President Obama's Proposed 2012-2017 Offshore Drilling Lease Sale Plan Act

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 6082.

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

Mr. Chairman, under the shadow of the Supreme Court's ruling on ObamaCare, the Obama administration on June 28 quietly announced the President's proposed final offshore drilling plan for 2012-2017.

Despite claims of their being proud of their energy record, the Obama administration deliberately chose to announce their plan on a day when it would get buried in the ObamaCare news coverage. This shows that even this administration is not proud of their plan that would place 85 percent of America's offshore areas off-limits to energy production.

Under section 18 of the Outer Continental Shelf Leasing Act, when any President proposes a new 5-year offshore drilling plan, it must be submitted to Congress for a mandatory 60-day review before it can become final and take effect. That 60-day clock is now ticking. It's now Congress' responsibility to take action and to reject President Obama's no-new-drilling, no-new-jobs plan and to replace it with a robust, responsible plan to safely develop our offshore energy resources.

According to analysis conducted by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Office, the President has proposed fewer leases in his plan than any President since this process began--that goes back to President Jimmy Carter, so it's even worse than President Carter.

President Obama's proposal doesn't open up one new area for leasing and energy production. It would set our Nation's energy production back to the days before 2008 when two moratoria that prohibited drilling of a vast majority of American offshore areas were in place. Both moratoria were lifted after the summer of 2008 due to the outrage of the American people over the cost of $4-per-gallon gasoline, and they demanded that the Federal Government take action. President Obama proposes to effectively reimpose that moratoria.

From nearly the day he took the oath of office, this President has put the brakes on new American energy production and job creation. In the first weeks of this administration, the Interior Department took a nearly complete new offshore lease plan and put it on hold for 6 months, and then they tossed out that draft plan entirely and started over. It took them over 3\1/2\ years to get a new proposed plan in place. And along the way, they delayed and canceled multiple lease sales.

For example, President Obama canceled the Virginia lease sale scheduled for 2011 last year and now refuses to include Virginia in his 2012-2017 plan. He is responsible for closing an entire new area of drilling and cheating the Commonwealth out of thousands of jobs and another industry. If President Obama has his way, Virginia will be left out in the cold in until 2017 at the earliest.

The bill being considered today, H.R. 6082, is entitled the Congressional Replacement of President Obama's Energy-Restricting and Job-Limiting Offshore Drilling Plan. In stark contrast to President Obama's plan, this bill represents a drill-smart plan that includes 29 lease sales and focuses energy production in specific areas containing America's greatest known oil and natural gas resources. What a novel idea: go to where the resources are.

The bill would replace the lease sales scheduled in the President's proposed plan and safely open new areas that were previously under moratoria--such as the Mid-Atlantic, southern Pacific, and the Arctic. It does this while ensuring that necessary and required environmental reviews are conducted.

The congressional replacement plan would generate $600 million in additional revenue and create tens of thousands of new American jobs.

Tomorrow there will be a direct up-or-down vote on the President's proposed plan when we consider, under suspension, H.R. 6168. There will also, obviously, be a direct up-or-down vote on this legislation. So Members can decide if the President's plan meets the standards expected by the American people or if we should replace it with a real plan that creates jobs and grows our economy.

The House has taken action to replace the President's proposed plan,

and I call on the Senate to do the same. If the Senate does nothing and lets the 60-day clock run out, that is an endorsement of the President's plan. It is an endorsement of the plan that reimposes the drilling moratoria, creates no new jobs and no new energy.

I believe that we can do better than this proposed plan, and our Nation deserves better. By passing this bill, we are standing up for American energy and American jobs and moving our country forward.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Before I yield to the gentleman from Colorado, I'll yield myself 30 seconds to simply point out to my good friend from Massachusetts that in response to his answer on how many bills this House has addressed on renewables, the gentleman said zero, and that is incorrect.

There have been multiple bills and parts of bills dealing with the process of putting wind and solar in place, specifically on public lands, so I just wanted to correct the gentleman in that regard.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado, (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana, a member of the Natural Resources Committee and a subcommittee chairman, Dr. Fleming.

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to another member of the Natural Resources Committee and a subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to another member of the Natural Resources Committee, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).

Mr. Chair, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana, Dr. Boustany.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from a coastal State, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Nunnelee).

Mr. Chairman, I would tell my friend from Massachusetts, I have one other request for time and then myself to close.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt).

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

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

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say why we are here today. We are here today because the President submitted his plan. It was late. His 5-year plan is supposed to go through a 60-day review here in the Congress. We are here to offer an alternative to that plan because that plan locks up 85 percent of the potential resources in this country. We offer this plan because we have heard loud and clear from the American people that it is in our best interest to be less dependent on foreign energy. And in the process of creating American energy, we obviously create American jobs. That, to me, is a win/win situation.

Now, let me respond to some of the arguments that have been made on the other side, and I want to point out specifically the bills.

The charge was made that the Republican-led House has not taken up any bills dealing with renewable energy. In fact, the observation was that there were no bills. In fact, there have been several bills, and there are three bills that have passed the House. Now, some of my friends on the other side of the aisle may not like it, but the fact is that they've passed.

The first one is H.R. 4402. It passed on a bipartisan basis in July. H.R. 3408, it too passed on a bipartisan basis in February. And H.R. 4480, it too passed on a bipartisan basis in June. So Republicans have repeatedly said that we are in favor of an all-of-the-above energy plan, and this, of course, confirms that belief.

Now, I want to make an observation to part of the debate here that we are giving away something. I'm trying to think of an analogy on how to describe that, and the best I can come up with is if one has an asset, the Federal Government has an asset of having control over the Outer Continental Shelf, and somebody wants to use that asset where there may be some opportunity to grow the economy or create jobs, or what have you, that seems to me to be a positive step rather than a giveaway.

In fact, I think about the private landowners in North Dakota or maybe the State of North Dakota, because the same people, Big Oil, that are being beat up here on the floor here in debate went to North Dakota. They talked to the State and they talked to the private landowners. They said, You may have some assets that we would like to see if maybe there is some energy development available, very similar to what's available on the Outer Continental Shelf. So they made an agreement, I'll pay you, the landowner, some money if you let me look. And if there is something there, I'll pay you with what comes out of the ground.

Now, this is exactly the same process we're going through here, except we're dealing with the Outer Continental Shelf. Now, who is the beneficiary of that? Well, the beneficiary, in part, obviously, is the Federal Government because they get money for the leases and they'll get royalty payments. And I might point out, by the way, Mr. Chairman, the second largest source of income to the Federal Government after the income tax comes from leases and royalties. So there clearly is a benefit to the American people in that regard.

So when this is characterized as a giveaway when supposedly what is being given away is paid for, it does not, in my mind, pass the straight-face test.

Lastly, we hear the arguments, specifically from my good friend from Virginia (Mr. Moran) saying this bill is going nowhere in the other body. Well, I would remind my good friend that the two Senators from his home State of Virginia are Democrats, and they are in support of drilling off the coast of Virginia, which, of course, this bill embodies. So if maybe they could whisper into the majority leader's ear and get some action on it, then this bill, indeed, could move through the Senate, as I suspect it will move through the House, on a bipartisan basis in the same light.

