good morning the committee will come to order the oversight committee exists to secure two fundamental principles first americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent and second americans deserve an effective efficient government that works for them our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to  taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government we will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy this is our mission today's hearing is entitled pain at the pump but it goes beyond that pain at the pump is what the american people see the american people see an administration who said before they came to washington that we need european oil prices we need eight dollars a barrel gasoline although they've only gotten us to four dollars a barrel we are clearly on a pathway to some day soon having europeanstyle cost of energy worse than that it is likely that that energy will be imported it will represent jobs many miles away and governments that are often hostile to us who profit from high oil prices having failed to get capandtrade passed it appears as though this administration is finding alternative ways to achieve the equivalent secretary chu before joining the cabinet said and i'll put it on the screen somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of europe that is not my statement that is the administration's statement additionally the president has repeatedly as a candidate said that there will be pain in transition that prices will skyrocket these are not our words these are the president's words so as we watch the cost skyrocket as we watch impediments to job creation here particularly in onshoreh i repeat onshore oil and natural gas we ask the question are we seeing by regulation what cannot be done by legislation let us not forget this committee has a long history of going after agencies that fail to do their job on the other side our history of going after minerals management service although good lacks only one conclusion having proven that mms was unable to supervise properly the oil and natural gas industry that it was in fact an outofcontrol entity we failed to get real reform under the bush administration we then failed to get real reform under the obama administration and the american people suffered in the gulf this committee will do both ensure that agencies meet their obligation to allow the production and exploration of minerals here in america while ensuring that they also meet the safety requirements with that i recognize the ranking moment to remember why we are here today we are not here because of a conspiracy theory that the administration is deliberately increasing gas prices and we are not here because of socalled eleven people and launched the worst environmental disaster in the history of our country we all watched as the oil spewed into the water for days and days and days and for the entire summer there was nothing we could do but wait and pray ladies and gentlemen we are better than that finally after hdays it stopped but not before releasing two hundred million gallons of oil not before reaching half of the gulf's economy generating over hbillion a year and are responsible for more than a million jobs we also represent them by the way that is why we are here and we can never ever never ever forget so thank you administrator jackson and deputy secretary hayes for testifying today about the administration's efforts to prevent this kind of disaster from ever happening again we are also here because of recent increases in the price of gas which has now surpassed four dollars per gallon these increases make it harder for average americans to get to work and for small businesses to function i rememberh i remind members of this committee that they are our constituents chairman issa issued a report today that essentially blames the obama administration for everything including higher gas prices in fact former alaska governor sarah pallin has been espousing this credible to blame the obama administration's drilling policies for today's high prices ken green a resident scholar with the american enterprise institute said this and i quote the world price is the world price even if we were producing hpercent of our oil r words when you actually talk to experts who know the industry and who know the facts these arguments are exposed as blatant attempts to score political points with no basis in fact i also released a report today and i ask unanimous consent that it be made a part of the official record of today's hearing chairman issa without objection so ordered mister cummings thank you mister chairman my report analyzed what industry government and academic experts accurately believe is causing higher gas prices and that is excessive speculation by entities that ha consumption interest in the underlying commodities and that profit by doing nothing more than forecasting price trends the report's chief conclusion is that in order to make the most significant impact on the lowering of gas prices our primary focus should be on countering the growing impact of energy speculation rather than simply promoting the oil industry's priorities of increasing domestic drilling as the report finds addressing excessive speculation offers the single most significant opportunity to reduce gas prices for american consumers experts including oil industry officials and investment firms estimate that excessive oil speculation could be inflating prices by hpercent but increasing domestic drilling would impact prices by only hpercent and then only after a decade or more in my opinion this committee could have a much more significant and immediate impact on the price of gas if it stopped focusing solely on