Protecting States' Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, for this body to spend the final week before a week-long break, one of the final weeks of the year, the third-to-last week of the legislative year, considering messaging bills that aren't going anywhere is a disservice to this country and one of the reasons that this institution is as unpopular as it is. Rather than taking on immigration reform, rather than protecting Americans from employment discrimination, both of which bills passed the Senate with strong majorities, including many Republicans, we are instead debating a bill to move backward rather than forward.

H.R. 1965 and H.R. 2728, the Federal Lands Jobs and Energy Security Act and the so-called Protecting States' Rights to Promote Energy Security Act, circumvent future Federal regulations designed to keep people safe and healthy by handing over jurisdiction to States that have any guidance, even a few words of guidance, regarding hydraulic fracturing. We will be talking about the example and what this means in my home State of Colorado in

a few moments. But neither bill will become law. Unlike immigration reform, unlike ENDA, which would end workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians across our country, these bills will not become law.

Similar legislation to H.R. 1965 was considered last Congress. This legislation was opposed by the administration. It was not brought up by the Senate, and yet here we are debating it again in the House of Representatives when we have real business to take care of.

These are not the issues that my constituents are calling in demanding that I take action on. They are demanding that I work to fix our broken immigration system. They are demanding that I work to balance the budget. They are calling in demanding that we work to improve upon health care delivery in this country; yet, instead, we are discussing bills that are detrimental to the economy of the district that I represent and destroy jobs.

Let me discuss H.R. 1965 first. This bill's central premise is to allow oil and gas companies to drill wherever and whenever they want to drill on public lands. This bill is completely irresponsible and prioritizes the needs of the oil and gas industry over every other use of our public lands, including the drivers of jobs in my district: hunting, fishing, skiing, and off-road vehicle recreating.

This bill sets arbitrary deadlines for the BLM to approve drilling applications and requires the BLM to lease at least 25 percent of lands nominated by the oil and gas industry each year.

In addition, the underlying bill offers millions of acres of public lands for lease to companies that are trying to develop a fuel source that has not even proven to be viable--oil shale--without regard to the impact on water or our local economy or environment.

I represent the district that includes popular destinations like Vail and Breckenridge and Winter Park, Colorado. People from across the country come to enjoy our skiing in winter, our outdoor recreation, our hunting, our fishing, and white water rafting. When you use areas of land for extraction and you create oil rigs, the heavy truck traffic and roads associated with the extraction industry, people are less likely to want to come visit for these other purposes. It will hurt our ability to attract tourists from the rest of the country if we don't have adequate safeguards around the Federal lands which are part of Eagle and Summit Counties and on which our economy relies.

Now, on H.R. 1965, I did offer several amendments to try to improve these bills, but only one of my amendments was made in order under this rule. I am pleased at least my amendment with the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman) is in order, which requires the National Academy of Sciences to study and report to Congress about the impact of flooding on oil and gas facilities and leaks and spills from tanks, wells, and pipelines.

My district recently fell victim to horrendous floods. We call it our 100-year flood in Boulder, Larimer, and Weld Counties. A number of drilling operations were impacted, and we are continuing to assess the damage, not only with regard to drilling operations and potential contamination, but of course our people are digging out with regard to their homes and their offices as well. The September floods in Colorado caused an unprecedented level of destruction to thousands of oil and gas facilities in northern and eastern Colorado. As a result, over 43,000 gallons of oil and over 26,000 gallons of produced water spilled from the tanks, wells, and pipelines into the floodwater.

That is why I joined Representative DeFazio, the ranking member of Natural Resources, in sending a letter on September 25 to Chairman Hastings requesting a hearing to fully understand the consequences resulting from the flooding. That hearing hasn't been scheduled yet, but I am hopeful that we can resolve this issue, hold congressional hearings, understand how this issue affects my district, but also affects other districts that might be subject to flooding that house drilling operations.

With regard to the oil shale amendment, I am disappointed that the other amendment I offered with Mrs. Napolitano was not made in order. It would have simply required a study. The U.S. Geological Survey would have studied the impacts of oil shale leasing on the quantity and quality of water available in the West. My friend from Utah knows that water in the West is a very important thing. You know, gold is for looking at, and water is for fighting over. Frankly, when we look at the impact and the potential impact that a very heavy use of water would have with some of the extraction techniques that are being explored for oil shale production, we need to look at the impact that would have on water that we need for agriculture, for homeowners, and for recreation. And a simple study would be a first step in doing that.

Unfortunately, under this rule and this closed process, we were not allowed to bring forth this amendment to discuss a study of how oil shale production would affect water uses. Many of the test processes use enormous amounts of water to develop oil shale. It is very concerning because the largest known deposits of oil shale are in the Green River formation, which include portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, all three of our States experiencing over the last several years drought conditions and have scarce water resources that are relied upon by our residents and by our farmers.

Thirty million users of water, including farmers, ranchers, and municipalities, depend on water from the Colorado River basin. My amendment would ensure that we have a better understanding of how much water oil shale would use and could pollute or otherwise impact through the quantities used of the water available for other purposes.

Now, I would like to turn to H.R. 2728. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a national issue. It is something that we need to address here in Congress. It is something my constituents are demanding of me that we address here in Congress, but H.R. 2728 is not what my constituents had in mind.

In this election this month, earlier here in November, four of the five largest municipalities in my district--Fort Collins, Boulder, Lafayette, and Broomfield--passed measures that put bans or moratoriums on fracking.

Never before in my time in public service have I ever seen an issue that has been the number one issue on the ballot in four of the top five municipalities. And I should add, it was scheduled to be on the ballot of the fifth, but it was deferred. The petitions to put it on the ballot were deferred, and we expect it will be on the ballot at Loveland at this point if the citizens continue with their push for an initiative there.

We have seen tremendous growth in natural gas development due to fracking and directional drilling in the last decade alone. That is a great thing. It is a great thing for American energy independence. It is a great thing for American manufacturing. It is a great thing for reducing our energy costs.

In Colorado alone, 50,000 wells have been drilled, and many more have been drilled nationally. These drilling activities, however, in a district such as mine, a district that is an extraction district, are occurring very close to where people live, work, and where they raise families, yet our State doesn't have any meaningful regulation to protect homeowners.

It meets the definition of having fracking rules; it certainly does. Unfortunately, the fracking rules are overseen by an oil and gas commission that is heavily influenced by the oil and gas industry. They don't have at their disposal the independence or the ability to enact real penalties for violations of our laws, and their charge is not first and foremost to protect homeowners and families and health. That has led to this backlash, which is why even very conservative towns in my district--one of the towns that had a 5-year moratorium on fracking elected a very conservative mayoral candidate by a 60-40 margin, which is not unusual for this town. These are folks who are fundamentally conservative voting for a conservative candidate for mayor, who won, and yet, at that same election, that same year, they passed a moratorium on fracking in Broomfield County.

This is of great concern to the people in my district. The growth of fracking without commonsense Federal guidelines, without commonsense State guidelines, has caused an enormous

amount of friction between the American Dream of homeowners in my district and our Nation's need for energy.

State and local rules are an important part of the equation, but we also need standards at the Federal level, particularly as relates to Federal lands--namely, BLM lands--which are an important part of the equation to address impacts that go beyond any particular community, such as keeping our air free from pollution, keeping pollution out of our lungs, our waterways, and our drinking water.

Some State and local laws addressing oil and gas extraction are woefully unprepared. The extraction industry hit before they had the chance to even create a local regulatory framework, or they have one that is woefully outdated and relates to the extraction technologies that were prevalent decades ago rather than the new extraction technologies that are being deployed today.

Colorado is trying to update its oil and gas rules, but they really haven't done anything to create a meaningful framework to protect homeowners and families, which is why four of the five largest municipalities in my district have either banned or put a moratorium on fracking.

We have a State issue, and the State has actually threatened to sue some of these same municipalities for that ban. That is not a Federal issue, but this has been an enormous issue in my district. The citizens in my district want more protection, not less, when it comes to fracking.

The industry reaction has been extremely counterproductive. The desire for my citizens to see more protection--somehow the industry interprets this as the citizens need more information or need more marketing about how great fracking is. That is not what they need. They have got plenty of that. The opponents of these ballot initiatives, the oil and gas initiatives, spent millions of dollars educating my constituents about how wonderful and harmless fracking is. That is not what they are asking for. If we could take some of that money and instead apply it to recapturing gases from the well sites and ensuring that we have closed systems for the water recovery instead of the marketing campaigns, we would actually make progress with regard to increasing consumer confidence and the confidence of my citizens in the process. But that is not what we have seen to date, and this bill will not help bring it about.