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I think this bill is a very good bill. I urge its adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I will just take a few seconds here.

This amendment is very simple. It makes two small technical corrections to the way the plan is referred to in the bill, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

The amendment prioritizes bureaucracy over responsibly increasing energy production and job creation. This amendment would strike the section of the bill requiring that an environmental impact statement be conducted prior to any leasing in lease sale areas.

The gentleman takes issue with the manner in which the environmental impact statement is required to be conducted. However, what he fails to mention is that the administration is required to do yet another environmental review prior to each lease sale and additional reviews on each lease block as a part of the leasing process, and then each exploration plan has additional environmental work. So, in effect, all of the areas in the underlying bill will be studied and then restudied for the effect that any activity will have on the environment.

Not only that, Mr. Chairman, but all of these lease sales will still be subject to the many different laws that still impact the offshore leasing process, such as the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Fishing Enhancement Act, to name a few.

The truth of the matter is that this bill doesn't harm the environment. It goes an extra mile in requiring a multiple-sale EIS on all of the lease areas, while also ensuring that leasing does occur, although that leasing is still subject to all the environmental protection laws that are on the books.

Support for offshore energy development does not mean that you cannot also respect the range of different environmental needs based on lease area.

Mr. Chairman, I don't think anybody in the country does not want to drill safely and responsibly. I know I certainly don't, and I know Members on my side of the aisle don't. So I encourage my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I understand the gentleman has yielded back his time. I will yield back my time and urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Will the gentlelady yield?

I thank the gentlelady for yielding. And I want to congratulate her on her amendment because I think this is a responsible approach that we are trying to take.

One of the reasons why California is so important, I think as the gentlelady knows, is that there are geologists that say that there are over 1.5 million potential barrels of oil off the shore. That should be important to Californians because not too long ago you were producing 50 percent of your oil production, now it's down to 38 percent. What we say, obviously, in this legislation is that it should be done from platforms on land.

So I thank the gentlelady for her amendment. I think it's a responsible approach, and I think it adds to this legislation. And I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I'm very happy to see that the gentleman understands that America needs oil and natural gas. That was a very good statement on his part. We would prefer to see more domestic production of this necessary commodity rather than importing it from foreign countries. I think we're making progress in that regard, Mr. Chairman.

The good news is this is already law, what the gentleman is trying to address. Title 43, chapter 29, section 1534 of the U.S. Code specifically prevents the export of both oil or gas produced from the Outer Continental Shelf unless the President finds that it is, one, in the national interest; two, will not increase our reliance on natural gas; and, three, that it is in accordance with the Export Administration Act, which puts further regulations on exports.

Now, the House has said repeatedly that increased energy production on Federal lands is in the national interest. So I suppose the gentleman could say there is some wiggle room there.

But, nevertheless, this amendment had failed in committee last week, it has failed on the House floor on many occasions because of this protection that's already in law. So I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have no more requests for time, and I understand I have the right to close, so I will reserve my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that this law has been on the books since 1940. Now, in 1940, there was a whole lot of unrest in the world just prior to the Second World War, and in the wisdom, apparently, of the Congress of that time, they said that energy production from the Outer Continental Shelf, which I might add, was probably not as robust as it is today, there are only certain conditions that you would export what comes off. And as I listed those things before, I think they're important.

That law was a good law then. It's a good law now. This amendment adds absolutely nothing to that whatsoever.

So, Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, let's be very frank about this. This amendment won't increase safety, but it will add red tape to the leasing process and open new avenues for lawsuits to interfere with the process of creating American energy and creating American jobs.

The types of safety measures identified in the amendment are already in place, and they are already enforceable. On multiple occasions, the Obama administration has testified that offshore drilling operations are being conducted safely.

With this amendment, the minority continues to try to divert attention away from the real issue of increasing energy production, American energy production, creating jobs, American jobs, lowering energy costs, and improving our national security, all doing that because, potentially, we lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

So it seems that my friends on the other side of the aisle simply do not want to face the fact that this bill says we can move forward with a robust and responsible program of oil and gas development, while, at the same time, ensuring that increased safety measures are undertaken. These are not, nor should they be mutually exclusive goals.

Right now, we have two choices before us. Tomorrow, when we vote on this, and the suspension that will be before us, we can choose to endorse the President's energy plan to hold 15 sales in five areas in the OCS, or we can support this bill before us, which will have nearly double, 29 sales, in over double the areas, 11 areas.

Both options will ensure that the drilling is done safely. Both options will ensure that our environment is protected. But only one option follows through on the promise made to the American people when the moratoria was lifted.

The American people clearly want our Nation to harness our energy resources. But the President's energy plan takes 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf and makes it off-limits.

This amendment, I should add, has failed when it was offered on this floor last February, and it also failed when it was offered in committee last week. So I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

If the gentleman is prepared to yield back, I will do the same.

I am the last speaker on my side, so you do what you have to do, and I will respond accordingly.

I yield myself the balance of the time.

Okay. Let's say it again: The gentleman's remarks would imply that, because there is increased oil production in this country, it's due to the actions of this administration.

Nothing, Mr. Chairman, could be further from the truth, because it takes a while to go through the process of leasing and developing potential resources before you drill, and even then you don't know until you drill.

All of that process started prior to this administration's taking office. It happened in the Bush administration, and as a matter of fact, it happened in the Clinton administration. That's where the increased production, in large part, came from. Even that isn't entirely true, because the increased production of American oil is really coming from State and private lands, not from Federal lands. In fact, over the last 2 years, Federal lands production has been down under this administration. It is principally because of North Dakota and West Texas that we are finding more production of American energy.

By the way, Mr. Chairman, I think that's good--but why should we ignore the potential resources that we have on Federal lands and not allow that to produce our American energy?

This amendment really does not help that process. All it does is add red tape to the process, so I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to this amendment.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this is yet another attempt to legislate a decision that was made during the Clinton administration. The constant attempt to renegotiate contracts that were signed, sealed, and delivered under the Clinton administration is in violation of contract law. That should be very, very basic, it would seem to me, if, indeed, we are a Nation of laws.

The U.S. Supreme Court found that the Interior Department did not have the authority to go back and insert price thresholds on these leases. The Department lost this issue in district court, in the appellate court, and they lost it in the Supreme Court. If this amendment were to pass, the issue would most certainly be challenged in court where, undoubtedly, the Department would again lose after having spent taxpayer dollars to defend the indefensible.