the oil industry's interest and started focusing on real efforts to help american consumers again i remind our committee this is our watch we are on the earth today we are must protect our environment we must protect the fisherman we must protect the tourism industry and we must have is our dependence on imported energy be entered into the record without objection so ordered all members will have five legislative days in which to put their opening statements in and with that we  other panel of witnesses the honorable lisa jackson is the administrator of the united states environmental protection agency our second witness the honorable david hayes is the deputy secretary of the department of the interior as i have told both of would like for everyone to understand that we will end each round at hminutes including each of the opening statements this is intended to give everyone an opportunity to be heard it will not be our usual talk until the thank you chairman issa to you ranking member cummings and members of the committee thank you for inviting me to testify americans are again suffering at the pump gasoline and diesel cost more today than they did a year ago as exxonmobil's ceo recently testified the prices of those fuels are a function of crude oil prices which are set by global supply and demand as a matter of geology america will never control more than a tiny fraction of the world's oil supply therefore america cannot prevent gasoline and diesel prices from rising still all else being equal buying a barrel of american oil is better than buying a barrel of foreign oil last year american oil production reached its highest level since two thousand and three and president  recently announced steps that the interior department is taking to increase safe and responsible oil production here at home deputy secretary hayes will describe those steps today for parts of the outer continental shelf congress has declared that a company cannot operate drilling equipment that emits large amounts of air pollution without first demonstrating through epa permitting that the emissions will not harm americans that requirement is not simply red tape because a similar exploratory drilling operation as much air pollution on a daily basis as a large oil refinery in two thousand and seven shell oil began seeking from epa's region ten office air permits for exploratory drilling operations on the outer continental shelf off alaska region ten has since issued five permits to shell an administrative court called the environmental appeals board remanded two of the permits last december after alaska residents had challenged them i am confident that we will give the board the analysis it has called for in time for the permits to be upheld before the start of the next drilling season i should note that on average the board decides air permit appeals in just over hmonths that only four of the board's more than one hundred air permit decisions have ever been appealed to a federal court and that none of the board's air permit decisions has ever been overturned currently there are only four pending air permit applications for drilling on the arctic ocs that includes the two that i just mentioned we anticipate many more though so at the president's direction the white house has formed a team of relevant bureaus at the department of interior the department of commerce and epa to coordinate closely and prevent unnecessary thanks to advances in drilling technology including hydraulic fracturing or fracking america's potential natural gas resource is nearly hpercent larger than we believed it was just a few years ago the price we pay for natural gas is not set on a global markets the way the price of oil is and burning natural gas creates less air pollution than burning other fossil fuels so increasing america's natural gas production is a good thing fracking involves injecting chemicals underground at high pressure and various substances come back to the surface with the gas it is not surprising then that congress has directed epa to study the relationship between fracking and drinking water we are doing that with input from technical experts the public and industry in the meantime epa will step in as necessary to protect local residents if drilling jeopardizes clean water with that said state governments are appropriately the first line of defense again harmful or unsafe drilling practices we can mitigate the impact of high fuel prices on american families and businesses by enabling them to travel the same distances and conduct the same commerce on less gasoline and diesel the fuel efficiency standards that epa and the department of transportation established last year for new cars and trucks will save the average american driver three thousand dollars dollars over the life of the car and can save one hbillion barrels of oil additional standards that we will set this summer for heavyduty trucks will save a tractor trailer rig operator up to seventy four thousand dollars over the life of the rig and conserve another a half a billion barrels of oil the increased biofuel production mandates that epa set last year will displace hpercent of the america's expected gasoline and diesel consumption in tw twenty two while decreasing oil imports by forty one dollars fifty cents billion i am proud of the role epa played to shield americans from the harmful economic impact of high gasoline and diesel prices epa's core mission though is protecting americans from harmful pollution that is what congress has ordered epa to do and that is what the american people expect even when gas prices are high and the economy is still recovering americans do not like it when their families and livelihoods are harmed by industrial