For almost 5 years, I have represented Colorado's Second Congressional District. In that time, I have witnessed exponential growth in natural gas extraction in and around our district. I have met with too many families and communities that have been forced from their homes and devastated by nearby fracking activity.

Fracking has occurred hundreds of feet from homes, schools, and playgrounds. I have been powerless to stop it. We tried to ask an oil and gas company not to frack near a school in Erie, Colorado, Red Hawk Elementary, but the response that I got at my office after two letters continues to be a formulaic response from their attorneys that ``we have the right to frack here and we will.''

Many families are fleeing those communities not because of lack of information, not because the oil and gas company hasn't done everything they can to have wonderful ambassadors in our community creating a lot of great literature, advertising all over our airwaves. That is not why families are fleeing. They are fleeing because they don't want to live next to an oil rig or have their kids going to school next to a fracking pad or oil rig. That is just common sense. There is no amount of marketing or information that will change their minds, and that is the fundamental flaw in the reasoning process that many in the oil and gas industry have had to date.

I have heard many stories from families about getting fracked, and as a result, I had introduced the BREATHE Act in the last Congress and the FRAC Act, requiring disclosure of fracking fluids, removing the exemption that fracking has from the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, the small-site exemption.

I, unfortunately, have gotten to experience fracking firsthand here in this last year. For more than a decade, I have had a peaceful family farm, about 50 acres, near Berthoud, Colorado, where my father-in-law lives. That is our house there. Fracking, without any notice to us, because, of course, it wasn't required under State law, occurred hundreds of feet from our home. In July, overnight, without any warning, a towering drill rig arose, literally across the street from where my father-in-law lives. You can see it right here.

The sounds of the 24-hour-a-day-and-night operation led us to invite my father-in-law to have to stay with us in Boulder in our apartment on our couch during the active phase of the drilling process. The rig was spewing black smog and making loud noises at all hours of the day. And when the drilling rig went up without notice or warning, our little dream and our life became a nightmare and was thrown into turmoil.

Last night, at the Rules Committee hearing, Chairman Sessions and Chairman Hastings spoke about a Web site, www.fracfocus.org, that supposedly reveals all the chemicals used during the fracking process. But FracFocus is actually not revealing at all. It gives operators sole discretion to decide what information they display and what they don't display.

This is actually an example of a well. This is the one that is very close to our house. You will see that, of course, many of the ingredients of the fracking fluids are completely noncontroversial. We know they are largely water, sand, and quartz. We are not talking about that. That is not the issue. As you will see, they have ``proprietary'' listed next to several vague terms. They have surfactants here, proprietary. So people in the neighborhood don't even know what environmental contaminants to measure for or to look for.

Again, from a marketing perspective, the oil and gas companies are saying it is not leaching into groundwater, there are not surface spills; but, at the same time, they are refusing to provide the information that would allow the independent verification of their claims and safety.

When I looked up the drilling site near my house on FracFocus, there were many ingredients that were listed as proprietary, including surfactants and polymers; and because of the lenient policy of FracFocus, the company that drilled near my house withheld the only information that we were actually interested in in terms of what was being used in the ground.

We need to look at a commonsense approach to fracking. The constituents in my district are demanding it. We could have voted on such a balanced approach to fracking. I introduced, as an amendment to H.R. 2728, the BREATHE Act. The BREATHE Act was identical to a bill that I introduced earlier this Congress. It would have reversed the oil and gas industry's loophole to a provision in the Clean Air Act that protects the public from small air pollution sources that might individually be de minimus but, in the aggregate, released large volumes of toxic substance into the air.

We have to talk about the concentration of this operation. In Weld County, Colorado, there are close to 50,000 wells. Again, for any particular fracking pad, the emission profile is small; but, if you have a number, a dozen, two dozen, 100, in a limited area, the emission profile is going to look a lot more like a factory or even a coal- burning plant than it does something that can be rounded down to zero. We need to look at the fact that the concentration of thousands of wellheads in a very limited geographic area has a profound potential impact and cumulative impact on air quality that affects our health and our quality of life.

My amendment is critical because there is significant evidence that oil and gas wells and their associated infrastructure, including heavy truck traffic and diesel engines, contribute to air pollution. Chemicals such as benzene and volatile organic compounds and methane are associated with oil and gas production sites and should not be subject to an exemption from the Clean Air Act. Despite the growing proof that the oil and gas industry causes air pollution, oil and gas operators are still exempt from the basic Federal protection afforded by the Clean Air Act.

I offer this amendment and introduced the BREATHE Act because people who live near oil and gas developments deserve the protections of the

Clean Air Act, just as other Americans do who live near factories, just as other Americans do who live near coal-burning plants. We have 55 sponsors for the BREATHE Act, yet it has not received a hearing or a markup; and on a party-line vote yesterday in the Rules Committee, it was not allowed to be considered as an amendment to this bill.

Another amendment I helped offer to the underlying measure would also improve the legislation. The amendment I offered with Mr. Holt allows the Secretary of the Interior to issue regulations to minimize fugitive methane emissions on public lands.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that often leaks during the drilling and transportation of oil and gas. In fact, methane leaks are so common in oil and gas drilling that we have rural areas in the Upper Green River Basin in Wyoming that have recorded higher concentration levels than the worst pollution days in downtown Los Angeles.

Fortunately, there are already control technologies available to minimize air pollution in operations. If the oil and gas companies would use just some of the money that they spend on lobbying and on marketing and on all the wonderful advertising that they are doing on our airwaves in Colorado and, instead, upgrade their facilities to recapture methane, I think we could actually see some progress on this issue.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment when it comes up for consideration later in the afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are calling for real solutions in Congress. The people of the Second Congressional District are for an all-of-the-above approach to energy. We are for solar. We are for wind. We are for oil. We are for gas. We are for hydro. We want to make them all work. And just as there would be a zoning process around creating a windmill in a residential neighborhood that is 100 feet tall right near your home, there should be a zoning process around the extraction of oil and gas, especially near where the constituents of my district live and work.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a messaging bill that might help the majority's relationship with oil and gas companies, but what we really need is a balanced approach that ensures that we can develop our domestic oil and gas resources in a way that doesn't destroy jobs in districts like mine and protects the health of Americans across our country.

These bills fall short on that account. And despite our effort to amend them, the rule doesn't allow many of the most important amendments that would remove the exemption from the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and ensure that we have an extraction industry that is consistent with the public health.

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

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

I yield myself 30 seconds to respond.

To be clear, there is not an effort in Colorado, as the gentleman insinuated,

to somehow prevent the extraction of fossil fuels from occurring in Colorado. In fact, quite to the contrary. Because of the lack of meaningful State regulations, many cities and counties are banning extraction; and four of the five biggest cities I represent have moratoriums or bans on fracking precisely because there are insufficient Federal and State guidelines. So it is really working with counterpurposes and hurting the very prospects for the extraction industry that the gentleman aspires to assist by not having adequate regulation to safeguard people's homes and families.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I yield the gentlewoman from Texas an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I would inquire whether the gentleman from Utah has any remaining speakers. If not, I am prepared to close.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to make sure we don't go home unless we finish the budget by December 13.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

I will submit for the record, as well, a recent poll. The Denver Post published an article this past summer that states that 65 percent of Colorado residents favor protecting wilderness parks and open space and our Federal lands for future generations and 30 percent support more drilling.

It has been 144 days and 13 hours since the Senate passed its immigration reform bill, S. 744. We have introduced H.R. 15 here in the House. Each day that the House refuses to take up reform costs the country $37 million. Already there is more than $5 billion in potential lost revenue so far.

If we can take up immigration reform and pass it, I would even support allowing that revenue to be used to keep the loopholes for the oil and gas industry open--something that I have long opposed. But if we can pass immigration reform, I would accept that pay-for as a way of keeping the oil and gas loopholes open for the next several years.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the comprehensive immigration reform bill would increase our GDP by 3.3 percent, raise American wages by $470 billion, and create an average of 121,000 jobs for Americans each year. So rather than take up a job- creating bill for Americans that reduces our deficit, we are taking up a bill that hurts the economy and hurts jobs in districts like mine.

The longer we fail to act on immigration reform, the greater the cost to the American people. Take the example of the solvency of the Social Security system. As the Social Security Administration estimates, close to two-thirds of the 8 million undocumented people who are here currently work underground. No surprise. They are not allowed to work aboveground in official jobs with payroll deductions, and neither they nor their employers are able to legally declare their earnings or pay their payroll taxes.

Today, only 37 percent of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security taxes. Experts are estimating that our Nation loses about $20 billion in payroll taxes each year. We will continue to lose that money until we pass H.R. 15, comprehensive immigration reform.