Ultimately, this amendment seeks to force U.S. companies to break a contract negotiated under government law. Now, some would say it's a bad contract. Maybe it was. I'm not going to second-guess what the Clinton administration did--but, in fact, they signed that contract law. This amendment has repeatedly failed on the House floor, and I hope it fails again. I urge its opposition.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

If the intent of this amendment, as the gentleman says, is just to say that companies aren't forced to, but could renegotiate their contracts, I would say they could do that right now. Anybody that enters into a contract is free--if both parties want to--to renegotiate a contract. Nothing prevents them from doing so. But to have the heavy hand of government say in the future that ``if you don't do this,'' I think is a step too darn far. I think that that is really the wrong way to go. That's the last thing that we need, is saying a condition of leasing or doing business with the government is that you have to retroactively go back and change a contract. That would have a chilling effect, Mr. Chairman.

Again, I don't know why the Clinton administration signed these contracts. Who knows? But to add this, where do you stop then? Where do you stop with all of the Federal contracts that could be not only in energy production, but anything else? This is a very bad amendment. It's a very bad precedent, and I urge my colleagues to reject it.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

In deference to my good friend from Florida, I really believe that this is a political amendment that would simply require companies seeking to drill offshore to estimate the impact that increased oil and gas production would have on gasoline prices. This bill is about increasing American domestic energy production. It's about reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It's about creating American jobs and creating American energy.

Simply put, requiring producers to estimate the impact that each and every well has on global markets is nothing more than a bureaucratic paperwork nightmare that would be put on those that would want to go and drill offshore and a delaying tactic by those that are opposed to offshore development. I don't think this is a good amendment. As I said in deference to my good friend from Florida, I really believe that this is a political amendment.

With that, I urge rejection of the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding and say that if you run out of time, I will claim the time.

First, I do not deny that, except the figures that you're using aren't quite accurate; I will say that in the sense that the 2 percent you're talking about is known reserves.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

The 2 percent figure that you are using is the known reserves. The potential resources that we have are much, much greater than that. And really, when you are looking at potential future energy production in this country, you look at the potential resources, not the known reserves. There's a big, big difference. Two percent is reserve.

So I will acknowledge that while we have 2 percent right now, our potential resources are much, much larger.

And I will yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, what the gentleman is talking about is lease sales. Somebody has made an investment. They do not know if that area has any oil or natural gas. They don't know. They will go through all the studies. They'll spend millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars finding out if there is something there. Then, if they think there is, they will drill, costing that much more.

Now, I might add, with these lease sales, there is a set time. The Federal

Government gets money from these lease sales. Why would somebody give the money to the Federal Government if they didn't think there was something there? And, by the way, many times these leases come up empty and the company walks away and the only revenue goes to the Federal Government.

But let me speak to one other area of the amendment, because what the gentleman is really saying with this amendment is he is asking somebody that produces a crude product to estimate the price of a finished product. That's like telling an apple grower in my part of the country that, if he or she is to sell apples overseas, what's the price of applesauce going to be down the line? Now, it doesn't make any sense to do that. Now, whether the gentleman purposely did that or not, I don't know. But in any case, I don't believe that the amendment ought to be adopted for other reasons, but certainly for that one.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

In many respects, Mr. Chairman, we just had this debate. And again, with deference to my good friend from Florida, I think this is another political amendment because what it will do is require companies seeking to drill offshore to estimate the potential impact produced by oil and natural gas production, what impact that would have on climate change. Not only that, you would have to do it on a well-by-well basis.

Mr. Chairman, in all honesty, some sort of requirement like that would simply dry up anybody wanting to drill offshore or utilize our resources offshore. Now, if that's what the gentleman wants, then okay, that's a good concession; but, if not, it simply does not make any sense.

But from a practical standpoint--and I think this is very important, Mr. Chairman--if the issue--and there is some debate about this, no question. But if the issue of producing oil and natural gas will affect the climate, and we, as a country, probably have the most stringent environmental laws on our air quality and water quality, why would we put this extra burden on us when it wouldn't happen in other parts of the world?

But the net effect of this, if it were to become law, would be to drive everybody from America.

So the net effect, if the issue--now, if the issue is really to protect the environment and protect the air, why would you drive it to areas that have less stringent environmental laws? Yet that would be the practical effect if this amendment were to become law.

Like I said, we've been over this before. It puts extraordinary burdens on individual wells and individual producers. And as I mentioned, in deference to my friend, I think it is a political amendment.

I urge rejection, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Well, I, too, am shocked; but I'm glad we got that out of the way. Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned, this bill is a bill that addresses American energy and American jobs and, therefore, has a positive effect--potential positive effect--on our economy.

This amendment adds nothing to that. As a matter of fact, I think it's an impediment to this bill becoming law if it were to be adopted. And if I could think of some sorts of things to say regarding oranges, I would say it; but I'm totally at a loss. So I will simply say that this amendment does not deserve support, I urge its rejection, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to welcome everyone back to yet another episode of the GOP Wheel of Giveaway game show here. Every week on the floor of the House of Representatives, the majority picks an industry to benefit from giveaways of our public lands.

One month ago, the Republican majority voted to turn over nearly all of our onshore public lands to the oil and gas industry in just a few short years.

Two weeks ago, the majority voted to eviscerate proper environmental review for massive gold and silver and uranium mines on public lands to benefit the mining industry. And here we are on the House floor once again debating a Republican bill from the Natural Resources Committee intended to hand out even more industry giveaways.

Well, it actually gets hard to keep track of which industry is getting the GOP giveaway each week, so let's consult our chart--the GOP Wheel of Giveaways--so that we can make sure that everyone at home can follow along to see whether it will be the oil, the gas, the mining, or the timber industries that will be the big winner in the giveaway of our public lands this week.

Of course, we all know that it won't be the solar or the wind industries benefiting from the Republicans because in the Republican ``oil above all'' game, if you land on renewable energy, you lose a turn. So which industry is getting the giveaway this week? We are back on the ``even more oil'' on the House floor today, even more oil giveaways.

H.R. 6082 would place drill rigs right off our beaches in southern California, off our beaches in Maine, in New Hampshire, in Massachusetts, in Rhode Island, in Connecticut, in New York, in New Jersey--just put the drills right out there, right off the Maryland coast. And by the way, there will be millions of people, of course, out on those beaches saying get those oil rigs off the beaches, off the places where people go and have a good time during the summer, where the fishing industry is.

My amendment will say, and by the way, if you do find any oil and gas out there, at least let's keep the oil and gas here in the United States. Let's not run the risk of spoiling the natural resources of our country--the beaches, the fishing areas--finding natural gas and then ship it to other countries; at least let's keep it here. And the Republicans are going to oppose keeping the natural gas that they would find off these beaches in California and Maine and Massachusetts and New Jersey and send it to other countries.

This is truly the ``even more oil'' Republican Party. Whatever ExxonMobile wants, whatever Shell wants, whatever BP wants, we'll do it, even if we know millions of people will just be protesting right from the very beginning--and by the way, without passing one of the reforms from the BP spill commission to make sure that the drilling occurs in a safe fashion.

