Protecting American Energy Production Act

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

Madam Speaker, I welcome everyone to the first installment of House Republicans' fulfillment of their misguided, billionaire-funded, pro- polluter, drill, baby, drill agenda.

I like Valentine's Day as much as anyone. I don't mean to be cynical, but what I don't do is introduce empty love letters to polluting industries masquerading as legislation. That is what we are here to do today. This bill we are considering is one massive letter to Big Oil signed by the House GOP.

Meanwhile, Americans are grappling with the actual fallout from the White House's unconstitutional, illegal freeze on Federal funding across dozens of agencies and tariffs on our allies that will increase energy costs and inflation.

Instead of addressing all of these things, we are here today with a little love letter for Valentine's Day from House Republicans to Big Oil.

H.R. 26, the Protecting American Energy Production Act, pretends to ban Presidential fracking bans. Let me be clear: This bill is a solution in search of a nonexistent problem. President Trump is not going to ban fracking. President Biden didn't ban fracking. No President, past or present, has banned fracking.

Of course, now we do have President Trump. Democrats are not election deniers. We acknowledge that President Trump won the election. He is our President, and he loves fracking. Who are we kidding by passing this bill pretending to stop him from banning fracking?

If Republicans really want to push back on Presidential power and assert congressional rights, that would be interesting. We would love to work with Republicans on something like that.

We could start with the fact that President Trump has unleashed his unelected buddy, billionaire Elon Musk, to do all kinds of things in the first few weeks of his administration that ought to offend the sensibilities of the Article I branch of government, like blocking funds lawfully enacted by Congress that should be helping hardworking families and protecting communities from wildfires and droughts; firing civil servants working on behalf of the country and inspectors general charged with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse; attacking civil rights and disability protections that Congress enacted into law; and attempting to abolish USAID, an agency that might not be familiar to many Americans but is incredibly important to American interests. It advances U.S. global leadership all over the world and counters the malign influence of Russia and China.

We are here on the House floor to give Republicans a stage to gush over the oil and gas industry. This is political theater at its worst. Instead of addressing real crises like the climate crisis or the crushing cost of living for American families, Republicans are wasting everyone's time banning imaginary fracking bans, claiming it will somehow lower costs for communities and small businesses, but it won't.

What we are about to see is Republicans previewing their undying devotion and the many favors they are going to offer to Big Oil in the months to come. Let's review a couple of facts. The United States is already the largest producer of oil in the world. We are producing more oil and gas than ever before. In fact, we are producing more than any country in history.

What do we have to show for it? How is that working out for us? We are still facing volatile energy prices because we are exporting record amounts of fossil fuel and because fossil fuels are global commodities vulnerable to international price shocks. The fossil fuel industry will do whatever it takes to make the most money, even if that is exporting its products in ways that increase costs for American consumers.

There is a cost to this industry joyride. Communities living near this record-breaking production are bearing the brunt of fossil fuel pollution, and their health and well-being are paying the price.

The United States should be leading the way to a new, cleaner future. Instead, we are drilling deeper into this catastrophe.

It is not as if Big Oil is hurting right now. The oil and gas industry enjoys $15 billion in subsidies from American taxpayers each year, and that is just the direct handouts. When you factor in health and environmental impacts because taxpayers pick up the tab for all of that, the United States spends $757 billion propping up the fossil fuel industry every single year.

What do we get in return for all of this generosity? It sure seems like unrequited love because Big Oil has been colluding illegally with foreign cartels to purposely drive up gas prices for American consumers, increasing inflation and padding their pockets along the way.

Big Oil doesn't need any more favors. What it needs is to be held accountable. That didn't stop President Trump from asking for a billion dollars from the oil and gas industry during the campaign.

We are going to see Big Oil billionaires ask for more tax breaks and deregulation every day for the next two Congresses, but this bill is particularly absurd. If nothing else, the debate over this love letter to Big Oil makes one thing clear: House Republicans are more interested in passing love notes to Big Oil than in holding Big Oil accountable.

During the fracking process, oil and gas companies inject a high- pressure mixture of water, sand, and toxic chemicals into the ground to extract fossil fuels. It is a dirty business, yet for years, there have been loopholes around it to boost the industry's profits even further while leaving communities vulnerable to pollution.

I will highlight some examples. All industries, if they want to inject toxic pollutants underground, have to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act. This makes sure that drinking water resources and public health are protected, which fracking is not. Fracking companies aren't subject to the Safe Drinking Water Act regulations. They don't have to disclose any of the toxic chemicals that could seep into your drinking water.