The Senate has acted--with strong Republican support and strong Democratic support--and passed bipartisan immigration reform last June; and yet the House hasn't had a single moment of floor time for any immigration reform bill, despite the fact that four have been passed through the committee.

The time is now. We are here today, we are here tomorrow, we are here 2 more weeks. If we need to come back, let's do it.

The country is demanding that we create jobs. Comprehensive immigration reform will do that. The country is demanding we shore up our entitlement programs. Comprehensive immigration reform will do that. The country is demanding that we reduce our deficit. Comprehensive immigration reform will do it. Securing our borders,

protecting our country from terrorists--law enforcement, the faith community all support immigration reform.

In closing, I want to again state the article I am submitting for the record says 65 percent want to protect our environment and 30 percent are for more drilling.

The people have spoken. These bills are out of touch. It is time to take up comprehensive immigration reform.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the rule and the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

[From the Denver Post]

Poll of Westerners on Drilling on Public Lands: 65% Protection; 30%

Drilling

(By Bruce Finley)

A new poll finds that 30 percent of the residents of

Colorado and the western United States favor oil and gas

drilling on public lands, while 65 percent support protecting

wilderness, parks and open space for future generations.

Results of the poll done by Hart Research Associates were

presented Monday by the policy group Center for American

Progress, which with the Wilderness Society was launching a

campaign for balance.

``This is a case where Washington's policies and rhetoric

are still locked in a drilling-first mind-set, but westerners

want the protection of public lands to be put on equal

ground,'' said John Podesta, chairman of the Center for

American Progress, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

``Voters do not see conservation and development of public

lands as an either-or choice. Instead, they want to see

expanded protections for public lands--including new parks,

wilderness and monuments--as part of a responsible and

comprehensive energy strategy,'' Podesta said.

U.S. domestic oil and gas production has reached record

levels, with more than 37 million acres of public land leased

to companies for drilling. Polling and focus group

discussions were conducted in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico,

Oregon, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada in April and

May.

The poll asked participants to state what they regard as a

very important priority, and 65 percent said permanent

protection of public lands. Results showed 63 percent

prioritized ensuring access to public lands for recreation,

while 30 percent favored ensuring access to oil and gas

resources.

The poll found that 29 percent supported use of public

lands for grazing livestock.

Western Energy Alliance officials in Denver cited a

different poll. It found that more than 78 percent of voters

nationwide favor increased development of oil and natural gas

in the United States.

Voters have a favorable view of ``how oil and natural gas

in produced in America,'' said Tim Wigley, president of

Western Energy Alliance in a statement. ``Almost one in four

(24 percent) chose federal lands over state or private

lands.''

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 419 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution provides for a structured rule for the consideration of H.R. 1965, the Federal Lands Jobs and Energy Security Act, as well as for consideration of H.R. 2728, the Protecting States' Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act. The rule provides for each bill to receive 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, except that on H.R. 2728, the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will control 20 minutes of the 1 hour provided for.

The rule makes in order eight amendments for H.R. 1965 and five amendments for H.R. 2728. In both cases, the number of amendments to be offered by Democrats outnumber those to be offered by Republicans. A number of those amendments which were filed and not made in order violated the House rules either by not being germane or by violating CutGo. So this is a very fair and generous rule and will provide for a balanced debate on the merits of these important pieces of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand before the House to support this rule, as well as the underlying pieces of legislation, which are both important bills aimed at making the United States more energy independent.

I appreciate the hard work of the sponsors, Mr. Lamborn of Colorado, Mr. Flores of Texas, as well as the work of the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), as well as that of the chairman of the Science Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith). These are significant pieces that will move our Nation forward.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the rule that we have before us is about two bills. The first bill deals with fairness for those who live in public land States as to the ability to process oil and gas leases. The second bill deals with fracking, the fracturing of oil that is a policy that started in the 1940s in the State of Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores), who is the sponsor of the second bill, to discuss that particular portion.

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

When Ronald Reagan was first elected President, he talked to his National Security Advisor--I believe his name was Richard Allen--and told him that his policy for foreign affairs was going to be ``we win and they lose.'' It shocked his National Security Advisor because they had always been talking about managing communism or coexisting with communism. This was the first time somebody had actually come up with such a specific and precise rationale and policy for the Nation.

But President Reagan also realized, for him to actually enact his goal, they first had to fix the economy, which, as strange as it seems, was worse than the economy we have today. With double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, double-digit interest rates, he had to first fix that before he could go on to his goal of actually winning the Cold War.

He also recognized that if he was going to fix those economic problems, he had to have a reliable and affordable source of energy, and that, indeed, was one of the problems that caused the situation they were in under the Carter administration.

Earlier this year we brought a couple of bills forward, one for the Defense Authorization Act and the Defense Appropriations Act, and I said at the time that the reason we had those here was because it allowed and empowered our State Department.

Foreign policy is whatever we are willing to fund as far as military growth. They are interrelated.

One of the things this administration appears to have forgotten is the interrelation between improving our economy and improving energy production at the same time, although they have done well in trying to forward green energy solutions.

Unfortunately, as much as that is a positive and proper approach, most of what they have done has failed to reach the goals they established for themselves, and not only that, much of it has also been involved in scandals. Also, it cannot be done at the time you are attacking traditional forms of energy.

So that is why we are here. One of the realities is that, oddly enough, at this particular time, we are producing more energy in America than we have for a long time. And the numbers are always all over the place, depending on what the starting date is with these surveys. Whether you go to an industry like the Western Energy Alliance or a neutral entity like the Congressional Research Service, they are all saying basically the same thing. There is a slight increase in offshore energy on Federal lands. There is not an increase in onshore energy production on Federal lands, depending, once again, on what base you are using, and our increase in production, which is true, has almost all come from private lands, State-owned lands, and Native American lands of this country.

Now, the fact that we are closer to energy independence is nice, but that is not our goal. That is simply an infamous goal that we should have.

The goal should be to reduce the amount of energy coming into this country and becoming more energy independent so we can actually help people, so that we can come to the point where we are producing enough energy from this energy-rich Nation to make sure that we have affordable electricity, so when a family goes into a room, they don't have to worry about turning on the light, impacting their kids' college education fund; so that even low-income families can realize they can heat their homes in the winter; so that one can travel from Point A to Point B in your car and realize it is affordable; so that jobs actually are plentiful, especially spinoff jobs.

It is not those who necessarily are working at the site in which you are developing the energy, but the spinoff jobs: the trucker that goes to and from bringing product into or away from the site, or those who are doing the motels and the restaurants that are feeding the workers, those who are working on Main Street that are providing food and resources to those who are providing the services to those particular workers.

In Western States, like the State of Utah, it is essential, also, to our education fund. If you were to look at this particular chart, the chart on the top, the States in red are the States that have the hardest time, the slowest growth in their education funding.

The chart on the bottom, the stuff in red is what is owned by the Federal Government. I hate to say it, but there is a relationship between the amount of public lands owned by the Federal Government and the inability to try and fund the proper education system.

What that comes to, in gross terms, is over the last 20 years, Western States, the predominantly public land States, have increased their education funding by 35 percent. The rest of the Nation, which has very little public ground, has increased its education funding by 68 percent. They are doubling the growth of it.

What simply matters is that States in the West that are public land States have a difficult time of funding their education system when they are prohibited from being able to develop a lot of the resources which are found in those Western States. That is one of the reasons why we have a difficult time in funding our own education system and why the first bill in this rule is asking for Western States to be treated fairly in this particular process.

Whether one likes it or not, to vote against these bills unintentionally harms kids, and it harms education in the West. If our funding for education in my home State is going to be effectively increased, it has got to come from development of the natural resources that are in my State and not putting impediments in the way of the State moving forward.

This is the map of significance that I showed you. Everything that is red is that which is owned by the Federal Government, and you find-- glory be--we have the predominance of it here in the West, in my State.

There is a difference in how energy is developed in the red areas, as opposed to the basically white areas. If you were trying to develop areas in the white, which has very little Federal land, it simply means a company goes out, they contact a property owner, get the right to do exploration, and then, if they find something which they wish, they buy either the land or the mineral rights and go ahead and do it.

On the red areas, the public land areas, the process is far, far different. It has been said on this floor that this bill would allow oil companies to go wherever they want. That is an overstatement. It is not quite accurate.

In the red areas, what happens is, first, the Federal Government, in this case, the Department of the Interior, will establish a regional management plan to establish which areas are proper for economic development, for drilling, and for mining. Not all areas are, so not all areas become part of the regional management plan, and only those areas that have potential for economic development in oil and gas are the ones that are listed in the RMP.

