping ourselves. It's time for people to stop 
helping those simply because they've helped them get elected. It's time 
for people here in Washington to follow our oath, to protect our 
country, and that includes helping to create a strong economy. That 
means, like doctors who have taken the oath to do no harm, we should 
take the same oath:
  First, do no harm. Quit trying to force people out of business 
because you don't like them.
  Once we do that, we'll be on the road to a greater economy than this 
Nation has ever experienced.
  Now I want to finish up. I was given a book of an historical nature. 
It's called, ``Mr. Jones, Meet the Master.'' It has sermons and prayers 
of Peter Marshall during his time as Chaplain of the United States 
Senate during the 1940s. It has got some wonderful material in here, 
and I would just like to finish my time by reading a prayer by the 
Chaplain of the U.S. Senate as he prayed it in the U.S. Senate. Senate 
Chaplain Peter Marshall prayed these words in the U.S. Senate:
  ``Our Father in Heaven, give us the long view of our work and our 
world.
  ``Help us to see that it is better to fail in a cause that will 
ultimately succeed than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately 
fail.
  ``May Thy will be done here, and may Thy program be carried out, 
above party and personality, beyond time and circumstance, for the good 
of America and the peace of the world. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, 
amen.''
  That was the prayer of Chaplain Peter Marshall during his time as 
Chaplain of the United States Senate.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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