Another example: Under the Clean Air Act, we can aggregate smaller nearby sources of pollution that can be regulated together to protect public health. That is something the Clean Air Act does that applies to all other industries but not from oil and gas development. They have a special exception.

Now, what about the Clean Water Act? Well, that has provisions to prevent polluted stormwater runoff from contaminating water sources, except if that runoff comes from oil and gas facilities.

These are just a few of the loopholes that this industry enjoys, loopholes that have real impacts on public health, especially children's health.

Studies have found that exposure to fracking and associated chemicals can lead to low birth weight for babies, preterm births, congenital abnormalities, asthma, and even certain childhood cancers.

We should be able to agree that protecting children from these impacts and ensuring that communities have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink should be our priorities, not sending love letters to Big Oil.

Unfortunately, this bill and the many other giveaways that are going to be coming our way in this Congress will not protect these communities.

Madam Speaker, I strongly oppose this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Colorado an additional 30 seconds.

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

Madam Speaker, it is interesting. I hear my colleague from Minnesota saying that he is interested in constraining Presidential power, just not this President, and apparently only when it applies to Presidents who might go against the interests of Big Oil. I guess at least there is some semblance of interest in defending Article I, but it is a pretty twisted remnant of what should be Congress' Article I authority.

If we really want to work on constraining Presidential power, there is a lot we could do together. Right now this administration is illegally blocking funds enacted by Congress to help hardworking Americans, funding meant for wildfire management and water infrastructure projects at a time when communities in California are still reeling from disaster. Instead, we are debating this.

This administration has fired inspectors general from at least 18 Federal agencies without warning and without explanation in clear violation of the law which requires 30 days' notice to Congress and a substantive explanation. There was a time when Members of both parties would be furious over a flouting of the law like that. However, today it doesn't seem to matter to our colleagues across the aisle.

These independent watchdogs exist for one purpose: To prevent waste, fraud, and abuse and to hold Presidential power in check, working closely with Congress. Apparently that doesn't matter anymore.

We know the administration is actively trying to abolish USAID, a nonpartisan agency established by Congress which supports nutrition and other basic humanitarian assistance all over the world for people who need it. We know that NOAA could be next on the chopping block, a science-based agency that people all over this country depend on every day to get weather alerts and to save lives. However, we are on the floor debating this love letter to Big Oil instead of standing up for Congress' Article I authority and holding Presidential power in check.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Phoenix, Arizona (Ms. Ansari).

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

Madam Speaker, do you know what is bad for energy prices here in the United States? This LNG export bonanza that my friends across the aisle support that President Trump is unleashing with one of his executive orders restarting LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries. Unconstrained exports of LNG could increase wholesale domestic natural gas prices here in the United States by over 30 percent. Households could pay $100 more per year by midcentury, and congressional Republicans are threatening to repeal clean energy tax credits which could result in a 10 percent jump in electricity costs. Let's not kid each other about who cares about energy prices for American consumers.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Casten).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I close by making one thing very clear. Even though fracking can undeniably present very real health threats and risks to the public, the reality is that no President has ever tried to ban it, and President Trump is certainly not going to ban it. He absolutely loves fracking.

Why are we here? Why are we having this totally performative debate?

This bill and this debate serves two purposes for my colleagues across the aisle. First, it is a chance to provide an assurance, a love letter, to Big Oil, telling them that House Republicans will have their backs, an early Valentine's Day gift, if you will.

Second, it is a distraction. House Republicans are distracting the American people by saying they are doing something. To put it in theological terms that my friends might appreciate, it is like Jesus is coming, look busy.

However, as we have laid out, this will do nothing for energy costs. The entire drill, baby, drill agenda will do nothing for inflation because the industry is already producing record amounts of oil and gas. They are doing more than that. They are purposefully and illegally price gouging Americans, colluding with cartels. They are not interested in lowering costs for the American people.

This is also a distraction from the trade war that President Trump is starting to unleash, including against close allies of the United States, something that is going to painfully raise

prices for everyday Americans. It is a distraction from the President's threats and attacks on democracy.

We are sliding down the slippery slope to dictatorship, Mr. Speaker, and we are here debating a love letter to Big Oil.