pollution that could have been a avoided thank you mister chairman chairman issa thank you mr hsecretary mister hayes thank you mister chairman ranking member cummings i appreciate the opportunity to give a short oral statement and request that my written statement be submitted for the record chairman issa without objection so ordered mister hayes as you know the president has emphasized the importance of securing our energy future by pursuing a multiprong strategy that includes increased domestic oil and gas production improved energy efficiency and the production of alternative fuels the president reviewed his comprehensive plan in the energy blueprint document that he released last month and when discussing this plan the president emphasized that there is no quick fix to address high gas prices and that rather than rushing to propose action when gas prices rise then hitting the snooze button when they fall again we need to pursue a comprehensive strategy the department of the interior has a key role in this regard in addressing today's and tomorrow's energy issues our department for example is for the first time in history permitting utility scale renewable energy projects on our public lands and in our offshore waters last year we permitted more than four thousand megawatts of renewable solar geothermal and wind projects the equivalent of more than a dozen mediumsized coalfired power plants at the same time however our department is focused on increasing domestic oil and gas production from our public lands and our offshore waters the facts show that our emphasis on responsible oil and gas development combined with the efficiency improvements that the administration has introduced with our transportation flee administrator jackson just referenced is paying off over the past hyears our domestic oil and gas production has gone up while our imports have gone down oil imports in two thousand and eight were fifty seven percent of the total oil consumed in the united states today it is less than hpercent oil production is higher in two thousand and ten than it has been in any year since two thousand and three offshore oil production in the last three years has gone up by a third by approximately two hundred thousand barrels a year million barrels a year and production onshore has gone up hpercent during the same period the president is committed to seeing this trend continue as you know he  vowed to cut our oil imports by onethird by two thousand and twenty five down from the eleven million barrels per day that we were importing when he took office at the interior department we are taking a number of steps to facilitate responsible oil and gas development in the s first we are providing industry with ample opportunity to develop domestic oil and gas supplies offshore in two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten our department offered fifty three million and thirty seven million acres respectively for leasing onshore we held twenty nine lease sales in two thousand and ten we have scheduled thirty three lease sales for this year notably industry has not taken full advantage of the lands we have opened up to them for development offshore out of the fifty three and thirty seven million acres offered industry leaves hmillion and two hmillion acres respectively and of the total offshore leas of the overall acreage that is leased is idle that is twenty two million acres are currently available onshore for development leased and in the hands of domestic oil and gas companies but there is no exploration or development occurring the president has initiated additional actions to further incentivize the oil and gas industry to utilize these available domestic oil and gas resources he announced that last week in his radio address and it was amplified  earlier this week by the secretary including the fact that leases in the gulf impacted by the moratorium are being extended by a year leases in alaskan waters are being extended new lease sales will be scheduled for the gulf of mexico with the first one occurring by the end of year and two more before mid next year the president announced that blm will have annual lease sales in the national petroleum reserve alaska and we are looking for ways to encourage industry to invest earlier in their leases by considering financial and lease term incentives for early development in our view it makes no sense to have leased acreage available to oil companies and if oil companies are not going to develop those leases they should be put back and made available to other companies who may make those investments we are confident that our continued focus on responsible oil and gas development will maintain and accelerate the decline of oil imports despite this evidence some have suggested that domestic oil and gas development is in decline and that high gas prices are due to limited production again the facts tell a different story ranking member cummings discussed the fact that oil prices are set on a global basis  and let me say that our permitting is also not a constraint today we have seven thousand approved permits to drill on onshore resources that are sitting on a shelf and not being used again twenty two million of acres have been leased and are available for development in the offshore as i will discuss in the q and a after the macondo well situation and the need to upgrade safety standards we are back in business in the gulf with fifty five new permits in the shallow water and  fourteen new permits in deep water in the shallow water we are at approximately the same pace of permitting that we were in two thousand and nine and we are in a strong process that we are strongly processing our deep water permits as well my