School Energy Crisis Relief Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the pending legislation, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do likewise. As others have stated, it is clear that refinery capacity has not been able to keep up with demand. Although current refiners have been able to ramp up their production sometimes in excess of 100 percent, which is an interesting mathematical challenge, the fact of the matter is that our population has grown, our economy has grown, and the resulting demand for more energy across the board has created a situation where, when we have a disaster similar to the one we had last summer with Hurricane Katrina where refiners were clustered in one specific area of the country, they were running at full capacity, they were shut down for a period of time, we had a short-term crisis which we were able to get over, but it was not easy.

Historically, utilization has been much lower than it has for the last 20 or so years; and the reason for that is we have not built a new refinery.

I agree that this bill is not going to circumvent any of the procedural hurdles that need to be crossed in order to build a new refinery. But what it does do is something that is, in my opinion at least, is innovative and imaginative in that it establishes a coordinator that will help make sure that the process, although not shortened because you are circumventing any regulation, makes this process work coterminously rather than successively.

Nobody will lose the ability to have their voice heard. There will be no part of the process circumvented. But an investor, a developer, a refiner, will have the certainty of knowing that there is a master plan in place, that there is a Federal coordinator and that there is a process that can be more predictable.

And I don't see how you can be against a process that uses the current system and all of its hurdles that need to be crossed but simply makes it run more efficiently. That is all this bill is trying do.

Now, there is a provision that allows the President to simply suggest that three base closures be identified for possible location. There is no requirement that it be done. And it also contains a provision that allows for the same expedited process to apply to biorefineries as well. And as one who comes from New Hampshire, we need to develop biorefinery capacity in this country. We are moving away from MTBEs as an oxygenate for gasoline, and I have as a high-priority project the development of an ethanol refinery from cellosic fiber, in other words, wood products somewhere in the northeast. And this process, although not circumventing, as I said before, any particular rule or regulation, will make the process go quicker.

And I understand my colleague's concern about not having enough hearings and so forth. But this bill simply speeds up the process. And if you want the process to last as long as possible and not have any new refinery capacity in this country, vote ``no'' on this bill. I understand that. But I believe in the process, but I believe that it should be quick and expedient but fair.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record a letter dated May 3, 2006, from the National School Transportation Association, expressing their support for the pending bill.

National Association for Pupil

Transportation,

Albany, NY.

National School Transportation

Association,

Alexandria, VA, May 3, 2006.

Hon. Dennis Hastert,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Speaker and Minority Leader Pelosi: On behalf of

school transportation interests around the country (both

public and private), I am writing to urge quick action on

H.R. 5254, to increase the availability of reasonably priced

fuel by streamlining the permitting process for new or

expanded refineries and H.R. 5253, to ensure that the Federal

government has the authority necessary to investigate price

gouging by fuel suppliers. Our industry is struggling with

staggeringly high fuel costs that are threatening our ability

to provide low-cost, safe transportation for 25 million

school children each day. Enactment of these two measures can

help drive down the cost of fuel in the long-run and we

support their approval by the House.

The nation's school bus fleet is the largest mass

transportation fleet in the country, 2.5 times the size of

all other forms of mass transportation including transit,

intercity buses, commercial airlines and rail, combined. This

system is also the safest way to transport children to and

from school every day. The National Academy of Sciences has

reported that there are approximately 800 fatalities per year

among children who do not ride school buses, while the school

bus related annual fatality rate is less than 20. Keeping our

school buses running is vital to the safety of our children.

In the wake of instability in crude oil supplies, Hurricane

Katrina and other factors, rising fuel costs have devastated

the industry and now threaten to force the involuntary

reduction of school bus transportation nationwide. In

addition, today's diesel fuel prices are significantly higher

than they were one year ago and are more than twice what they

were four years ago. This is proving to be a burden to public

and private operators alike.

Public school systems and their school transportation

providers are not able to pass

on the costs to the students they drive to and from school

every day. Instead, many school districts have responded to

this crisis by eliminating field trips and worse, reducing

transportation to and from school, forcing students to find

less safe and reliable ways to access their education or even

temporarily closing schools. For example, in Ohio school

districts have eliminated school bus service to 80,000 school

children a day and, just last week a local school system in

Tennessee closed for two days due to the inability to provide

school transportation due to the high cost of fuel for their

buses.