Just under 3 weeks into this administration, it is clear, and it is no surprise, who the Republican leaders in Congress are for. They are for billionaires. They are for Big Oil, corporations, and polluters.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defend people over polluters and vote ``no'' on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 5, I call up the bill (H.R. 26) to prohibit a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

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. 26.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 26, the Protecting American Energy Production Act.

H.R. 26, introduced by Congressman Pfluger, would prevent any President from issuing a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing while also establishing a sense of Congress that States should regulate the practice on State and private land.

Hydraulic fracturing has been around for nearly 100 years. With other advancements in the industry, such as horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing has become a staple of the oil and gas industry. The practice has propelled the United States to energy superpower status. In fact, fracking in the United States provides 64 percent of American crude oil and 78 percent of the country's natural gas.

This surge in supply has contributed to lower energy prices for consumers, stimulated economic and job growth, and improved the quality of life for Americans.

In truth, a ban on hydraulic fracturing would devastate the American economy while surrendering world energy leadership to adversary nations with large oil and gas reserves, such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and China.

Federal efforts to regulate fracking, which is adequately regulated by the States, could have an equally detrimental impact. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 clarified that Congress never intended the Federal Government to regulate fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

There is even precedent from the courts to not allow the Federal Government to regulate fracking. In the Obama administration, the Bureau of

Land Management attempted to regulate the practice for Federal lands and minerals, but the courts correctly threw out the effort. In the decision, the judge clearly stated: ``Congress has not delegated to the Department of the Interior the authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing. The BLM's effort to do so through the fracking rule is in excess of its statutory authority and contrary to the law.''

States regulate fracking, and each has comprehensive laws and regulations to provide for safe operations, protect drinking water sources, and ensure effective regulations of oil and gas exploration and production.

This bill would prevent future administrations from implementing a unilateral fracking ban and express Congress' sense that States should maintain regulatory authority over fracking on State and private lands.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important piece of legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Fracking has been challenged. It has been challenged by the Biden administration, and fortunately, the courts stepped in and said that you can't regulate fracking to the BLM. If you look at what our abundant clean supply of natural gas in the United States has done, it has allowed us to reduce emissions more than any country in the world.

We produce the cleanest, most reliable gas in the world with a 40 percent cleaner carbon footprint than what Russia produces. Natural gas not only provides jobs and energy here at home, but it can be a source of national security to help bolster our partners around the world.

We are blessed with natural gas from the Permian Basin in west Texas and New Mexico to the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York. I believe those two combined are the largest natural gas field in the world.

We have a tremendous resource that we can use to do many good things, and if fracking were banned, that resource goes away.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger), the lead sponsor of the bill.

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

The benefits that clean American energy, reliable, affordable energy, has on health benefits are too numerous to even get into in a discussion here today. It saves lives not just in providing energy and heat but in providing the many materials that are made from oil and gas in the United States.

Even the Obama administration's EPA found that fracking has no ``widespread systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.'' No evidence has arisen that the practice is dangerous, and to say anything else is simply fear-mongering and pandering to the radical left that would rather rely on Iran, Russia, and Venezuela for energy.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta).

Madam Speaker, I think a lot of the general public doesn't realize that natural gas goes into a lot more than just producing energy but it is, in essence, the main ingredient in agriculture, and it is the main ingredient that can help lower our food prices as most fertilizer is made from natural gas. When we have abundant, affordable natural gas, then that means we have more abundant and affordable fertilizer so that we can grow more crops and keep prices low.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), who is the chairman of the Agriculture Committee and who has seen firsthand the benefits of fracking in the Marcellus shale.

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. Boebert).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Balderson).

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

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I will cite a 2019 study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy Institute. Their research shows a ban on fracking would have eliminated 19 million jobs between 2021 and 2025, while simultaneously reducing the U.S. gross domestic product by $7.1 trillion over the same period. The efforts of a ban like this cannot be overstated.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the link to the study by the Global Energy Institute. The link is: https://www.uschamber.com/assets/ documents/gei/hf__ban__report__final.pdf

Mr. Speaker, as we think about what that ban would have done just between the years 2021 and 2025, what if the Obama administration had been successful, what if their BLM had been successful in banning fracking on Federal lands, America would not have led the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

We would have seen even higher energy costs. The cost of food would have gone up. It could have changed the course of our country and not in a good way had this ban gone into effect.