time is up i would like to just conclude by saying we are increasing our oil and gas production at the same time that we are reforming the former minerals management service and chairman issa i know you have had a personal interest in that and i hope i will have an opportunity to provide a exactly the opposite no surprise of the minority report without objection so ordered mister secretary you know in this town everyone is entitled to an opinion but not facts why can you name one reason that in alaska the federal treasury has received hbillion in federal lease money during your administration and additionally another billion has been invested by the oil companies  exploration and yet they have gotten nothing back in no small part because shell and others have been delayed in actually receiving the permit so aren't you willing to take at least some responsibility for the fact that a lease is not a permit and when you call it idle are you really saying its idle and this is the real question are they idle or are they not yet producing would you please explain yourself on your figures isn't it true your figures are what you say idle not yet producing and it can well mean that money is being invested mister hayes the term as described in the report that was provided to the president and i am sure your staff has available made it clear that by idle it means that there is no active exploration or production occurring the stockholders would sue and win if they wereh if it was not in the best interest of the company to do everything they could to get a return on their hbillion isn't that true mister hayes i can't speak to a shareholder's rights i do know that are working with shell very closely to address their interests and we have just in the last month received exploration plans that we are processing for the potential exploration of those permits next summer chairman issa right which is hyear later than it would have been if the processed in a timely fashion you know there is a belief that in fact prices are artificially high because of speculators i am not going to  that i am going to ask you a simple question if we got all of the resources oil and natural gas from both federal and private lands that are estimated to be available isn't it true that we could be energy selfsufficient for  hyears isn't that what all the studies show i am not saying it is an easy goal but with fracking and other technology isn't it true we could raise at least hpercent which would put us marginally within self sufficiency if you include canada it would make us self sufficient yes or no more thoughtful in some ways but in your opening statement you talked about the requirement to make sure that these drilling rigs that were quote as much pollution as a refinery isn't it true that when china is drilling just south of our border in cuban waters isn't it true that they do just as much polluting or more than anybody producing just slightly north of that in u s waters isn't it true that the amount of global do you know that we have some of the highest standards of emissions in the world isn't that true ms jackson our standards are high because under the clean air act passed by congress we are told to protect the health of americans including from pollutants that are not global pollutants they can be quite local like so particulate matter and smog which can affect everyone from those on a cruise ship in alaskan waters to recreational chairman issa i appreciate that but isn't it true that the primary pollutants especially those that you were talking about earlier in fact are global pollutants ms jackson they are certainly admitted globally sir but have local impacts chairman issa last but not least isn't it true that more oil has been spil i want us to have high standards i want us to set a model for the world we areh this is the united states of america and we are better than that on mayhth two thousand and ten rex tillerson the ceo of exxonmobil testified before the senate finance committee along with ceos of five other major oil companies during his testimony he estimated that without excessive speculation oil would be adding trading at sixty dollars to seventy dollars a barrel sachs issued a warning to its investment clientsh now this is goldman sachsh that says speculators may be inflating the price of oil by as much as twenty seven dollars a barrel so that is  united states energy information administration eia is the nation's foremost independenth independent source of energy analysis in two thousand and nine eia examined the potential impact of expanding domestic oil drilling to the outer continental shelf of the atlantic and pacific coasts and the eastern and central regions of the gulf of mexico eia issued a report concluding that there would be no and i emphasize no changes in gas prices me put all of this together on one hand you have oil company ceos and investment banks saying that excessive speculation may be inflating prices by hpercent now that is the oil company c is let me ask you both and let me ask you as drivers and consumers if you could save a dollar per gallon or only three cents per gallon you would save the dollar wouldn't y is my point this committee has a tremendous and awesome opportunity to really help everyday americans like the ones i saw going to work this morning in baltimore getting up at  filling up their tanks and it costing them more it is our duty to help them but we have limited resources so we have to prioritize it seems to me that addressing excessive speculation offers a much much better opportunity to help lower gas prices rather than focusing our efforts on expanding domestic drilling which will help oil company profits but will make little difference on