Then it goes through a NEPA process. Once the NEPA process for the RMP is completed, then the Interior Department decides what areas that are listed as potential energy development areas will actually be leased by the Federal Government.

Then they are let out to bid. That also has to go through a NEPA process before, finally, a company can bid on lands and go through and try to find out if it is worthy to develop. If they wish to develop, then they also have to go through an application for drilling.

Now, in most States, the white area, that application for drilling by itself takes between 15 to 30 days. In the red area, that application has been averaging over 300 days, which is where the unfairness takes place.

The first bill that is in this rule would say, okay, let's split the difference, and we will say you make the decision within 60 days; plenty of time to make that particular decision.

It is also noted that, in all of these processes I went through, from the RMP to the NEPA process, to the lease, to the lease bid, to the second

NEPA process, to the APD, there is opportunity for citizens to have input, free speech access to input.

Now, that costs the Department money to access that, which is true, but it is part of their job, so we accept it.

However, when the bid is actually made or a protest is made to that bid, that is extra work for the Department, which, in every other area of government, we would require a fee when some kind of citizen action requires extra work to expedite the paperwork for that type of protest or that type of policy or that type of request.

The companies that do an APD are already charged that by the Department of the Interior. They pay a fee of $6,500 every time they have a request to drill. This bill codifies that. But also it says that, if you are going to challenge or protest one, this is not the opportunity for citizen input that you have along the process each and every step. But if you are actually going to do a challenge of this, then you also should pay a fee because this challenge requires extra work and extra expense on the part of the Department, and this is put at a $5,000 fee. It is $6,500 to actually request the permitting process to start and $5,000 if you want to protest it.

In my State, unfortunately, we have seen examples where, on what I consider to be a whim, the President or the administration or the Department of the Interior has simply withdrawn leases that have gone through all of those steps I indicated and were effective and were put into motion. The first thing this administration did was to withdraw 77 leases in Utah. It had a catastrophic effect upon the Uinta Basin in my home State, where unemployment skyrocketed immediately after that was done, not only because the leases were withdrawn, but the private companies that were doing their work on private lands also saw the handwriting on the wall and wished to no longer go forward with that because of the implications of the withdrawal of those leases.

I got a letter from one of the kids who was living there. She was in junior high school. She asked me to please do something about it because her father was not working on the wells or the sites of those leases. He was one of the truckers, a private contractor who was taking stuff into those sites and trucking stuff out from those sites. And she was so happy because her family had been situated. They were doing well. They had finally bought a house and bought some property, and she had her dream of finally having a horse. And she wrote to me, pleading to see if we could change what this administration had done with those 77 leases so she could simply keep her horse. It didn't happen. She lost the horse. Her father lost the job. They lost the house. They lost land and had to go back to Salt Lake City to find employment.

Recently, in this same area, once again going through the process, the Interior Department identified 800,000 acres that were susceptible and appropriate for economic drilling development. They were those that were already abutting existing leases or intermingled within existing leases. But there were 800,000 acres. When they came up with the lease process, the administration decided to only offer 144,000; and then before the lease actually went out to bid, they withdrew almost 100,000 of those 144,000 because they had found a question in their minds as to what the impact might be.

Now, I recognize this could be legitimate. I mean, the Federal Government has only owned this land since the Mexican War. Obviously there are things that can slip somebody's attention in the first 180 years of looking at a piece of property. But nonetheless, only 44,000 acres were put out to bid. That is 5 percent of the total that was identified as acceptable for this kind of development.

Now, we are not talking about wilderness areas or national park areas or conservation areas; only areas that were susceptible and appropriate for this concept, which is why the 25 percent figure is really kind of a modest figure of what should be the case and should be taken.

If we were to pass these two bills, it is very easy to realize that the desert could bloom again because that is the purpose. These bills, for the first time, identify Native American interests and make sure that Native American interests on Native American lands are going to be respected by the Federal Government. They take it.

Four score and 7 years ago, we started a fracking process in the United States--give or take a score. But this fracturing process has, so far, been working. We have a list of those from the EPA, from the Interior Department, from both Energy Secretaries, the last two Interior Secretaries, a former EPA Administrator, the current Administrator, former BLM Directors who have all said that there is no identifiable problem with what the States are doing with fracturing. The States do have this experience in doing it.

The language is very clear. Sometimes people say, well, there are no regulations because they can't find a specific regulation. It mentions the word ``fracturing.'' But to be honest, and not trying to be too wonkish, if you have rules and regulations that talk about wellbore construction or drill site integrity, that is what is necessary to ensure the health and safety of individuals. And States do know how to go do that, and they do know how to protect that area.

The actual question, though, is, if we are coming up with rules for fracturing--and this deals with the bill that Representative Flores was addressing--where should the decision be made on how to implement those rules? Should it be made here in Washington or should it be made in the State where the situation exists?

I have a great deal of empathy for what the gentleman from Colorado was saying was what he wished to see in his home State. I would be more than happy to allow him to do anything he wanted to do. If, indeed, they want to cancel all kinds of fossil fuel development in the State of Colorado, I would be more than happy to allow him to do that. I just don't want that in my State.

And unfortunately, the conventional wisdom is always that only people in Washington, D.C., have the broad view to make decisions for the entire Nation. That is a ridiculous wisdom. That is inaccurate. States are just as competent. There are as many smart people who live and reside in States, their Department of Environmental Quality, which we have in the State of Utah, as live here in Washington. They can make these decisions. They can do it well.

If a State does not want to make these kinds of decisions, does not want to have these kinds of rules, allow a national rule to take precedence. No problem. But if a State is willing to be independent and make decisions for themselves, we should allow them to do it because the States are just as good and, unfortunately, often better than the Federal Government in making these kinds of provisions.

You see, one of the things that is happening--the good gentleman from Colorado did talk about what is happening in his State. And once again, if his State wants to ban all kinds of these activities, if they want to ban all development of fossil fuels, that is fine.

This bill's adoption does not stop Colorado from doing anything that Colorado wishes to do. Not passing this bill will stop the State of Utah from having primacy and doing what the State of Utah wishes to do.

Look, we are not talking about the decimation of enormous tracts of Federal land. Within the Federal campus, there are over 650 million acres. That is one-third of America that the Federal Government owns. Of those 650 million acres, 450 million acres are already set aside for preservation and conservation and will never, never have any kind of development or any kind of drilling taking place on those 450 million acres.

The amount of area that has been identified as potential for economic development is only 38 million acres. But on those 38 million acres, allow the States to move forward to make sure that what the State wants on our local lands is respected and that what happens on Federal public lands is fair and equitable to what happens on private lands in non- Federal States.

With that, I look forward to anything the gentleman from Colorado has to say, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds, if I could, simply to say that what the bill does, does not restrict any kind of free speech opportunity for individuals. They still have the right of comment, which is totally free, in any of those processes from the RPM to the NEPA to the lease to the leased bid to the second NEPA to the APD. So that is there only when an effort actually causes an additional expense to the government, which is typical and standard. That fee is actually going to be initiated to try to cover the costs to the Federal Government.

It is my pleasure now to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), the sponsor of the first of the two bills, who has a bill that will ensure that the standards become fair and equitable for everyone throughout this Nation.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

I have no further speakers.

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

I appreciate the poll that was presented into the Record; but that is why, I would submit, the Interior Department has a resource management plan. Those RMPs are established in the first place so that incompatible relationships and incompatible entities are not put in the same area. It is why you can actually have both.

What the two bills before us that would be brought to the floor under this rule do is allow States to have a say in what is going on, because States are confident. They are closer to the problem. They should have a say and a stake and make a statement in this particular issue.

If these bills were brought to the floor, public land States in the West--the red areas on my map--would be treated fairly and treated closer to what is happening in the white States, where there is little public land.

This is also, though, one of the things that I want us not to lose focus on. It is not about drilling or not drilling. It is what is the purpose of developing our energy resources, that is, to make sure that people can heat their homes and have lights in their houses, that they can drive from point A to point B and afford it, and so that people can have jobs so that that little middle school girl in my State can actually have a place for her horse. That is what these bills are about.

More importantly, for Western States, the public land States, is to allow us to generate the revenue we need from the resources we have in our State to fund an education system. If these bills are defeated, the ability of Western land States to adequately fund their educational systems will be stymied.

It is important. If you care about kids, you have to provide this kind of resource for the Western States. That is why these two bills are not just rehashes. These two bills are essential for those of us who live in the West.