They still, in 2 years, have yet to bring out one single safety reform that would implement safeguards to protect against the repetition of what happened in the Gulf of Mexico. So the natural gas that's found can go overseas. It will be done in a risky fashion because they refuse to learn the lessons of BP in the Gulf of Mexico, and they've included no new safety measures. That's what ExxonMobil wants, that's what BP wants, so it's out here on the House floor to be voted upon, by the way, over the vigorous objection of this Democrat and Democrats all across the country.

This Congress, the Republican majority, has reported 11 drilling bills out of the Natural Resources Committee. Those 11 bills have been combined and brought to the House floor and this is now the sixth massive passage of giveaways to Big Oil that we have considered. Two of those bills were largely similar to the legislation we are considering today to dramatically expand offshore drilling without putting any new safety measures in place.

All of the previous drilling bills have suffered from the same fate. They were all far too extreme to pass the Senate and not a single one of them has been signed into law. Well, let me let everyone in on a little secret: this bill is also not becoming law. Like the bills before it, it can't pass the Senate, and the administration has already said that the President would veto this bill.

But that reality hasn't stopped the Republican House from passing giveaways to the oil and gas industry over and over again. The reason they keep passing them is the same reason when you go to a movie and you see previews of coming attractions. What they're saying here is we're passing, that is, Republicans are passing, all of this legislation for the oil companies to drill off our beaches for the big oil companies. And if just somehow or other Mitt Romney becomes President and the Republicans take over the Senate, this will become the law of the Nation. So they see this as a preview of coming attractions, and they want the public to know that that will happen.

They want to run this year on this premise, and I think that's great. It's a very honest way of dealing with something that will horrify people who live all along the coastlines in these States that would run the risk of having damage done to their beaches.

When you include all of the bills that have been reported by all of the committees altogether, this Republican House has already cast 139 votes--139 votes--on the House floor this Congress to benefit the oil and gas industry.

We are going to pass 90 hours of debate on the floor on oil and gas legislation this Congress just today. What a streak. When most people think of the great records of American history, they might think of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, or Cal Ripkin's 2,362 consecutive games, or maybe Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in a basketball game, or Ted Williams hitting .406 in 1941.

But when all is said and done, the record of this Republican Congress voting to benefit Big Oil might be just as untouchable a record. With already 139 votes and nearly 90 hours of debate on these giveaways to the oil industry on the House floor, this is a once-in-a-generation performance by this Republican Congress. It may stand as a record that can never be broken by any other Congress in terms of the number of giveaways to the oil and gas industry.

Whether it's voting 33 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or voting again and again for more and more drilling, under the GOP, this isn't the House of Representatives, it's the House of Repetition. President Truman dubbed the 80th Congress the ``do nothing'' Congress. Well, this is apparently the ``do the same thing over and over and over again'' Congress.

The Republican majority has already cast 139 votes to aid the oil and gas industry. How many votes have they cast to benefit the wind and the solar industry? Ah, there's a good question. Well, the answer is zero-- 139 for oil and gas, zero for the wind and solar industry. Is that all you really need to know about what's going on here in Congress?

Can you imagine the millennials out there listening to this debate saying zero for wind and solar? Zero for the future? Zero for making our country more of the clean energy leader of the world, of reducing greenhouse gases, of creating jobs in these industries? Zero for wind and solar?

The wind tax breaks, by the way, are expiring this year. Do not expect that to come out on the House floor as a vote that the Republicans say we must extend. But tax breaks for oil companies, extra drilling privileges off our beaches for the oil and gas companies? Oh, yeah, plenty of votes for that.

While we have been spending 90 hours debating legislation to help Big Oil, recently the majority wouldn't even allow a debate on the floor on an amendment to create a renewable electricity standard for our Nation because the Republican energy policy isn't ``all of the above.'' It is ``oil above all.'' And

that's what we're going to be debating for the rest of the day out here on the House floor--sad to say for the future of renewable energy for our country.

At this point, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am the final speaker on our side. If the gentleman from Washington State is ready to conclude debate, so are we in the minority.

Then, Mr. Chairman, I will reserve the balance of my time.

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

This is a very simple debate to understand. The Republicans want to authorize drilling for oil and gas off of the coastlines of southern California, Maine and New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, and New Jersey. Those States do not want that. They long ago decided the risks were too great for their beaches and for their fishing industries. They do not want it.

But it also is in the context of this Republican aversion, this Republican opposition to wind and solar and other renewables receiving the same attention as oil and natural gas does. And the important thing about wind and solar is that they would be domestically produced 100 percent. The same is true, by the way, you would think, for natural gas. Let's just say they find some off the coast of Massachusetts or off the coast of New Jersey; that would be great. But what the Republicans refuse to agree to is that that natural gas, after we've drilled off of our beaches, cannot be exported to other countries. And the reason that's important is we could use that natural gas and substitute it for the oil that we import from the Persian Gulf, but they won't agree to do that.

So the one thing that definitely has to be produced here is wind and solar because it has to be domestic. Natural gas, though, you can put it in a ship and you can send it around the world. You can freeze it like liquefied natural gas. And they won't agree not to do that as part of this package of running the risk of fouling the beaches of the east coast and the west coast.

There is just something fundamentally wrong with this; nothing for wind and solar, everything for the oil industry, including their discretion to then take the oil and gas that's discovered off our beaches and selling it overseas.

So this is just wrong on so many levels in terms of what we should be doing to protect our own country, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman.

The minority has no objection to the amendment by the gentleman, and we urge support of it.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order under the rule.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very, very simple. It ensures that the natural gas produced under the leases issued under this legislation is sold in America. We're talking about the public lands of the United States, the taxpayer-owned lands of the United States. These are the American people's lands off of Massachusetts, off of New York, off of New Jersey, off of California that are being leased under this bill. The very least we should be able to tell the American people is that they are actually going to see a benefit from any oil or gas produced from these lands.

We should be able to tell Americans that we are keeping the natural gas produced on their public lands here in America to keep prices low for Americans here in the United States, and we're going to find ways of putting that natural gas into trucks, into buses, into cars so that we can stop importing oil from dangerous parts of the world.

We should be able to tell Americans that we're keeping the natural gas here so that we can create more American jobs in manufacturing plastics, fertilizer, chemicals, and steel; and that we tell those countries in the Middle East we don't need your oil any more than we need your sand because we have natural gas here in America. That's all that my amendment would do, send a strong signal to the OPEC nations.

Current law does not allow for the exportation of our crude oil, and it shouldn't allow for the exportation of our natural gas either. My amendment would ensure that no waivers can be granted, no permits can be issued to export natural gas produced from the public land of the United States to other countries when we're still importing oil from OPEC. How much sense does that make that we find natural gas and start to sell it to other countries, even as OPEC continues to tip us upside down and shake money out of our pockets at the pump?

So I'm going to reserve the balance of my time at this point and continue my argument in a few minutes.

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

The Department of Energy right now has applications from 15 companies to export 28 percent of our current natural gas consumption in the United States.

Let me be very clear: exporting our natural gas will increase American energy prices. No economist or energy analyst disagrees. Why would we find natural gas here and then start selling it around the world? It would increase the price here. In fact, exporting far less than what is currently being proposed could send domestic natural gas prices skyrocketing by 54 percent.