the price of gas as people try to get to work every day try to get to church on sunday try to take their kids to the baseball game they try just to go out not go out to disney world from baltimore but just go to the local  and have a lunch even if these estimates are half of what the experts predict they still dwarf any conceivable cost benefit we get from additional drilling let me just close by quoting c folks fill up their tanks they can expect that several dollars are due to speculation i didn't say that he said that and so i hope that we have a chance to investigate this issue more in detail in the future and i  will say it until the day i die we have a duty as members of this congress to leave our children with a better environment than the one we found on the day we were born with that i yield back chairman issa i thank the gentleman  but over the course of time when we were importing roughly and it is very rough numbers hpercent of our oil needs were being imported that number moved closer to hpercent the federal government has failed under two different types very different types of administrations to wean our way off of the need to import oil from overseas and yet what i find now is every time i turn around and you see companies willing and wanting to invest heavily with the hope and idea and the speculation that they are going to be able to actually produce some energy resources and not just oil but natural gas coal those type of things that it is the epa and the blm the department of the interior that are putting up so many road blocks that we can't extract the resources that we have in our very own back yard now one of my core questions here is particularly for the blmh i am from utah i am a representative from utahh is that it appears that the administration in its frustration and in its  inability to actually have legislation passed is going to go ahead and use its rulemaking authority and just bypass the congress and put up some rules and roadblocks and implement things that would never pass this body even when the democrats had the house the se and the presidency they couldn't pass cap and trade the red rock wilderness act is something that has been introduced many times here in congress it has never even come close to being implemented and then the wild lands policy which kind of hdays before christmas was implemented that should be a flashing red light to the american public that something was wrong when that was introduced my question for the deputy secretary here in citing this is it the policy of the blm to just go ahead and implement this stuff put up let me deal with this first slide here this is the official map from the blm severe lake tracks map and it goes through with the number in one of those designations if you look over at the right it talks about as one of the things the red r ock proposal why does the blm issue an official map with the red rock proposal designated on it when it has yet to become law mister hayes there is simply a map there is no regulatory implication to the red rock wilderness area at all congressman what we are trying to do is reduce the problem that has developed in the last several years when prior administrations essentially leased whatever industry nominated wherever  cannot that is not true that is such a miscalculation that is such a gross exaggeration of the reality you can you not sit here and say they just leased whatever that is not true there are rules and regulations and they  and ten which created the wildlands but it was also the policy of the department of the interior it seems to have actually implemented that even though when we pass the cr there is no funding for the  should we on the dais consider the amount of environmental leftists who sue and protest is the basis for whether or not these are valid leases or not so a growth in lawsuits  exponentially is in fact simply a growth and a difference between the clinton administration and the bush administration as far as who decides to sue right mister hayes i would say congressman that it is mr hsecretary the world seems to be focus on just one spill the horizon spill could you give some quick summary of how muchh how many spills take place in a routine year not just in water but in alaska the degree of these the incident that took place in prudhoe and the fact that this isn't just an isolated incident as bad as it was  congressman to give you those statistics for the record i don't have them offhand there are a number of spills obviously the macondo well was enormously anomalous in its size but there are routine spills that occur mister quigley in the ocean  already including prudhoe bay you would pass that on as well mister hayes certainly will congressman mister quigley ms jackson i know you had limited time at the beginning of your introduction could you elaborate to a certain degree on the issues with and the concerns that you have from your initial analysis of the issues ms jackson certainly sir first let me start by saying that in general states have been regulating various aspects of oil and gas exploration  recovery and are on the front lines for that epa has certain authorities under the clean water act and the clean air act one of the things we are doing in addition to our authorities as mandated by congress is a study of fracking to determine it impacts on drinking water that is very much in the minds of the american people and i assume congress which is why they asked us to do it so as we do that study the other thing we have said because we will not see initial results from that study until the end of next calendar year is that we will when asked or when we become aware of an issue that may be a violation of the clean water act the