We understand that there are no easy solutions to this

problem, but are writing to ask for your help nonetheless. We

ask that Congress act quickly to help increase supplies of

fuel by ensuring that adequate refining capacity is available

as quickly as possible and that any allegations of price

gouging are fully investigated. We understand that the House

is preparing to act on H.R. 5254 and H.R. 5253 later today.

We welcome and support these initiatives and ask for broad,

bipartisan action to enact these important measures as a way

to help bring down prices for fuel as quickly as possible so

that school children will continue to be able to have access

to the safest possible mode of transportation. We also pledge

to work with you to find and advance other solutions that

might provide more immediate relief, such as H.R. 4158,

legislation introduced earlier this year to provide grants to

cover the cost of energy for financially strapped school

districts.

Sincerely,

Leonard Bernstein,

President, National Association of Pupil Transportation.

John D. Corr, Jr.,

President, National School Transportation Association.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend from New York (Mr. Boehlert).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I just want to correct the record if I could. It is my understanding that the bill only allows the President to identify a possible closed military base for a refinery location. It is only drawing attention, and it does nothing more than that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my friend from California (Mr. Herger).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds simply to say that it is interesting that my friend from California now is on the same side as ExxonMobil, which opposes this bill because they claim there is no need for new refinery capacity, and I would only point out that he makes a great argument for the passage of the bill, because what this bill does is take the argument that government red tape and bureaucracy is holding up the process completely off the table. And if that doesn't lead to more production, more construction after passage of this bill, I will be the first one to step forward and blast the industry for not creating more capacity.

So I appreciate the apparent support that my friend from California has for making sure that this process, permitting process, is sped up.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my friend from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).

Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

The date of the letter?

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

This is a very odd debate. One of the previous speakers said that this bill would do nothing to lower gasoline prices. If you increase refinery production, you are going to have more supply, and obviously more supply is going to lead to lower prices.

Another speaker said that this bill would somehow create more environmental pollution. It does absolutely nothing to change any existing environmental rule or regulation. It just increases the time. So if you want less supply, higher prices and the only reason you are against that is because you think that an additional refinery would create more pollution, then you should vote ``no'' on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this bill.

I will match my environmental record in this Congress with anybody else's and certainly my record in supporting the development of alternative energy resources. And, quite frankly, this bill does just that because the expedited permitting process, which does not in any way change the requirements for the process at all but simply makes it more organized and more manageable, also applies to coal to liquid and biorefineries. And this is critical for my part of the country. We cannot afford to wait 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years to increase our supplies not only of traditional motor fuels but also these alternatives. We need to remove the uncertainty that a successive permitting process creates and the chilling effect that has on the ability of investors where large amounts of money are involved to stick with the process year after year after year.

There is nothing in this bill that will reduce in any fashion the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency, the States, or any other entity to go through the appropriate process in order to permit a new refinery. But what it does do is for the first time in 30 years is make it incrementally more possible that we will get more capacity.

So when your constituents call you and say that they are unhappy with the high cost of fuel, remember that part of that high cost is associated with the fact that we have a very, very tight inventory of fuel in this country. As the chairman of the committee said a few minutes ago, we are consuming considerably more gasoline in this country than we are producing domestically, so some of it is imported. Our refineries are clustered in one region of the country.

If you want to answer your constituents by saying that you voted against a bill that would not have any environmental impact but would simply make it possible for us to address this issue in a more timely, quicker fashion, that is your choice.

But we are doing what we can quickly and expeditiously and incrementally to address the issue of refinery capacity in this country. I hope the House will adopt this bill, and I urge its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

(Mr. BOUCHER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill and urge its rejection by the House.

Democrats are more than willing to work with the majority Republicans to write legislation which addresses constricted refinery capacity in a proper manner. But on the measure we are debating this morning, we were not consulted. In fact, no hearings have been held on the bill. No markup sessions have been conducted. There has been no consideration whatsoever of this measure by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which is the committee of jurisdiction. The bill was not even introduced until late last night or early this morning.