Let me just let everyone out there know right now, we are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. We are, right now, the lowest natural gas price in the world. In the United States, it's only $2.40, $2.50 in Mcf. In Japan, in Korea, in China, it's seven times higher. In Europe, it's four times higher. So if you're a manufacturer, if you're a company thinking about moving your trucking or your bus fleet to natural gas as opposed to oil and you're in these other countries, it's difficult for you to do it.

It's time for the United States to figure out how to do this. We have this incredible bonanza. Now they're proposing to drill off the coastline of Massachusetts, off New York, off southern California to find more natural gas. And what are they saying? Let's export it. Well, you're going to export the cheapest natural gas in the world.

Do you know what T. Boone Pickens says about this? ``If we do it, if we export natural gas, we're truly going to go down as America's dumbest generation. It's bad public policy to export natural gas.''

This is T. Boone Pickens. This is Ed Markey. This is a coalition that spans the entire spectrum of political thought, but we do agree on this one thing. Why would we take our most precious natural resource and sell it to other countries, when it gives us a massive competitive advantage?

So I'm going to reserve the balance of my time to conclude debate, but this is a nonsensical policy.

How much time is remaining on either side, Mr. Chairman?

Fifteen seconds.

We drill for natural gas off of our beaches, our pristine beaches and we find it, we take the risk, those States take their risk, that natural gas should stay here in America. ExxonMobil shouldn't be able to pack it up and sell it to China, sell it to South America. That natural gas should stay here in America if it's found off of our beaches. That's what the Markey amendment calls for.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, the independent blue ribbon BP Spill Commission--and this is their comprehensive compendium of what went wrong and what needs to be done in order to correct what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst environmental disaster in the history of our country--concluded that there were systemic problems that occurred in the entire industry.

The Commission recommended sweeping reforms to improve the safety of offshore drilling. Yet, this Congress has still not enacted a single legislative reform and, as a result, the BP Spill Commission recently gave Congress a D, this Republican Congress, on its legislative response, and only refrained from handing out an F because it said it didn't want to insult the institution.

My amendment would simply ensure that we put into the statute specific minimal safety requirements for blowout preventers, cementing, and the casing of offshore wells. My amendment would ensure that if we are going to expand drilling off of States like Massachusetts and New York and New Jersey and Maryland and California, that we put additional safety requirements on the books to ensure that a Romney administration or any other future administration cannot simply roll back the Interior Department reforms.

We don't want a Louisiana mess off of the coast of Massachusetts, off of the coast of southern California. We want the safety reforms that the BP Spill Commission recommended be put in place so there is no recurrence.

The Republicans are saying they want to drill off of the coast of these States that don't want the drilling. The least that they should do is build in the safety reforms.

And just today, the Chemical Safety Board released its report on the disaster. The Chemical Safety Board reached many of the same conclusions as the BP Spill Commission. The government's joint investigative team and the National Academy of Engineering said that this disaster was not inevitable, that it was preventable.

This majority has said they wanted to wait until all the facts were in before taking action on safety legislation. Well, the time has now come. We now have two blue ribbon reports, each reaching the same conclusions. It is long past time for the Congress to take the lessons of the BP spill and turn them into laws, so that we never have a disaster like this again.

I'm afraid of what the majority is contemplating here, which is authorizing the drilling off the coasts of the

East and the West in our country without building in the safety reforms. If ever there is a recipe for disaster, ruining the fishing, ruining the tourism business for these States that don't want the drilling in the first place because their economies are not based upon the same premise as the Louisiana and Texas economy, then this is that recipe. This is what we're voting on here today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I ask the Chair to recapitulate the exact time that the majority and minority still have remaining for this debate?

Does the gentleman have any other speakers?

I am prepared to give my convincing concluding presentation to the House floor.

I thank the gentleman very much.

I yield myself my remaining time.

Again, just for the record, Republicans can say this as much as they want, but I have to repeat:

(1) When President Obama was sworn in, 57 percent of our oil was imported. Today, only 45 percent of our oil is imported-- congratulations, President Obama--no matter how many times the Republicans want to cover that over.

(2) Seventy-five percent of all of the oil and gas reserves offshore have been made available by the Obama administration for drilling.

(3) We in the United States are at an 18-year high in drilling.

Now, the Republicans have a problem with this because the 18-year high in drilling, the reduction from 57 percent of imports down to 45 percent of imports and the fact that 75 percent of all areas off the shores of our country are open for drilling run totally contrary to everything that they believe--to everything that they want America to believe, it is better to be said--because if the American people actually believed the truth, which is that Obama has reduced our imported oil from 57 percent down to 45 percent, reduced our dependence upon imported oil and increased our drilling to the highest point in 18 years, then their whole narrative just goes right down the drain. They have to keep getting up as though Bush were the right guy, but he did nothing.

All we're saying is, if you are so desperate to actually license all of this new drilling off of the beaches of our States, at least build in the safety precautions, which is what the Markey amendment calls for, which will prevent another mess like the BP Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First, I would like to address a point that the chairman made as he attempted to correct Mr. Markey and said that there have been a number of wind energy bills considered. I think we would gladly count those votes in the column of gutting the national environmental protection act, but wind, no. The wind industry did not support any of those bills that he was talking about or amendments. They are not wind legislation. They are environmental spoilage legislation.

Mr. Chairman, this Republican bill would allow drilling off the coast of every State in the east coast, from Maine to South Carolina, and off of California and in Bristol Bay, off of Alaska, which is, I might add, one of our Nation's most important salmon fisheries. By reviving long dead lease sales in these fishery areas, they would be reviving sales that the Bush administration issued just 4 days before they left office.

Now, it's interesting that tomorrow we will consider Republican legislation on this floor that is intended to prohibit midnight regulations, yet, today, we have a midnight drilling lease sale. They are, in effect, trying to reinstate the Bush administration's midnight offshore leasing plan. So I just want my colleagues on the other side to know that tomorrow, when we are talking about midnight regulations, that they were actually talking about it a day in advance.

The other side has also made the point that the administration's offshore drilling plan would reinstate a moratorium. Quite the opposite. Mr. Chairman, the Obama administration's offshore drilling plan already, now, makes more than 75 percent of our oil and gas resources available for drilling. They are not doing what the Republicans are saying they are doing.

Two months ago, industry analysts were projecting that, by the end of this year, we would have 50 percent more floating rigs operating in the gulf than before the BP spill. It turns out they were wrong. Not by the end of this year. It's already happened. We have about 50 percent more rigs operating in the gulf today. We have more rigs operating in the United States than in the rest of the world combined.

And they're saying the President is trying to kill the oil industry.

H.R. 6082 ignores the fact that President Obama's all-of-the-above energy strategy has successfully reduced our dependence on foreign oil from 57 percent in the last year of the Bush administration to only 45 percent today. It ignores the fact that our oil production is at an 18- year high.