safe drinking water act or the clean air act respond and we will provide guidance on those areas that are becoming areas of concern or challenges for the regulated community as we see our country move into fracking in new areas such as the marcellus shale mister quigley it is not just the contamination of the water it is the amount this is a country that is facing water shortages in many areas correct the amount the volume that is used in this process ms jackson that is correct sir it takes millions of gallons to frack a well and what happens is that water is injected oftentimes that is not a regulated activity at the federal level but then the water has to come back it is flowback water and that water and the disposal of that water is an enormous amount of water as well as it can bring up contamination such as radiation in low levels that may be in the formation that is part of what the study is looking at as well in addition to quantity mister quigley currently to the limits of your knowledge at this point what happens to that water that comes back up ms jackson well a mixture of things depending on the area of the country there are some places where there are just enormous pools where this water is stored and where there is some amount of concern about whether that will be regulated and how those pools will be closed in other areas we learn that  until recently when the state of pennsylvania asked them to voluntary cease that producers were sending the water to publiclyowned treatment works that is a regulated activity under the clean water act and so we have concerns and are working with the state of pennsylvania to ensure that that is being done according to law and to protect citizens because those publiclyowned treatment works eventually discharge into surface water which can be drinking water and in other cases it is put back down the hole in  hayes i don't know the specifics all i do know is that we have informed everyone in the department that we are complying with the congressional rider dealing with wildlands mister chaffetz so there should be absolutely no activity in any way shape or form anywhere within the  lands the authority to inventory lands with wilderness characteristics is clearly continuing under the federal land management policy act but i repeat and to your point we will not designate ministrator jackson thank you for taking the time to appear before us today i am not aware that we really had an opportunity to speak with you before in my district of southeastern pennsylvania a big issue related to energy relates to refineries  i have some seven thousand jobs that are tied to the two refineries in my district which is a good thing because according to your own report the number of u s refineries declined by almost half since the s here in the united states  employment in the refining segment has declined by hpercent in the last decade now most of those refining opportunities have actually moved over to places like india and china and nigeria where they are building new refining capacity in fact the refineries as you point to health and i think that is an appropriate concern are facing huge regulatory challenges one of my refineries has spent hpercent of it but what point in time while health is an issue with respect to people at what point in time do the welfare of fish start to take precedence over the creation of jobs within one of my hmillion the effect of which will be so that they can return the water back to the delaware river at a hpercenthor two degree warmer texture or cooler temperature because apparently the fish are district on the line at a point in time where jobs are at stake and at risk of going overseas would you please tell me specifically how does the epa decide whether the loss or creation of jobs directly as a result of a regulation should be part of a thorough economic analysis ms jackson sir thank you i would just like to point out that while the number of refineries has declined refining capacity in this country  ere is as much oil returning from refineries or more than hyears ago so what is actually happening is that technologically they are becoming less employeeintensive and yet able to process more oil and that is not as regulations i am not arguing with regard toh i am not making that point here today because most of it results to health i am talking about the welfare of fish ms jackson well sir let me speak to that issue directly we recently proposed a ruleh it hasn't been final on intake structures not only for refineries but for power plants that rule relies heavily on the states the states are delegated authorities for implementation of the majority of clean water act permits so although i don't know the specifics of the permit  a state of pennsylvania responsible for this ms jackson sir i will doublecheck those facts but my belief is that having run a state program states proffer proposed permits based on their analysis of requirements  would offer this as well it is not simply the welfare of fish as you put it but the ecosystem health that the clean water act intends to restore mister meehan where does the ecosystem of the health of the seven thousand jobs in my district come into play i asked you a specific question whether the loss of creation or jobs directly as a result of regulation is part of a thorough economic analysis i need a specific answer because just on mayhth you assistant mathy stanislaus specifically said we do not take a look at jobs so i want to know the answer do you directly take a look at jobs ms jackson we have done it sir although we have not done it in every example let me explain a little bit about that we do an economic analysis if it is mandated by law we also do it in compliance