If the majority party is willing to work with us, we would make every effort to construct a thoughtful bill that addresses the refinery shortage in a constructive way and bring that bipartisan measure to the floor of the House within a matter of days or at most a matter of weeks. I hope the majority Republicans will consider and accept our offer.

But the bill before us is not constructive. According to testimony the Congress received last year, the bill would weaken environmental protections but do virtually nothing to encourage the construction of new gasoline refineries.

The bill before us repeals the law requiring the States and the Federal Government to work together to set deadlines and streamline the process for issuing permits for new refinery construction. That new requirement became law just last August. Rather than repeal it now, let us give it a chance to work.

The bill before us adds a new layer of Federal bureaucracy by creating a Federal coordinator to oversee State permitting actions, and States would be mandated to meet a Federal schedule for issuing refinery construction permits.

States that have legitimate environmental concerns would find their normal review process short-circuited under a mandated Federal schedule for permit issuance. And the bill proceeds from a deeply flawed assumption that the reason we have a refinery shortage is burdensome State permitting processes. The real reason we have a refinery shortage is that the companies that own refineries are profiting enormously from the present market structure, including the refinery bottleneck. In essence, they are making more money by refining less gasoline.

The real reason we do not have enough refineries is economic interest, not environmental constraints.

Here is what the oil company CEOs had to say about the regulations regarding the regulations citing new refineries.

Last November, the CEO of Shell testified to the Senate, ``We are not aware of any environmental regulations that have prevented us from expanding refinery capacity or siting a new refinery.''

Conoco's CEO testified, ``At this time, we are not aware of any projects that have been directly prevented as a result of any specific Federal or State regulation.''

The record before the Congress is clear. It is devoid of any evidence that environmental permitting has delayed or prevented the construction of new refineries. In fact, the record clearly shows that environmental permitting is simply not a problem. And yet this bill weakens environmental permitting. It is the wrong answer for the problem that we face.

Let us reject this measure and begin working in a bipartisan fashion this afternoon in order to write a law that will make a genuine difference. If the Republicans are willing, Democrats pledge our best efforts to work with you to achieve that goal.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Mr. Speaker, I insert in the Record a letter dated May 3, 2006, from the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators, joined in that letter by the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials.

State and Territorial Air Pollution Program

Administrators, Association of Local Air Pollution

Control Officials,

Washington, DC, May 3, 2006.

Dear Representatives: On behalf of the State and

Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators (STAPPA) and

the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials

(ALAPCO), we write to you today to express the associations'

concerns regarding the Refinery Permit Process Schedule Act.

First, we question the premise of this bill--namely, that

environmental permitting requirements obstruct efforts to

construct or expand refining capacity and contribute to

escalating gasoline prices. We are aware of no evidence that

such requirements, particularly those related to air

pollution, have prevented or impeded construction of new, or

the major modification of existing, refineries. In fact, what

experience shows is that when regulated sources comply with

federal, state and local permitting requirements in a timely

manner, state and local agencies are able to act

expeditiously to approve permits.

Second, it is unclear how this bill would expedite the

issuance of permits. Rather, it appears that it could have

the opposite effect. Subtitle H of Title III of the Energy

Policy Act of 2005, approved by Congress last year to

streamline the permitting of refineries, already provides

states the ability to request special procedures to

coordinate federal and state agency permitting actions for

refineries. Repealing those provisions and replacing them

with ones that insert a ``Federal Coordinator'' into the

process and impose additional procedural requirements on

states and localities--including a requirement to enter into

judicially enforceable schedules--would almost surely delay

the permitting process.

Third, we are concerned that this bill is moving directly

to the floor of the House of Representatives, circumventing

consideration by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce

and open public debate during which state and local

permitting authorities and other stakeholders could present

their views.