It does raise the question of why we have this legislation in front of us at all if not to maybe embarrass the President. But, no, the President will not be embarrassed by the facts, and I hope we will deal with the facts here.

This legislation is unnecessary and unwise--unnecessary because the drilling is taking place, and unwise because the other side wants to strike all of the environmental protections that, rather than weakened, should be strengthened.

Later we will be considering an amendment that I will offer to strike the language from the underlying bill that requires the Department of the Interior to conduct a single multisale environmental impact statement for all new areas opened for drilling.

You may recall, Mr. Chairman, I said a moment ago that this legislation talks about drilling from Maine to South Carolina, off California and in Alaska. And they propose to say a single environmental impact statement will deal with that? Well, that's like the environmental impact statement that applied to the BP drilling in the gulf that talked about walruses. Yes, because they were using the same environmental impact statement that they had used in Alaska previously.

No, the protection of the environment requires a little more attention than that. Congress has a responsibility to the American people to ensure that offshore oil and gas drilling is occurring in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.

Also, later, we will be considering an amendment that I will offer that has to do with the royalties that will be collected--or should be collected--from offshore drilling.

The Big Five oil companies made a record profit of $137 billion last year. In the first quarter of this year, they continued to capitalize on the pain of Americans at the pump, raking in $368 million in profits per day. And this legislation that is brought to the floor by the Republicans here wants to allow them to drill in many places without paying any royalties, without paying a fee to the taxpayers for the oil that the taxpayers own.

Right now, more than 25 percent of all oil produced offshore on Federal lands is produced without paying a penny of royalty. That should be changed.

My constituents--and I think the constituents of any Member of this House--would say it's only fair that these oil companies pay for what they use.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, in 1969, many in America encountered the phrase ``oil spill'' for the first time. Off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, there was what has now become the granddaddy of oil spills.

Currently representing that area and those beaches is our good colleague. I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko), who is a new member of the committee, but who is one of the most energetic and informed members of the committee and passionate about preserving a healthful environment.

Mr. Chair, before the gentleman begins, may I ask the time remaining on each side?

At this time, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), who, on the Appropriations Committee and Interior Appropriations, is a champion for the environment.

May I inquire of the time remaining, Mr. Chair?

I would now like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Keating) who represents one of the areas that would be affected by offshore drilling, should this go forward.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment is simple:

``On page 5, line 22, strike section 6.''

This amendment strikes language from the bill that requires the Interior Department to conduct a single multisale environmental impact statement for all of the new areas that would be opened under this bill.

Now, it's not going to happen. We are not going to see this into law. I'm sure this bill is not going anywhere. But if it were, it would be an environmental disaster.

The notion that one environmental analysis would be sufficient for lease sales in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, and Bristol Bay in Alaska is simply absurd. These are very different environments. The steps that would be taken to prepare for drilling would be different in each one. The steps that would be taken during drilling would be different in each one. The steps that would be taken to prepare against an accident would be different in each one, and the steps for a cleanup would be different in each one. In fact, it would be hard to imagine three environments that could be more different. Even along the Atlantic coast from South Carolina to Massachusetts there are differences.

Congress has a responsibility to the American people to ensure that offshore drilling for gas and oil is occurring in a safe and environmentally responsible manner. It's been over 2 years since the worst environmental oil disaster in American history, the BP oil spill, and Congress has yet to enact a single legislative reform.

This committee, instead of doing a bill that--seems to be motivated to try to embarrass the President, I guess, based on a false premise that the President is interfering with the oil industry. They should actually be trying to put in place corrections that have been pointed out that are needed following the knowledge we've learned from the BP oil spill. The independent BP Spill Commission gave Congress a grade of ``D'' for a legislative response.

Now, the Republican majority has said they wanted to wait until all the facts were in before taking action to respond to the gulf spill. Well, the time has come. We've heard from the independent BP Spill Commission, Mr. Chairman; we've heard from the government's joint investigative team, Mr. Chairman; and those reports reached similar conclusions: The BP disaster was preventible, not inevitable. Those reports concluded that corners were cut, bad decisions were made, and stronger safety standards could have helped, in fact, could have prevented the disaster.

In fact, just today, the United States Chemical Safety Board issued its first report on the BP oil spill disaster and found that, when BP looked at offshore operations, it ``focused on financial risks, not process safety risks.''

So that's what we should be doing here today. We should be strengthening the safety, the public health, and the environmental protections instead of saying we're going to drill everywhere and water down the environmental protections.

Here we are considering the 11th drilling bill over the last 18 months. The Republican majority is, once again, seeking to open up vast, vast swaths of America's coastlines to drilling without proper environmental review.

Mandating a single environmental impact analysis for the variety of lease sales included under this legislation is simply insufficient. Truncating environmental review will make drilling less safe, not more safe.

Let me be clear: The authors of H.R. 6082 apparently believe that the Atlantic, the Pacific, and Bristol Bay are similar enough to warrant a single environmental assessment.

An oil spill off the east coast would endanger 200,000 jobs and $12 billion associated with just New Jersey's fishing and tourism industries--and that's not counting the indirect effects as this money flows through our local economies.

Bristol Bay and the North Aleutian Basin form the heart of one of the most productive salmon fisheries on the planet, contributing more than $5 billion every year to our economy, yet the underlying bill opens up these areas to drilling under a truncated environmental review.

My amendment simply strikes the language from the bill that requires a single multisale environmental impact statement and would go a long way toward protecting the environment.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

If the majority Republicans continue to push their ``oil above all'' agenda, then we House Democrats will persist in our attempts to make offshore drilling safe--safe for the workers and safe for the environment--and to make sure that the American taxpayers are getting their fair share of return on the use of their natural resources.

The Big Five oil companies made a record profit of $137 billion last year. In the first quarter of this year, they continued to capitalize on the pain that Americans feel at the pump, raking in $368 million in profits per day. But did the Americans see increased profits from selling their oil as it was pumped from public lands offshore? No. As a result of a legal quirk in the 1995 law, oil companies are not paying any royalties to the American people on leases issued between 1996 and 2000--none, zero.

In recent years, the amount of free oil these companies have been pumping has gone through the roof as more of these faulty leases have gone into production. In fact, right now, more than 25 percent of all oil produced offshore on Federal lands is produced royalty-free, and these oil companies are getting a complete windfall on 25 percent of all the oil produced offshore in the United States. They don't pay the American people one penny for their drilling regardless of their huge profits. It's just unjust.

According to the Interior Department, American taxpayers stand to lose about $9.5 billion over the next 10 years from this big giveaway to oil companies. Yes, it's a giveaway. The Government Accountability Office projects that all this free drilling will cost us as much as $53 billion over the life of the leases. My amendment would recover these revenues that rightly belong to the American people.

I reserve the balance of my time.

My amendment would offer oil companies a choice. They could choose either to continue to produce royalty-free oil in the gulf and not get new leases or they could pay their fair share and proceed with this willy-nilly drilling that would be allowed under this law, under this legislation. My amendment does not break contracts. It simply would not force companies to give up their leases. It would impose a condition on future leases. As the Congressional Research Service has stated:

As a general matter, the United States has broad discretion in setting the qualifications of those with whom it contracts.