For the sake of the education system of Western kids, I would encourage everyone to support not only the rule, but support both underlying bills. They are important. This is a fair rule. It is appropriate legislation. They are good bills and a fair rule. I urge their adoption.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Madam Speaker, I yield to my friend, Mr. Cantor, the majority leader, for the purposes of inquiring of the schedule for the week to come.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information.

I think, as the majority leader knows probably as well as any of us, and maybe better than most of us, we have 4 legislative days left in November and 8 scheduled legislative days in December, assuming we do, in fact, get out on the 13th, which is the last day that we are scheduled to be in session this year.

Having said that, there are a number of pressing items to address. As the majority leader knows, the unemployment insurance protections for folks expire on December 31--actually, I think it is December 28. The SGR provisions expire on December 31. If we do not do something with respect to them, there will be a substantial decrease in the reimbursement to doctors serving Medicare patients.

I know that the majority leader has, and we have, people who are willing to work together to address these issues. Knowing that there is usually uncertainty at the end of a session, I would ask the gentleman if he can give Members a sense of scheduling for the coming month, that is December, and I yield to my friend.

I thank the majority leader for that information, and I am pleased that he added to the WRRDA, farm bill, NDAA, and the patent reform issues the budget conference. My view is, as the majority leader probably knows, the most important thing we can do for our economy is to get our country on a fiscally sustainable long-term path.

Can the majority leader gives us some information on the status of the budget conference? Certainly, from a public perception, it appears that not much progress has been made, which is worrisome in light of the fact that the target date for the reporting on the conference is the 13th--or, should I say, the legislative directive is to report by the 13th. As Mr. Ryan has pointed out, perhaps unfortunately so, there are no consequences of that not occurring. I had urged, myself, as the majority leader may know, that they report out by Friday of next week, the 22nd of next week, or Thursday of next week, so that we could have the conference report on the week we come back in December after Thanksgiving.

Could the gentleman give us any idea where he thinks the proceedings of the conference committee on the budget stand?

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman.

He mentions the sequester. Of course, almost everybody who has spoken about the sequester, including myself, the majority leader, and Mr. Ryan, has indicated the sequester is not the way to reduce spending. It is a meat-ax approach which is having very adverse consequences to our national security structure. I think almost every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has made that point. Certainly, General Dempsey has made that point. But also, on the domestic discretionary side, the sequester doesn't work, and the proof of that, of course, is that we haven't considered any of those bills on the floor; and the one that we considered, we pulled, the Transportation-HUD bill.

So I am hopeful, and I know Mr. Rogers is, as is Senator Mikulski, the chairs of the Appropriations Committee, have both indicated that they hope to get a number early on, and that is why the 22nd was a preferable date, if we could have reached that, so that they would have a number to which they could mark bills. Obviously, if there is not an agreement on the 302(a), as the gentleman knows, it is very difficult, then, to try to bring those bills together in a conference because they are so far apart.

I am hopeful that the majority leader will use his good offices to urge resolution on the budget conference differences and report out as soon as possible so we can get to that process.

The gentleman I am sure shares my view that the shutting down of government is extraordinarily disruptive, both to the general public and to those who work for the Federal Government, so that it would be incumbent upon us, I think, to try to get out of this gridlock on the budget process that we have been in. I would urge him to exercise whatever, because he has substantial influence to try to get us to a resolution of this issue, and I will tell him I will do the same.

Another issue which you did not mention, Mr. Leader, is immigration. As you know, this issue passed very handily through the United States Senate on a vote of 68-32, and I am very hopeful that we could move this legislation. I think the Senate bill or a variation of the Senate bill would pass. We have introduced an alternative for which we have Republican cosponsorship, H.R. 15, which is a comprehensive immigration bill which incorporates the security provision that was adopted unanimously in this House by the Republican-led Homeland Security Committee. We believe it has bipartisan components to it, and the balance of the bill has bipartisan support in the United States Senate. The gentleman knows, you passed a number of bills out of your committees, and they were passed, of course, with partisan votes. We do not believe these bills are bills that we would support, but we are wondering whether any of them are going to be brought to the floor.

H.R. 2278, which is the Strengthen and Fortify Enforcement Act, which allows the State and local authorities to enforce Federal immigration laws, as you know, we think that is bad policy, but it did come out of the Republican-headed committee in the Judiciary Committee. I am wondering if that might be brought to the floor.

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman for his comments, Madam Speaker, and I wish that they had been demonstrated on the farm bill and on the Homeland Security appropriation bill, both of which were reported out of committee on a bipartisan basis but were made very partisan on the floor of this House. I thought that was unfortunate, but that is what happened.

I would like to repeat my question. The gentleman said he wanted to deal with the immigration bill in a very thoughtful, considered way and that he did not support the Senate immigration bill. I was not surprised with that response. The Speaker has also made that very clear; he does not support it. And, very frankly, the majority of Republicans have made it clear they do not support the comprehensive immigration reform bill.

However, Mr. Leader, what I asked you was are you going to bring H.R. 2278 which passed out of the Judiciary Committee, presumably in a thoughtful, considered, discrete way, that is dealing with individual subjects, which is the Strengthen and Fortify Enforcement Act, which allows States and local authorities to enforce Federal immigration laws--my question to you, Mr. Leader, are you going to bring that bill to the floor, or any of the other four bills, which I will mention as well, to the floor, because presumably you believe those were considered in a thoughtful way, were reported out of your committee, were reported out with all of your Republican members, I believe, voting for it, at least 20 of them voting for it. My question to you is: Are you going to bring that bill to the floor?

I yield to my friend.

I thank the leader.

I said I wanted to mention the other bills because we understand, A, you would like to talk about health care without focusing on anything else. I get that. We have a disagreement. We will see whether the American people believe that making sure that affordable, quality health care is available to all Americans is something they are for or whether they are against. We will see on that. That issue was joined in the last election. The last election didn't have much effect in this body in terms of the issues that were contended in that election.

But let me ask you about H.R. 2131, which is the Supplying Knowledge Based Immigrants and Lifting Levels of STEM Visas Act.

As the gentleman knows, there are a lot of people very interested in this issue. This would eliminate the diversity visa program, transfer 55,000 green cards available under that program to a new STEM program that employers can use to hire foreign workers with advanced STEM degrees--master's degrees, Ph.D.s, et cetera--from universities. It was being marked up and, I understand, passed out 20-14. Again, that was with an overwhelming Republican vote, if not unanimous vote. Again, the gentleman indicates we want to consider the immigration issue in a thoughtful, discreet, and, as the Speaker has said, bill by bill way.

Is there any expectation that the gentleman has that that bill will be brought to the floor before we adjourn for the year?

I yield to my friend.

I think the majority leader knows, and I know, he has 218 votes on his side of the floor. As a matter of fact, he has substantially more than that.

If the last bill was so good, bring it to the floor and pass it. That is what the Speaker says you want to do, you want to pass bills item by item. What is happening is you are passing bills out of committee and they languish there, just as the farm bill, to which the gentleman referred in the early part of our discussion, languished in the last Congress and was not reported to the floor.

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman for that point.

He passed a Homeland Security bill that he knew the Senate wasn't for. He passed appropriation bills that he knew the Senate wasn't for. He passed, Madam Speaker, the farm bill amendments that he knew were not going to be supported in the Senate.

Madam Speaker, we think immigration is a critically important subject. We believe immigration is, in fact, broken. We have an alternative. He doesn't like our alternative. I understand that. We understand that on this side. Perhaps the American people will also understand. They don't like our alternative.

It passed with 68 votes in the United States Senate. He now says people have changed their mind. Maybe that is the case, but it passed with 68 votes in the United States Senate. They don't like it. Madam Speaker, I understand that. I get it.

They don't like the health care bill. By the way, Madam Speaker, I am starting to get that message. I am pretty thick and it takes some time, but on 46 votes to repeal or to undermine, I get it. You don't like that bill. You think it is a bad bill. We have a disagreement on that, Mr. Leader.

However, apparently we don't have a disagreement on the fact that the immigration system in America is broken. What I am asking you--you have passed out of committee the Agricultural Guest Worker Program. It creates a new Temporary Agricultural Worker Program. That also passed on a partisan vote. None of these votes were bipartisan. There was no effort to work with the Democrats on the committee to bring a bipartisan bill, unlike Mr. Lucas or Mr. Carter, who brought bipartisan bills to the floor and saw them turned into partisan pieces of legislation with the help, frankly, of the majority party.

I am asking you regarding the Agricultural Guest Worker Act, are we going to bring that to the floor? Again, a discreet, thoughtful, I am sure on your side of the aisle, addressing of a broken program, but if we don't bring it to the floor, we don't consider it, we can never get to conference, which is what the gentleman says he wants to do.