STAPPA and ALAPCO understand the desire to take swift

action of some kind to address fuel prices. Moreover, we

recognize that this particular bill is an improvement over

other refinery permitting legislation introduced in the past

few years. Notwithstanding this, however, we firmly believe

environmental permitting requirements have been wrongly

targeted and, further, that the Refinery Permit Process

Schedule Act could result in unintended, problematic

consequences. Therefore, our associations oppose the bill.

Sincerely,

Eddie Terrill,

STAPPA President.

John A. Paul,

ALAPCO President.

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

(Mr. STUPAK asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I applaud the sentiments of my friend from Illinois with whom I have partnered on many coal-related issues over the years, and I certainly agree with him that we need to start rebuilding refineries that will turn coal into a liquid fuel. But, Mr. Speaker, we do not need this bill to do it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is not an effective way to address the gasoline refinery shortage. It tramples on State environmental laws without solving the fundamental problem.

The CEOs of the refining companies have testified to the Congress that the permitting process is not burdensome. It has not prevented the construction of needed new refineries, and yet this bill addresses the permitting process.

For our part, Democrats are more than willing to work with our Republican colleagues and to do so on a bipartisan basis, to write a law that will make a difference, a law that will get the needed new refineries built. We could produce and bring to the floor a bipartisan bill within a matter of days or, at most, within a matter of weeks.

So what I would say to the Members of the House is reject this measure and then, beginning this afternoon, let us sit down in a bipartisan exercise to draft a bill that addresses the fundamental need for new refineries. We pledge to you our best efforts to achieve that goal, and we hope that you will accept this offer.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the measure.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5254) to set schedules for the consideration of permits for refineries.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the legislation and insert extraneous material on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we now take up a second bill today to help improve our energy outlook, H.R. 5254, the Refinery Permit Process Schedule Act. Getting new refinery projects sited and permitted is a challenge to energy developers, especially to new market entrants who could offer alternatives to today's overworked refineries.

The plain fact is that our country is losing its ability to refine oil into motor fuel. We are not only importing oil in ever-greater quantities, now we are importing gasoline by the shipload, too. The threat that we face today is not only to the price but also to the supply.

If you tried to buy gasoline at one of the stations that have run out of gas lately, you will remember the gasoline lines of 1970s. High prices are a hardship, but dry pumps are a disaster. As I pointed out earlier today, at the 7-Eleven station at Glebe Road and Second Street in Arlington, Virginia, when I went by this morning to get some gasoline, there was no gasoline to be had.

My Taurus that I am driving here in Washington is now literally on ``E'' and I hope I have enough to get to a station that has some gasoline later this evening when Congress recesses for the day.

The last American refinery to be built from scratch in this country was over 30 years ago, and I believe it was in Louisiana. We have shut down more refineries in the last 30 years than we have refineries in operation today in the United States. Most of those are clustered in the gulf coast region, which, as we know because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, are in harm's way if hurricanes continue to batter that part of the country.

Hurricane Katrina has taught us some very bitter lessons. One was do not put too many of your refinery eggs in one basket.

This bill does nothing to dictate new refinery locations. Only developers and local State governments can do that. But it will make certain that the Federal Government does its part to eliminate some of the needless, in my opinion, bureaucratic delay if somebody wants to build a new refinery or expand an existing refinery. And, in my opinion, we need to do that.

We consume about 21 million barrels of refined product in the United States every day. Our refinery capacity located domestically is less than 17 million barrels per day. That is a shortage of 4 million barrels a day in refining capacity for domestic demand for refined products from oil.

Are we trying to take a backseat to environmental protection? Nothing of the sort. Under this bill, while the EPA will be given priority to coordinate and consolidate the permitting process, we are not backing down on one permit that is required at the State or Federal level. The EPA and the Department of Energy under this bill would work together to consolidate and streamline the permitting process so that you can get a decision in a timely fashion.

The bill before us would put all agencies responsible for considering permitting applications for an oil refinery, a coal-to-liquid refinery, or a biofuel refinery, that they would have to sit down at the same table and hammer out a coordinated action schedule. They would put permitting schedules on parallel tracks and instill focus and teamwork in process.