The Global Energy Institute's research also shows that over the same 2021 to 2025 timeframe, energy prices would have skyrocketed with natural gas prices rising by 324 percent. This would cause household energy bills for the average American to quadruple and the cost of living to increase by $5,661 per year.

Additionally, the price of gasoline would double and government revenues would plummet by almost $1.9 trillion.

Let's think about that: $7 trillion of GDP. We know from history that about 17\1/2\ percent of the GDP goes right into the Federal Government's tax revenues. This would have driven the deficit much higher had a hydraulic fracking ban been put in place.

It could also trigger a global recession. In 1973, when Saudi Arabia implemented an oil embargo and roughly 7 percent of the global oil supply was removed from the markets, world oil prices skyrocketed 400 percent.

With these sobering facts in mind, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 26, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, we are in a constitutional crisis. The President of the United States is trying to delete the 14th Amendment, ignoring Congress' constitutional power of the purse to illegally block Federal spending, exposing the identities of our intelligence officers to our enemies, and sending Elon Musk's unvetted minions into our financial systems to steal Americans' private information.

In the normal course, these violations would be prosecuted by the Department of Justice, but their leadership has put personal politics over the rule of law. In the normal course, Congress would act as a check and balance, but Republican leadership in both Chambers is most charitably described as missing in action. We are only 19 days in.

The White House is now dismantling USAID, pulling back on our soft power at the precise moment when China and Russia are trying to increase their influence over global affairs.

Is this because of social media conspiracies, foreign influence operations, or just because Elon Musk is still angry that USAID helped to topple apartheid in South Africa? There are no good answers to that question.

They are targeting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, stripping our ability to make weather forecasts in the wake of rising seas, surging hurricanes, and ever more devastating wildfires. Take away our ability to give advance notice of those storms, and Americans will die.

They are opposing competitive markets, as they refuse to enact existing laws to build out EV charging networks and renewable energy because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know that to do so would be to bring resources onto our system that would further erode the market share of more expensive and dirtier energy.

Madam Speaker, they have now stolen data from the Treasury Department files so that Elon Musk, a man who gives Nazi salutes and actively campaigns for the neo-Nazi party in Germany, can access personal information that could potentially be used to target his political enemies. This is the very foundation of fascism, all of which leaves us in this Chamber with a choice.

As we sit here on the fulcrum of history, we can act to make these 19 days a footnote to an otherwise noble history of these United States, or we can go to our graves knowing that we did nothing during the 19 days that forever destroyed this 250-year-old experiment.

We can choose evil in this moment. We can choose to ignore everything that Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount as we persecute the meek so we can enrich the merciless.

We can choose cowardice.

We can give $1 to a homeless man on the way to work so we can take away hundreds of millions of dollars from housing assistance once we get there, telling ourselves that to do anything else would be to cause our seat to be filled by a less compassionate soul.

We can decide that if we aren't in leadership, then our job is just to follow orders. Sometimes that excuse works. It didn't at Nuremberg.

There is no difference between any of those choices. They all lead to the same outcome.

For this reason, I will be offering a fourth option. At the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee.

If the House rules permitted, I would have offered this motion with an important amendment to this bill to say that it shall not take effect until the illegal freeze of taxpayer dollars that Congress appropriated to the Department of the Interior, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other agencies has stopped; civil rights and employment protections for nonpartisan Federal public servants are restored; and DOGE and billionaires like Elon Musk no longer have unlawful access to Federal Government systems and the private, sensitive data of taxpaying Americans.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record immediately prior to the vote on the motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, that motion is a chance for all of my colleagues to choose leadership, to choose patriotism, to choose to honor the oath that we all took to the Constitution, to be remembered and honored by future generations, and, in the words of William F. Buckley, to stand athwart history and yell stop.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for bringing this bill to the floor. The American public spoke loud and clear on November 5. They said energy was on the ballot. They said that the hilarity and the fraudulent approach that the Biden administration took towards energy policy was wholly rejected.

Madam Speaker, we are in a new day and thank goodness we are. I represent the Permian Basin, Midland and Odessa, Texas, and for 4 years, this community was demonized, demonized, by the President, demonized by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, demonized for the work that they did to bring affordable, reliable energy to this country. They did so with an all-out assault.

I am proud today to support my legislation, H.R. 26, the Protecting American Energy Production Act. This is on behalf of every one of my constituents in Midland and Odessa, Texas, who provide the very pen that is being used by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who provide the cell phones and the cosmetics and the personal protective gear that goes into an emergency room. They are not just using liquid fuels, but using a safe technology, hydraulic fracturing, which was completely falsely characterized briefly this morning by my colleague on the other side of the aisle.