I yield to my friend.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his observations.

I must say I am somewhat amused, Madam Speaker, because there are few people in America who believe it is our party that is my way or the highway. There are few people in America who didn't see 198 Democrats vote to keep their government working. It is not my way or the highway. We didn't get what we wanted. We didn't want that number that was passed. 198 Democrats, without exception, voted to keep this government open; 198 Democrats voted to pay the bills of the United States of America. It wasn't a question of my way or the highway. It wasn't a question of repeal or I will vote to shut down the government. 147 Republicans, Madam Speaker, voted to keep the government shut down because they didn't get their way. 147 Republicans, including in both instances, the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, voted to not pay the bills of the United States of America. And they voted against the majority leader's advice and against the Speaker's advice. That is a problem. I agree that that is a problem.

No matter how much, Madam Speaker, the majority leader says it is the President and the United States Senate that are undermining, in fact, the United States Senate has been passing time and after time after time bipartisan bills and has sent them to the House, where they have languished or been opposed, and finally, they were supported. That was true in the Violence Against Women Act. It was true on a bill that the majority leader and I were for, Madam Speaker, and that is for giving Sandy relief. He couldn't get more than 25 percent of his party to support that.

All I am saying is that, if immigration is a problem and we all say it is, and you think it needs to be dealt with in a discrete way, and you have passed bills out, why don't you bring them to the floor? H.R. 1772, the Legal Workforce Act, makes E-Verify immigration status programs for prospective employees mandatory. Again, I presume that this is one of Mr. Goodlatte's thoughtful, considered steps to fix a broken immigration system.

All I am asking is--now for the fourth time--will you bring one or more of these bills to the floor? We may not be for them, but at least they put, as the gentleman keeps saying, a bill before the House so the House can work its will. Frankly, if they are defeated, then it would be incumbent upon us to move in a different direction, but if they are just sitting there without consideration by the House, without the ability of the House to work its will, then it continues to cause inaction on a subject that all of us have expressed needs action.

If the gentleman wants to respond to that, I will yield. If not, I will go on to another subject. I am going to go on to another subject.

Rather than go on to another subject, let me urge the gentleman, again, because when the gentleman says, ``Let the House work its will,'' that is a wonderful phrase. Hopefully, it resonates with the American people. But the House is not allowed to work its will. Ultimately, of those bills I have just referenced, we did work our will, and we worked our will, frankly, with mostly a majority of Democrats and a minority of Republicans joining together to pass critically important legislation for this country. We couldn't get the majority of your party to vote for many of those bills.

I would ask the gentleman that if he really wants the House to work its will, and he believes that H.R. 15, the comprehensive immigration bill, is a bad bill, bring it to the floor and see if the House thinks it is a bad bill, see if the House believes that it is a bill that is not worthy to be considered and passed as a fixing of a broken immigration system.

I urge my friend to bring that bill to the floor. He has the power to bring that bill to the floor. I urge him to do so.

I yield to my friend.

In closing, Madam Speaker, let me simply observe that this is somewhat ironic because the gentleman has repeatedly said he doesn't like the Senate bill.

I hear that. He then says, we need to consider a more thoughtful way of doing this. I get that.

I have then pointed out that the committee, which is headed by Mr. Goodlatte, Republican leader of the Judiciary Committee, has passed a number of bills, presumably, in that quest for a more thoughtful consideration to fix a broken system.

The gentleman has not said he is going to bring any of those bills to the floor, so he knows what he is against, Madam Speaker. He knows what his party is against, Madam Speaker, but he cannot tell us what he is going to do to fix a broken system because, apparently, the four bills that I have asked about are not being brought to the floor, are not part of the solution of which the gentleman speaks, and that is regrettable.

Let me say, in closing, Madam Speaker, I hope we can work in a bipartisan fashion. It didn't occur after the election, where the very issue was whether or not we ought to extend affordable health care to millions of people, some 30 to 40 to 50 million people who did not have health care security.

They continue to be scared. They continue to be presented with a message that this is a failed program, frankly, before it even starts.

Now, it has started. In terms of access, it doesn't start, as the gentleman knows, until January 1. But for some people, for some people it has started. For some parents with children with a preexisting condition, who could not get insurance, it is working.

For young people who couldn't find a job but needed insurance and were less than 26 years of age, they could stay on their parents' policy. It was working.

For seniors who were confronted with a doughnut hole that put them deeply in debt for prescription drugs they needed for lifesaving and life quality, it is working.

It is working for those people who did not go bankrupt and won't go bankrupt in the future because there are not the limits that can be imposed upon them when they get really sick.

So, yes, we will have a debate on that, but it ought not to simply divert us from all of the other issues that we need to deal with.

The budget--we need to get this country on a fiscally sustainable path. I know the leader agrees on that.

We need to fix a broken immigration system. I know the leader believes that as well. We need to invest in growing our country, to get rid of the sequester because the sequester is going to hurt our country. And, frankly, I think the leader agrees on that. We may not agree on how to do it, but I think he agrees on the objective.

So, Madam Speaker, on all of those, we ought to be giving our best efforts, not in a partisan way, but in a bipartisan way, as Americans, not as Democrats and Republicans.

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

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 H.R. 2728.

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

Mr. Chairman, the Obama administration is once again attempting to block new energy production, keeping energy prices high and hurting middle class families. The Department of the Interior is proposing new regulations on the practice of hydraulic fracturing on Federal and tribal lands. These regulations, once implemented next year, will in all likelihood add new layers of red tape and lower energy production even further on Federal land.

For over 2 years, the Natural Resources Committee has conducted extensive oversight of the Obama administration's proposed regulations. We have held multiple hearings across the country and have heard from energy experts, tribal leaders, and State officials who have all had the same message: these are bad regulations that potentially destroy jobs and stifle American energy production.

According to one study, these new Federal regulations would cost nearly $350 million annually. As a consequence, the 1.7 million jobs that are currently supported by shale oil and natural gas production--a number, I might add, Mr. Chairman, that is expected to increase to 2.5 million by 2015--these jobs would be put in jeopardy. Even worse, these proposed regulations duplicate efforts already being carried out by States across the country.

Hydraulic fracturing has been safely and effectively regulated by States for decades. So the Obama administration's proposed regulations are unnecessary, they are redundant, and they simply waste precious time and money duplicating what is already being done successfully.

That is why two of our colleagues from Texas, Mr. Flores and Mr. Cuellar, introduced the bipartisan H.R. 2728, the Protecting States' Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act, before us today. This bill prohibits the Interior Department from enforcing duplicative hydraulic fracturing regulations in any State that already has regulations or will adopt regulations in the future and recognizes

States' authority to regulate this type of activity.

The bill acknowledges that States are doing a good job and an effective job regulating this activity. And ironically, Mr. Chairman, officials from the Obama administration, itself, have admitted that there has not been one known case of groundwater contamination from hydraulic fracturing. The reason I mention this, Mr. Chairman, is because groundwater contamination is the argument most frequently used against this process.

The bill also recognizes that States are able to carefully craft regulations to meet the unique geological and hydrologic needs of their States. A one-size-fits-all regulatory structure, like this administration is trying to impose, will not work and is certainly not the answer.

I want to be very clear: this bill does not prevent the Federal Government from implementing baseline standards in States where none exist. This bill simply prevents the Federal Government from wasting time, money, and resources by imposing duplicative red tape on a process that is widely regarded as being properly regulated by the States.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores), the author of this legislation, who is a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to ask the distinguished ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee if he could tell me who did that study.

I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for him to tell me who did that study.

I thank the gentleman for responding.

At this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), chairman of the subcommittee that dealt with this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores), the sponsor of the legislation.

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), another member of the Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Daines), another member of the Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce), a former member of the Natural Resources Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), a State that is booming because of this activity.

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds as I see he is on a roll.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold), another member from an energy-producing State.

Mr. Chairman, let me inquire of my friend from New Jersey if he is prepared to close. We had some further requests for time, but I don't see them, and sometimes they don't get their time when they don't come down here.

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

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time the gentleman from New Jersey has left if he is going to yield back.

I would advise the gentleman to reserve his time because one of our speakers came, which we didn't think was going to happen. So I would advise the gentleman to reserve his time so that he has time to respond.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor), the distinguished majority leader, who is from a State that would like to do more offshore even though we are talking about onshore.

This is Groundhog Day, Mr. Chairman. I would say to my friend, now I have no more speakers whom I can foresee at all, so I am prepared to close if the gentleman doesn't repeat his last statement.

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

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

The underlying bill, as has been mentioned several times, is about American jobs and American energy security.