The schedule will appear in the Federal Register for all stakeholders to see; and if an agency drags its feet and throws everyone else off schedule, you can go to court and a court can order to get that particular agency back on track. They cannot tell the agency how to rule, but it can require that they meet the schedule that has been agreed to by all of the other State and Federal agencies that have permitting authority under the current laws.

Public participation will go on exactly as it has in the past. All of the open records requirements will go on exactly as it has in the past. So we are not short-sheeting any environmental protection law under this pending legislation. All we are doing is saying, since we have a situation in the United States of America where we use 21 million barrels of refined products every day and we only have refining capacity for 17, it is about time that we do something to make it possible to build and expand existing refineries in the United States.

It takes a million dollars per thousand barrels of capacity. So we need 4 million barrels of new refinery capacity. That is somewhere between $40 billion and $60 billion. Nobody in their right mind is going to put up that kind of money to expand refinery capacity when it takes as long as 10 years just to get the permit to build or expand existing refinery.

The bill before us will make it possible to get a decision on the permits. The President has asked that we do it within 1 year. The bill before us does not set a 1-year timetable exactly, but we would hope that the consolidation process and the parallel-track process would shorten the permitting window. If we can get it down to a year or 18 months, I think the day would come very soon where we would see companies announcing new refinery projects, which would be good for the public in the form of lower prices.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) manage the rest of the floor time on the majority side.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that this exchange of letters be included in the Record during today's debate on H.R. 5254.

May 3, 2006.

Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.,

Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Sensenbrenner: Thank you for your letter

concerning H.R. 5254, a bill to set schedules for the

consideration of permits for refineries.

I appreciate your willingness not to seek a referral on

H.R. 5254. I agree that your decision to forgo action on the

bill will not prejudice the Committee on the Judiciary with

respect to its jurisdictional prerogatives on this or future

legislation. Further, I recognize your right to request

conferees on those provisions within the Committee on the

Judiciary's jurisdiction should they be the subject of a

House-Senate conference on this or similar legislation.

I will include our exchange of letters in the Congressional

Record during consideration of the bill on the House floor.

Sincerely,

Joe Barton,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, a recent General Accounting Office investigation in 2004, which I am holding in my hand, concluded that gasoline refineries have intentionally limited their capacity to keep gasoline prices high and their profits up.

You did not write this. I did not write this. This is the General Accounting Office. For the consumers, these higher energy costs are a disaster for their pocketbooks and further stagnates our economy.

Now there is a difference here between what your side approaching the problem will do and what our side will do. Question, who is going in the right direction? We have heard that a lot lately.

Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said that we are a 21st- century superpower with a third-world transmission grid. Remember that debate a few years ago on utilities and electricity and who got blamed for it? And then we finally discovered that the industry itself was fooling the market and manipulating the market, and those characters are on trial right now. A 21st-century superpower with a third-world refinery infrastructure, and that is what we have come to.

This refinery legislation, which I will vote against, which is before us right now is an effort to solidify our dependence on fossil fuel. On one side of our mouth, we are saying we are addicted to oil. On the other side of our mouth, we are saying let us build more refineries, make it easier for more refineries to be built so that we can produce gasoline.

You want to streamline the permitting because you want to produce more gasoline from fossil fuel. I must remind you that in a report presented by the Rocky Mountain Institute in 2004, it was very specific: America's energy future is a choice, not our fate. Oil dependence is a problem we need not have, and it is cheaper not to.

When the United States last paid attention to the oil efficiency problem was between 1977 and 1985. Oil use fell 17 percent; gross product went up 27 percent. During those 8 years, oil imports fell 50 percent and imports from the Persian Gulf fell by 87 percent. That exercise of market muscle broke OPEC's pricing power for a decade.

Look, the other side, in all due respect, you have made your bed. You have got to lie in it now. And you are trying to get out of it, but you are doing it in the wrong way. This bill does nothing to increase refinery capacity in the first place, and it certainly does not help in lowering gas prices.

We have done a disservice to the American people, and we only confuse the issue. We are either addicted to oil or we are not. And if we are, let us go in a different direction. Please join us.