In 2019, America became the number one oil and gas producer, and it is wholly in part due to the shale revolution and the technology of being able to environmentally friendly extract this product and produce it here domestically for our use and to ship it to our allies and our partners around the world.

After 4 years of the previous administration's outright assault on American energy, it is critical now that we codify and that we work tirelessly to restore some integrity and some character to this American energy dominance and pass meaningful legislation that will unleash American energy and create jobs for hardworking Americans.

My legislation that is being considered today is a necessary first step in reversing the Biden administration's war on energy and preventing the Federal Government from banning the use of hydraulic fracturing.

Fracking is safe. It is clean. It is an effective way to produce affordable energy and to strengthen our national security. By ensuring its continued use, we can reestablish our global energy leadership. We can keep costs low for consumers, every consumer, and we can drive further technological advancements in the industry.

This bill advances President Trump's rightful position, his pro- energy, pro-American outlook on energy, to restore our position as the top producer in the world. Instead of allowing Russia, Iran, and Venezuela to do so, we are going to produce it here.

I thank my constituents for the fact that even though you were demonized, even though you were made to feel like you weren't doing something that was worthwhile, you did. You stood up, and you did it in the face of adversity.

Even at the end of the campaign season in 2024, then-candidate for President Kamala Harris in a debate said that she was pro-fracking. So it is hard to believe that anybody would actually vote against this legislation today because that was the platform of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

Today is an opportunity to bring us together, Republicans and Democrats, to codify what we both know has been a major advancement.

It is time to end the bans and unleash our lands. It is time to come together. I am proud to work with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle because I know this will be a bipartisan bill. I know that there will be many Democrats who vote for this. I am glad that we can do this.

I thank the chairman for bringing H.R. 26 to the floor. I fully support it, and I urge my colleagues to also support it.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Protecting American Energy Production Act.

Now, as a Coloradan from an energy-producing State, I don't oppose fracking, and frankly, opposition to fracking is not in the Democratic agenda. However, I think we can all agree that fracking must be done safely and with transparency.

This bill would allow natural gas producers to keep abusing loopholes that allow them to hide dangerous chemical components in their fracking fluid, and that is something I don't think any of us should support.

Having served as the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security in the last Congress, I have worked closely on this issue for many years. I have introduced legislation that would ensure that our communities would be safe from the dangerous chemicals that are often used in fracking fluid.

Fracking releases thousands of harmful chemicals that poison our drinking water and pollute our air, including hydrogen sulfide, which causes nausea, vomiting, and headaches; benzene, a known carcinogen; toxic metals; acids; and even diesel fuel.

A significant number of scientific studies prove negative health effects like cancers, asthma, and birth complications are caused by fracking chemicals. These chemicals particularly affect the most vulnerable in our society, including children, people who are pregnant, the elderly, lower-income communities, and communities of color.

For example, those who gave birth while living near a fracking site had children who are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with leukemia between the ages of 2 and 7 than those who were not exposed.

For older adults, a study found that living near fracking sites in Pennsylvania during its so-called fracking boom between 2002 and 2015 were more likely to be hospitalized for cardiovascular disease than those in neighboring States where fracking was banned.

What complicates our ability to regulate these hazardous chemicals is that only in retrospect can we assess the damage that is being done in the name of oil and gas production.

It was just 2 years ago that scientists were able to conclude the extent of harm caused by the fracking fluid in 2016, that was almost 10 years ago.

A study found it caused 410,000 asthma flare-ups; 2,200 new cases of childhood asthma; and 7,500 excess deaths, costing $77 billion in health impacts.

Now, these examples are only a drop in the bucket.

We don't even have accurate numbers of just how many Americans are affected because the law prioritizes polluters over people by protecting the exact chemical makeup of fracking fluid that fracking companies call ``proprietary information.''

It has been proven that fracking chemical disclosure requirements lead to significant declines in the use of hazardous chemicals and better water quality.

Madam Speaker, there have been significant declines in the use of hazardous chemicals and better water quality.

Rather than passing this bill, which only protects oil and gas producers, we should require more transparency to the public.

Families shouldn't have to choose between their health and their house just because it is close to a drilling site.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation and work in a bipartisan way to make sure that where we do fracking it is done safely.