Just last week, the International Energy Agency released its World Energy Outlook. In that report, they predicted that the U.S. would surpass Saudi Arabia and become the top oil producer in the world in only 2 more years. Now, this is great news for our economy, it is great news for American workers, it is great news for potential energy prices, and, Mr. Chairman, it is great news for our national security.

This recent boom in energy production would not be possible without the new technological advances of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Let me give you an example. In

the year 2000, shale gas, which is the prime area that you go after with hydraulic fracturing, provided just 1 percent of our Nation's natural gas supplies. Today, it is 25 percent. That number will only continue to grow.

While the White House is quick to take credit for this uptick in energy production, the truth is this increase is happening in spite of this administration's policies and not because of them. Because what has been well documented, all of the increase in energy production is happening on State and private lands, not on Federal lands. Currently, 93 percent of shale oil wells are located on private and State lands and only 7 percent on Federal lands. That simply means that there is a great potential on Federal lands that are currently being ignored because of the regulatory hoops.

I suggest that if the Department of the Interior goes through with their regulations on fracking that would be duplicative of those States, it would only keep that 7 percent where it is rather than increasing. It seems to me, from a standpoint of policy for our country, it is best to be as energy secure as we can possibly be because that means that we are secure from a national security standpoint.

Finally, and certainly not least, that means that American jobs, good-paying American jobs, are creating the energy for the American consumer. That is what this bill is all about.

I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, the legislation before the House today is designed to eliminate duplicative regulations and allow for increased energy production. That is the intent of the legislation. Yet here we are with an amendment that creates a loophole in the bill to allow the government to impose back-door regulations to restrict and block American energy production, which, of course, we know would result in lost job opportunities.

H.R. 2728 aims to give the States primacy in regulating hydraulic fracturing operations within their borders. I want to mention that again. This bill aims to give the States primacy in regulating hydraulic fracturing within their borders. So if a State regulatory body wants to implement emissions regulations, which this amendment addresses, in conjunction with their other rules and regulations, they are free to implement their own regulations beyond what is already required. Nothing in this bill prevents any State from putting emissions at the end of the regulations in place.

Further, the Secretary has the authority to manage methane emissions for production on Federal lands and, working collaboratively, we have seen significant reductions in the last 2 years because of that effort. However, attempting to cloak these regulations as fracturing regulations through a loophole that will cost American jobs and inhibit energy production in my mind is simply not the way to go.

So this amendment aims to impose controversial and political regulations into a bill that is simply about American energy production, and I urge a ``no'' vote.

Let me make just one other point. I will probably repeat this again. There is nothing in this bill that prevents a State from regulating emissions within their State, which, of course, would take effect and what the gentleman is trying to do.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

My good friend, the author of this amendment, opened his second remarks by saying, This legislation makes it impossible to regulate-- fill in the blanks. No, Mr. Chairman, that is not the case.

This bill says that primacy of regulation of hydraulic fracturing, which has been going on for some 60 years, if a State has it in place, that State's laws shall be the ones that we should follow. Those States that don't have it, then, of course, this legislation would allow the Department of the Interior's regulations to be there until they changed their regulations.

I want to make a point. This amendment is about the emissions from the process of hydraulic fracturing. Nothing in this bill, as I said before, prevents a State from doing what they can do. After all, keep in mind, Mr. Chairman, those States that have hydraulic fracturing rules maybe in all likelihood have some regulations dealing with the emissions that come from that. Nothing in this bill prevents that from happening.

What the amendment does do, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, is a back-door way to regulate hydraulic fracturing when, as I said just a moment ago, it has been done successfully for over 60 years in the States.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman's amendment goes right to the heart of what those who are opposed to this process are concerned with by disclosing the chemicals which is embodied in this amendment. This amendment does exactly what seems to be the opposition on the other side. I think it is a good amendment, and we are prepared to accept it.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I think this amendment will probably no doubt prove what we have been saying, that producing American energy will produce American jobs.

I think the gentleman's amendment adds to this legislation, and I am willing to accept that.

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

I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Chairman, a similar amendment like this has been offered multiple times in our committee markups and they have always failed on a bipartisan vote, and similar amendments like this have also failed on the floor. This is nothing more than an effort to make production on Federal lands more challenging and less valuable.

The vast majority of the natural gas that is produced in the United States stays in North America, but that that is exported, 98 percent goes to Canada and Mexico. We ought to keep those customers.

Additionally, since 2009, the U.S. has been the largest producer of natural gas in the world, which, I guess, goes to my friend from Oregon's argument. But energy is going to be globally decided in the marketplace. Many companies operating in United States are international companies with businesses all over the world. Undercutting the basic premise of the free market and restricting the use of the resource always has real economic consequences in the future.

Now, there is one other point about this amendment, too. The amendment makes it unclear what is considered natural gas. The question arises, are products derived from natural gas also only to be sold in the United States because they are made from natural gas? It is unclear the way the amendment is drafted. But if that were to be the case, Mr. Chairman, there would be vast spin-off industries that would be affected, namely, the plastic industries.

So I tend to be one that believes that the American consumer, in fact, consumers everywhere, are benefited if we have free trade in the world. That should apply to everything, including a big resource that we are becoming a leader in, and this amendment, I think, is contrary to that approach.

Mr. Chairman, with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

I would just simply say and correct my good friend from Oregon, I did not say that because natural gas would enter the international market it would become less available. I simply said that it would become part of the global market.

I dare say that, when oil was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania, nobody thought that that oil would become part of the world market, but it has. But unfortunately, because we in the United States have not utilized our resources like we should with crude oil and not competed as we should with past decisions, there was a cartel that was formed internationally called OPEC. They control the oil market.

The best way to beat cartels is to outsupply them. If we are going to be a leader in natural gas in the world, we ought to take advantage of that and lead when we can, but recognize that a free market gives the best services to people and recipients of that, not only in the United States, but in the world.

With that, I urge rejection of the DeFazio amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentlelady for her amendment and for yielding to me for the purpose of entering into a colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask my friend from Texas, the text of the gentlelady's amendment requires the Secretary of the Interior to conduct an annual review of all State hydraulic fracturing activity. My concern is that this provision appears to be very broad.

I would be delighted to work with the gentlelady, as this bill works its way through the legislative process, to consider some additional conditions to ensure that the broad review is targeted at those areas subject to the jurisdiction of the committee and results in a report to Congress that is meaningful and productive.

To that end, would the gentlelady be willing to work with me to clarify that her amendment is intended to apply to State permitting of hydraulic fracturing on Federal lands?

With the clarification that the gentlelady will work with me, that this is subject to Federal lands, with the clarification that the review and report required of the Secretary should be limited to State permitting of hydraulic fracturing on Federal lands, I am willing to accept the gentlelady's amendment. I thank her for her work on that.

I yield back to the gentlelady.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

I rise in opposition to this bill. Apparently, Mr. Chairman, the Republican majority believes that the greatest threat that Americans face from hydraulic fracturing today is too many regulations. They don't seem to be concerned about the danger posed to our drinking water supplies or the impacts of industrialization on our rural landscapes or the increased risk of earthquakes from wastewater injection or the emissions of methane or other noxious chemicals into the air or the identity of the mystery chemicals being pumped underground nor the disposal of waste safely. Americans are concerned about these things, and so should we be.

The House Democrats are trying to do something about that. My colleagues and I have introduced an entire series of bills designed to address the very real impacts that fracking has on American communities: the BREATHE Act, by Mr. Polis; the SHARED Act, by Ms. Schakowsky; the CLEANER Act, by Mr. Cartwright; the FRESHER Act, also by Mr. Cartwright; and the FRAC Act, by Ms. DeGette. These are attempts to protect the air, the water, the land, and ensure that people know what is being injected into the ground under their homes. The Republicans will not bring any of these bills to the floor, and I doubt they will because, according to the Republicans, the real threat is too many regulations.

This is preposterous, Mr. Chairman. Tell the people who want to know what chemicals are being injected under their homes that the real danger is that the Federal Government wants them to know. Tell the people who are seeing elevated levels of methane in their drinking water that the real danger is that the Federal Government wants to ensure that the wells are built better so they will not leak methane. Mr. Chairman, tell the people living next to the huge open pits of wastewater that the real danger is the Federal Government wants to make sure that States have minimum standards.

Mr. Chairman, I am astonished that the sponsors of this bill and the leadership would even bring the bill to the floor. It will do nothing, absolutely nothing, to address any of the concerns that families have legitimately about the impacts of fracking in their communities. Worse than that, the bill will strip existing protections in place across the entire Nation.