Call it what you will: price-gouging, profiteering, or simple old fashioned greed.

Oil companies have the greatest corporate profits in history, yet they were able to stiff taxpayers over $7 billion in royalties that they owe us for drilling on public lands. But the jig is finally up.

Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, whether you believe collusion is the cause of the high gas prices or not.

No matter how you define it, what we have witnessed in the past several months is the looting of the American public.

And don't take my word for it--a recent report by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights found that corporate markups are primarily responsible for price spikes, not crude oil costs or the national switchover to ethanol, as the industry has claimed.

In this crisis, we hear echoes of Enron--hotshot oilmen departing their companies with golden parachutes, while average Americans live on the edge, some so desperate they are intentionally breaking down on highways to receive a free tank of gas.

President Bush and the leadership in Congress don't have dismal approval ratings merely because they don't have skilled public relations flaks.

They have dismal approval ratings because the vast majority of Americans recognize that something has gone very wrong in this country.

Despite the recent political posturing, the Administration has dedicated its time in office to protecting the oil industry from any restrictions or oversight at all--and that is what has led us to where we are today.

We need to get serious about this issue. We cannot just clamor for change when gas prices

are high, and return to a passive stupor if prices settle down again.

Remember, this is not only about our pocketbooks.

Americans have come to believe that we have fought one war too many in the Persian Gulf--at least partially to ensure a continuous supply of foreign oil.

Now is the time for leadership to get us started down the path of real energy independence.

Let us live up to our responsibility today--let's reign in the bloated oil companies and protect the public from economic catastrophe.

Let us invest in far-sighted renewable energy and conservation programs, so that we will never again sacrifice our precious blood and treasure to slake this terrible thirst for Middle Eastern oil.

Mr. Speaker, the Refinery Permit Process Schedule Act sends the right message--more refinery capacity in this country is a good thing.

Unfortunately this legislation did not follow the Committee process, since the House leadership is struggling to appear like they are doing something about gas prices, which they know are beyond their control.

As a result, this legislation probably could be improved with hearings, amendment, and more careful consideration.

However, I will support the legislation because it does not alter or repeal any environmental rule, regulation, or law. The bill would just ensure that permits do not sit on any federal bureaucrat's desk for too long.

That is a worthy goal, and I believe that if Chairman Barton could do this bill his preferred way, then he would have brought this legislation to the Committee for a hearing. But the American people are very angry with energy prices right now, and during these politically- charged times the House often operates differently than it should.

Many Americans and Members of the House are upset that we have not built a new refinery in this country in 25 years. That is true but that is also irrelevant, because it is much cheaper and more efficient to expand existing refineries than to build brand new refineries.

Since 1994, U.S. refiners added 2.1 million barrels of capacity, which is the equivalent of adding a larger than average refinery each year.

Over the next several years, capacity will increase another 1.2 million barrels per day. For example, here are some refinery expansions that have already been announced:

Chevron--80,000 barrels per day at its Pascagoula, MS, refinery.

CITGO in Lake Charles, LA--105,000 barrels per day.

Coffeyville Resources in Kansas--15,000 barrels per day.

Flint Hills Resources in Minnesota--50,000 barrels per day.

Holly Corp. in Artesia, NM--10,000 barrels per day.

Marathon Petroleum--180,000 barrels per day in Garyville, LA, and 26,000 barrels per day in Detroit, MI.

ConocoPhillips will spend $3 billion over four years on refinery expansion, which means tens of thousands of extra barrels per day.

Motiva Enterprises is considering doubling the capacity of its large refinery in Port Arthur, TX.

Sunoco recently announced plans to commit $1.8 billion over the next 3 years, leading to thousands more barrels per day.

Tesoro Petroleum Company will devote $670 million in the next year alone to refining facility expansions.

And the Nation's largest refiner, Valero plans to spend $5 billion to add over 400,000 barrels per day of new capacity nationwide.

So the debate about a lack of new refineries is a red herring. We should really focus on expansion projects, since that is where the action is.

If this legislation fails to gain the required \2/3\ support by the full House, I hope we could revisit this legislation in Committee.