These oil companies are the most profitable companies in the history of the world, yet they receive more than $4 billion a year in taxpayer subsidies. On top of that, they get to drill for free on all of these public lands. Because of a quirk in the 1995 law, which came about because that Republican Congress was not eager to make oil companies pay, we shouldn't continue to give them a free ride.

If my colleagues on the other side are serious about paying down the deficit and realistically financing necessary investments in this Nation, then there is no excuse for not supporting this amendment to recover about $1 billion a year--actually, somewhat more than that probably--that is rightfully owed to the American people.

It's time to end this taxpayer rip-off once and for all.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6168) to direct the Secretary of the Interior to implement the Proposed Final Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program (2012-2017) in accordance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and other applicable law.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration.

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

The bill we are now considering, H.R. 6168, is a very simple bill. It would implement President Obama's proposed offshore drilling lease plan for the years 2012 to 2017.

Late yesterday, the House debated H.R. 6082, the Congressional Replacement of President Obama's Energy Restricting and Job-Limiting Offshore Drilling Plan. These bills contain two distinctly different offshore drilling plans, and the House will have an opportunity to choose which one allows for more American energy production and more American job creation, and which one continues to lock up America's resources.

This debate is occurring during the 60-day mandatory review period provided for under section 18 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which requires a President to submit his proposed plan to Congress for review. He must submit it to Congress before it can take effect. This 60-day clock started ticking on June 28 when President Obama's plan was submitted to the House and to the Senate.

Madam Speaker, I am the official sponsor of this bill to implement President Obama's plan. I introduced this bill with the specific purpose of allowing the people's House to officially go on record as either endorsing the President's plan or registering its opposition to it.

Now, while I'm the bill's sponsor, I am going to vote against this bill. I oppose the President's plan. It's a giant step backwards for American energy production and for job creation.

Madam Speaker, President Obama likes to give speeches claiming support for offshore drilling; however, I have observed his actions while in office are 180 degrees different than his rhetoric.

When President Obama was sworn into office in January 2009, nearly all of our offshore areas were newly open to American energy production. This was the result of the public outrage in the summer of 2008 over $4 gasoline prices that resulted in the Federal Government lifting the two moratoria that blocked energy production off both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. The will of the American people was clear: For the sake of family budgets, for small businesses, and for our economy, we must produce more American energy in America to lessen our dependence on hostile foreign sources.

So when President Obama took office, there was an offshore energy plan to conduct lease sales in new areas that were no longer under the moratoria. Instead of seizing this opportunity to vastly increase American energy production, the President tossed that plan aside and delayed and canceled these sales, including a sale scheduled for 2011 that would open a section offshore of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Obama administration has spent the last 3\1/2\ years slowly writing a plan that takes our country backwards, a plan that effectively reimposes the drilling moratoria that were lifted in 2008. The President's proposed plan keeps 85 percent of our offshore areas off-limits to energy production. The Atlantic coast, the Pacific coast, and parts of the Arctic are all kept under lock and key under his plan.

His plan absolutely opens no new areas for drilling. As an example, after delaying the Virginia lease sale in 2011, the President doesn't even include it in his proposed plan. Under President Obama, then, the absolute earliest that the Virginia lease sale could happen is 2017. That's 6 years after it was scheduled to take place.

In total, the President's proposed plan only includes 15 lease sales. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, this means that this President has the distinction of offering the lowest number of lease sales over a 5-year plan since this program began, since this legislation establishing the review. Madam Speaker, that's worse than even Jimmy Carter's record.

During the several hours of debate yesterday, there was little defense of the President's limited and weak offshore plan. In fact, a great deal of time was expended by the other side trying to change the subject, rather than endorse or defend the President's offshore plan. I think that shows just how out of touch and unacceptable this plan really is.

Today we will hear the deliberately misleading claim that the President's proposed plan opens 75 percent of the known offshore resources. That is simply not true, Madam Speaker. It was meant to provide political cover for a failed record on offshore drilling. The cold hard facts are the President is effectively reimposing a moratorium on 85 percent of our potential resources offshore of America's coasts.

An attempt might be made to claim that the bill doesn't represent the President's plan. Madam Speaker, it couldn't be more black-and-white. This bill exactly replicates the offshore lease sales scheduled in the President's proposed plan, both by location and by the sale year. H.R. 6168 is the President's plan.

Now, just last week, Secretary of the Interior Salazar wrote that President Obama's offshore plan is what the ``American people have asked for.'' In reality, the American people want increased American energy production and new and more American jobs. The President's proposed plan fails to deliver on both, American energy production and American jobs.

So by voting against this bill--which I will do, even though I am the sponsor of it--Members of Congress can stand up for the American people and reject the President's no-new-drilling, no-new-jobs plan.

We can and we must do better. And that is precisely why we had the debate, and we will have a vote later on today on H.R. 6082, the House plan.

So with that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), a member of the Natural Resources Committee and a subcommittee chairman.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Landry), a Representative of a coastal State and a very important member of the Natural Resources Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Landry).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

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

First of all, I want to tell my good friend from Massachusetts that I was hoping he would thank me for introducing the bill because now he has an opportunity to vote for the President's plan. I already mentioned that I was going to vote against it. I was very forthright. But now the gentleman does have an opportunity to vote for the President's plan, so I wish that he had thanked me for that.

But I want to say this, Madam Speaker: We already know that Americans want to be less dependent on foreign energy. The Republican plan obviously does that. Americans also want to have parts of the economy start growing. Energy production is a way to jump-start our economy with good American jobs. So those are all givens.

But the rhetoric sometimes coming from the other side is: Why are some areas emphasized and some areas are not? Because we use a very, very novel approach to where we should sell leases and explore for oil, and that is, very simply, where we think the resources are, and then people will bid on that and take a chance and see if there are resources. If there are, they will drill, and the Federal Treasury and the American people benefit.

A good case of that, by the way, Madam Speaker, is in southern California, because reference has been made several times to southern California, and specifically to Santa Barbara, California, the Santa Barbara Channel.

Now, the State Lands Commission says that there are 1,200 natural occurring seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel, and it's estimated that coming out of these naturally occurring seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel is 55,000 barrels a year--each year. Experts have concluded that that amount of seep could be translated into enough fuel to fuel the energy for Santa Barbara County for 7\1/2\ years. Now, that is a lot of oil.

We believe the opportunity ought to be to go--again, with the novel approach--where the oil is. So that's why our approach says, okay, let's open up all these areas. Let's allow the private sector to ascertain if they want to pay somebody for a lease to develop those resources.

That is in essence what this debate is about.

And finally, let me conclude this way, Mr. Speaker. The fact is that the President's plan reinstates the moratorium that existed going up to 2008. The American people demanded that be lifted with $4 gasoline, but this essentially reinstates that.