It would eliminate the ability of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service to regulate oil and gas operations on their own lands. It would prevent the Fish and Wildlife Service from enforcing wildlife protection regulations under the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act--oh, yes, I know my colleagues will say, That is not true; read the bill--and any number of other laws everywhere across the country.

Now I would like to think that these are unintended consequences of a poorly drafted bill, but given past attacks on the Endangered Species Act and such, I think there is reason to suspect that this is an intended consequence.

They will say, This is about states' rights, but Democrats are actually focused on the American people's rights: their rights to clean air; their rights to clean water; to be free of hazardous waste; to know what is happening under their very feet.

I urge my colleagues to defeat this bill and to bring up legislation that will really deal with the health and safety of Americans across the country.

I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the senior ranking member of the Committee on Natural Resources.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and someone who is as expert as anyone in this Chamber on oil and gas industry and regulations.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar).

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

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

It is traditional and appropriate in this country that matters dealing with health and safety, clean water, and clean air are handled at the interstate level, at the Federal level. This legislation would remove all sorts of regulations. Best practices that are designed to minimize the environmental impact

of oil and gas legislation for Bureau of Land Management practices would be gone.

It gets rid of requirements to protect sacred sites and historic properties. It would throw out the regulation that prevents occupancy within a quarter of a mile of designated fisheries. It would remove the regulation that you can't do any of these activities in the floodplain of the Yellowstone River, and on and on.

My colleague a moment ago talked about the booming industry in chemicals because of fracking. Yes, that brings up an interesting point about the difference in State regulations. We would hope that anybody in the drilling area would have access to the chemicals that are being injected into these wells under their very feet, under their homes.

But if you look at what some States allow now, they allow chemicals that are confidential, proprietary, undisclosed to be used, and they number in the dozens. Let's see. We have got here oxyalkylated phenol resins; we have terpenes and terpenoids; we have quaternary amines. These are all items that are held confidentially, proprietarily; and under this legislation that we are considering, a State could make sure that they are not disclosed.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, my colleagues say that there have been no cases of contamination from the fracking, itself. What about leakage from poorly constructed wells? What about leakage from unlined pits? Are they prepared to claim that there has never been water contamination because of this? That is what the Bureau of Land Management regulations and rules get at--well construction, wastewater management, the threats to drinking water in neighboring communities. This legislation would gut-- it would remove--any possibility of such rules.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I say to the gentleman from Washington that we are in the same situation. I was expecting a few other speakers. In not seeing them, I am prepared to close.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, here is a partial list of the Federal laws, rules, and regulations that could not be enforced were this bill to become law:

The Endangered Species Act; the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; the oil and gas operations in National Park Service units; the oil and gas operations in National Wildlife Refuges; the casing and cementing regulations, such as should have been applied in the Deepwater Horizon case; the wastewater management regulations; the plugging and abandonment regulations, in other words, when pits or wells are abandoned; the best management practices for oil and gas drilling on public lands; the timing limits of when operations could be conducted with the least disruption to wildlife; the protections for sacred sites, historic trails, fisheries, and wetlands; and much more.

It has been sold as a states' rights bill that would only block the Bureau of Land Management's fracking rules, but it would strip agencies on Federal lands of the authority to enforce almost every regulation on the books because any State that has any regulation that affects these activities means that none of these regulations could apply, that they would all be superseded by the State regulations. That is what the bill says.

As for whether there is any damage done, I would point my friends to this

picture. Maybe you have a little trouble seeing it, but, essentially, it shows burning tap water. No, this is not a staged picture. This happened in a residence. This is methane flaming because the water is full of methane.

Now, I know my colleagues will say, Oh, but that is not because of fracking. There must be some other reason. There must be.

They haven't found it. They have blamed it on all sorts of other things, but it happens where the fracking is occurring.

So this is a case in which the practice has gotten ahead of the science, in which the practice has gotten ahead of our regulations, in which it has gotten ahead of our understanding; and the idea to reduce regulations and understanding so that we could do it faster is preposterous. This is not the way you protect public health. This is not the way you protect public safety. It is not the way you stimulate the economy. It is false economy to proceed in disregard for the protection of the environment.

So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 2728.

I yield to the gentleman for a question.

I appreciate the advice. It is possible that some of my speakers will arrive. I urge that we vote ``no,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

Then I will take just a moment.

Mr. Chairman, in closing, when I showed the picture of the burning tap water, I saw expressions of incredulity from the other side of the aisle. Surely that can't be true; or if it is true, surely it is not because of fracking.

A Duke University study found that methane contamination was in 115 of 141 shallow residential drinking wells that they studied, six times higher than wells greater than a mile from the fracking operations. Now, it is hard to tell when you are deep in the ground where that methane is leaking and what other chemicals, undisclosed chemicals, are leaking with that methane.

There is something here that should be regulated, and this legislation would prevent such regulations. I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

I rise in support of the amendment that I am introducing, along with Mr. Peters and Mr. Polis, to allow the Secretary of the Interior to regulate methane.

Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas emitted in the United States, and the oil and gas industry is responsible for about 30 percent of all methane emissions into the atmosphere.

Methane is a super pollutant more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere. Now we know that methane can and sometimes does leak from fracked wells. That is what we see here with the ignited tap water. This so-called fugitive methane also contributes to air pollution as tropospheric ozone, or smog, which threatens public health by triggering asthma attacks and aggravating the conditions of people with bronchitis and emphysema.

In fact, methane leaks have contributed to the Upper Green River basin in Wyoming having some of the worst air quality in the country, at times rivaling the worst air quality days in Los Angeles.

Although discussed as a cleaner burning and more climate friendly energy source, natural gas, which is mostly methane, leaks at every stage of production, not just into the groundwater, and hence into drinking water wells. It does leak, and it does affect the Earth's climate. It is true that burning methane releases less carbon dioxide greenhouse gas to the atmosphere than does burning an equivalent amount of coal, but the methane itself is a greenhouse gas. Fugitive methane emissions in excess of only a few percent remove the relative advantages of natural gas compared to other fossil energy sources.

Aside from issues of climate and health, leaked methane represents lost royalties for the Federal Government, lost revenue for oil and gas companies, and I know that supporting greater profits for Big Oil is something my colleagues should be eager to support.

Our amendment will help prevent the wasteful leakage of natural gas, will limit avoidable methane emissions, and will protect air quality and public health. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the Holt-Peters-Polis amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the whole point of the underlying bill is to make it impossible for the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management, the Secretary of the Interior to impose regulations. It says if the State has any regulations, then the Federal regulations don't count.

All this amendment would do is say on the important issue of what is called fugitive methane, leaked methane, methane that gets into the atmosphere by whatever means because of the drilling and fracking, should be limited. And it should be limited for several reasons. It is a potent greenhouse gas, and it is lost revenue. So I would think that everyone would be eager to make sure that none of this fugitive methane gets into the atmosphere or into the drinking water.

We know methane can and sometimes does leak from fracked wells. We should want the Secretary to be able to regulate that, because under the underlying bill, the Secretary could not.

This amendment is necessary, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the amendment, although I do not intend to oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I will not oppose this amendment because by itself it does not change anything, but it does underscore the problems with the bill itself. So I would like to speak on that for a moment.

I don't think there is anything wrong with making Interior a one-stop shopping place for State drilling regulations, although I don't know if there are any States that want to keep their regulations secret. So I don't know if that provision actually has any real impact.

Let me read a provision of the bill that this amendment strikes so that everyone understands what the amendment is trying to do. Subsection (b) of the bill says Interior shall defer to all State regulations for all activities related to any component of the hydraulic fracturing process. It then goes on to say ``regardless of whether those rules are duplicative, more or less restrictive, shall have different requirements, or do not feet Federal guidances.''

Apparently the majority, as well as the author of this amendment, recognize that the last sentence was a little excessive and now this amendment proposes to strike that. But it doesn't make any difference because in subsection (a), the bill reads that Interior cannot enforce any of its regulations or guidance for any component of the hydraulic fracturing process.

Subsection (a) strips Interior of their authority to enforce. This certainly has the same effect as the language in subsection (b) directing them to defer with respect to any regulations or requirements.

Even after this amendment is adopted--and we are prepared to accept it--the language in the bill will still require that Interior defer to the States, regardless of whether State rules are less restrictive or adequate or are inadequate or if they don't meet Federal guidelines. That is the problem with the bill. The bill remains the same.

This amendment is really superfluous. I will not oppose the amendment, but it does underscore the fundamental problem with the legislation that we are considering here today. It strips Interior of any authority to protect public health, public safety from drilling and fracking operations on public lands.

Although I will also accept the amendment, I will continue to oppose the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.