I think that's the wrong policy. So we'll have an opportunity today to vote on two proposals: one that does increase American energy and creates American jobs, or one that maintains the status quo. In fact, it doesn't even do that. It goes back and reestablishes the moratorium and locks up 85 percent of our resources.

So I urge a ``no'' vote on this suspension bill, and a ``yes'' vote on the subsequent bill that we debated yesterday, H.R. 6082.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, yesterday, the majority brought to the floor a bill that would replace the Interior Department's 5-year offshore drilling plan. Today, the majority is bringing a bill to the floor that would require the Interior Department to conduct the offshore drilling plan it is already doing.

Now why would we be taking up a bill to replace the plan yesterday and a bill to implement the plan today? Is it because the majority is having buyer's remorse about their own bill that would put drilling rigs off of the beaches of California, the beaches of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia? Are they having remorse putting all those rigs out there off the beaches with no new safety procedures adopted post the BP spill? Overnight, have they had some regret, conscience stricken, perhaps that's not a good idea?

That would be a very hopeful sign, I think, for all of us who care about the environment, care about safety and care about protecting the beaches and the fishing industries of our country.

Or is it because they were so compelled by arguments that the Democrats made during the debate on the floor yesterday that they now intend to reverse their position and actually support President Obama's offshore drilling plan that makes 75 percent of all of our oil and gas resources available for drilling while protecting the east and west coasts?

I don't think so, because I am quite certain that the chairman of the committee intends to vote against his own bill here today and that the only reason the majority is bringing this bill up is to defeat it. It appears that the majority's dislike of President Obama is so great and so overwhelming that they are about to actually vote against more oil and gas drilling offshore even in an era where President Obama has already demonstrated his commitment to drilling. There are more rigs out drilling now in the United States than all the rest of the world combined. We're at an 18-year high in production of oil in the United States. You have to go all the way back to 1993 to find a day where there was more oil being produced on a daily basis than today. We have reduced our oil dependence--that is, how much we have to import from overseas--from 57 percent when George Bush was President just 4 years ago down to only 45 percent during the Obama administration.

Thank you, President Obama. Thank you for the fantastic job you're doing in reducing our dependency upon imported oil. That is something that did not happen during President Bush's years in office. And that's quite a record, isn't it, that we're at an 18-year high for oil development? We're at a point where we've reduced our dependence on imported oil from 57 percent down to 45 percent just in 3\1/2\ years since President Obama was sworn in. We have more rigs than the whole rest of the world combined drilling for oil here in the United States. That is quite a record, and we thank you, President Obama, for your excellent job.

But we know what the Republican majority is trying to do here today. They're trying to re-message here that somehow or other President Obama hasn't done a historically good job. The majority is about to make their own

history here--rewrite history. They are so bent on voting against President Obama that they are going to actually oppose policy they hold most dear--more drilling. We appear to have found the one thing that can stop the majority from voting for drilling over and over again. This would be like Red Sox fans rooting against the Red Sox just because they signed Derek Jeter. All of a sudden, they would want to not support them any longer. And the majority is putting this bill on the suspension calendar today even though we know they have no intention of supporting it.

So why are we here? Why are we wasting the time of this House when there are so many other pressing issues facing the Nation? We should be focusing on creating jobs for our constituents, on passing a farm bill that helps farmers who are being harmed by drought and taking action on a spending and tax plan to avert going off the fiscal cliff of sequestration. But are we doing any of those things? No, we are not.

The majority is not only asking us to suspend the rules to pass this bill, they are asking us to suspend reality. They are asking us to suspend the reality that President Obama has reduced our dependence on oil from 57 percent down to 45 percent, that we are at an 18-year high in oil production in our country, and that we have 50 percent more floating drilling rigs operating in the Gulf of Mexico than we did before the BP spill.

Let me say that again: There are 50 percent more floating drilling rigs operating in the Gulf of Mexico than before the BP spill, and we have more drilling going on than the whole rest of the world combined. The reality is that President Obama is about ``all of the above.'' That's his energy plan.

What the Republicans do is they just keep bringing out things that really make the oil industry happy but towards the goal of killing the wind industry and killing the solar industry, because they're doing nothing for those industries. And that agenda is, oh, so clear. It's transparently clear what this agenda is.

We actually support an ``aye'' vote on the President's plan and a ``no'' vote on the Republican plan. We should not be drilling off of the beaches of our country when 75 percent of all the oil and gas resources have been made available and the oil industry hasn't even begun in a significant way to capture all those opportunities.

At this point, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

All you have to know about the political nature of this bill--and the next bill that we're going to be voting on that allows for drilling off of the beaches of Massachusetts and southern California and Maine and Maryland, New Jersey, without new safety safeguards being put in place--is that they kind of pick a whole bunch of States that are on the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, but they leave out one State.

Now, why did they leave out that State? I wonder why they left out Florida. Why isn't Florida on the list? Why did they exclude that one State out of their systematic goal of increasing energy independence and compromising, if necessary, the beaches of all of these other States in the advancement of that goal to help Exxon Mobile and BP and Shell drill off of our coastline? Why don't they want to drill off of Miami Beach? Why don't they want to drill off of Jacksonville's beaches? Why don't they include Florida? Hmm. Ah, Gore v. Bush. Florida could decide the Presidential race. Ah. Oh, the Republican convention is in Florida this year? Oh. They don't want 1 million people coming to protest the drilling off of the beaches of Florida? Oh. That makes a lot of sense. That's a good justification for excluding Florida, but not Massachusetts, not Maine, not Maryland, not Virginia. But Florida, they're out.

So all you have to know about the blatant political nature of these bills is that they're intended to embarrass President Obama, just as he has proven he is a historically successful President in increasing oil production in America. He has reduced oil dependence on overseas sources from 57 percent down to 45 percent--something George Bush never did. In fact, it spiked to 57 percent under his watch over 8 years. That's a long time to get something done on that front--and he now has 50 percent more rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. So this is really all about politics: 131 votes out here to help the oil and gas industry, no votes out here to help the wind and solar industry.

And the story line continues, even up to the point where they exclude Florida. I mean, it's so nakedly obvious what is happening here in terms of the political nature of what the Republicans are doing on this subject. But please, for the sake of the country, can we get to an all- of-the-above strategy? Can we get to something that actually has you saying positively what you're going to do about the renewable energy that we have in our country that can make it possible for us to say to OPEC, totally, that we don't need your oil any more than we need your sand? Can we actually say that? Can we agree upon that, that it's a common goal and we can find a way of giving the incentives to the wind and solar industry in the same way you do, over and over again, want to give to the oil and gas industry?

Please, let's work together, as a common goal, as a country, to accomplish that goal. Let's not just favor oil and gas. Let's have an agenda that includes all of the above. Because today is just another repetition of the same syndrome that has an ancestor worship at the altar of oil and gas that plagued us in the 20th century but can be alleviated, if we put together a plan to exploit all of our domestic resources, in the 21st century. The agenda of the majority is sadly lacking in that area.

I urge an ``aye'' vote on this suspension vote.