with executive orders issued by the president clinton that have survived through three administrations because of the times we are in we have leaned heavily into jobs analysis around the rules that have been proposed under the obama administration chairman issa the gentleman's time has expired we now go to mr hyarmuth if he is ready for  knowledge a serious shortage of oil supplies in the world right now whereas we heard a lot about drill baby drill under prior administrations the actual evidence shows that production has expanded under this administration where it actually hadn't under previous administrations that is correct congressman mister yarmuth when we are talking about prices at the pump and there are a lot of contributors to pricing in oil companiesh i know in my district my attorney general jack conway has on two separate occasions taken on refiners and distributors so that when we talk about gouging and people say is there any evidence of gouging from big oil companies that is not the only aspect of gas pricing that we need to be concerned about in terms of questionable activities is that right mister hayes that is correct congressman as you know attorney general holder has a task force looking into all of these issues other questionh i don't want to belabor oil pricing too much but i did want to get that one point on the record about domestic production but on another subject that the administrator and i have talked about a number of times in my state state that is a large producer of coal we are constantly informed by the industry that the epa through its actions is actually  threatening employment in our state there are ads being run now in kentucky that say there are eighteen thousand good coalmining jobs in kentucky and the epa is threatening ads but i do believe they are misleading what epa is doing in appalachia in particular is addressing the water pollution issues associated with a practice known as mountain top surface mining mountain top mining mountain top removal mining and in that practice because of the way that spoils the remains of the noncoal portions of the mountain top are disposed there are increases in solids in the water that selenium and other metals that peerreviewed science and literature continues to show over and over again are quite problematic for the health of those ecosystems and because they are headwaters it can become a problem for communities downstream epa has worked under  draft guidance that we are about to finalize after rounds of public comment to give clear guidance to mining companies to state officials as to how we will implement our authorities under the clean water act to try to minimize that pollution mister yarmuth and in terms of employment you may not know the figures but hyears ago before mountain top removal became a widespread practice in appalachia there were fifty five  basically apathetic toward that process one of the things that i am constantly impressed with with regard to the mountain top removal issue is that the citizens of eastern kentucky come to my office and bring water that they took from wells on their property and so forth and out of their tap and it is water that no one would want to drink or want their children to drink and so while i know that there has been a number of initiatives before this house and before this committee to basically incapacitate epa in its ability to protect the citizens of my state and their children i would like to say that if house republicans or if anyone has a problem with our environmental laws they ought to makeh take the initiative to change the law the impression the epa has it out for us we have had a pretty good system in place under the clinton administration came up with a flex permitting system for various refineries under that system we saw a decrease over a  redo what we have been doing pretty well for about hyears i kind of subscribe to if it ain't broke don't fix it can you tell me why the epa is unhappy with texas and convince me it is just something more than you guys don't like us very much no sir i certainly like texas very much i have family members there let me just go over a couple of things it was actually the george w bush administration that made the determination that the flexible permits in the state of texas did not comply with the clean air act and it was then left to us in the obama administration to try to find a way out of that morass we have worked with the largest flexible permit holders and i was just briefed on this yesterday and i believe with one notable exception which we are still working on we have worked them to a place where their permits are now compliant with the clean air act it took work on their part and so i want to commend the regulated industry for that and i think we are in a better place because where that leaves us is with permits that are enforceable under law are transparent and also that give industry the ability to do their job mister farenthold and now you all are also looking at it permitting greenhouse emissions under title v it seems the last congress specifically said we really weren't interested in doing that right now under cap and trade why are you all pursuing that considering that even the last congress wasn't able to pass that out ms jackson well two things first we are not pursuing cap and trade under the clean air act and it is my opinion i have said this before that we cannot and we will not we are pursuing regulation of greenhouse emissions under the clean air act because of a supreme court decision that essentially found in two thousand and seven that greenhouse gases were covered under the clean air act and that epa needed to make a determination as to whether or not greenhouse of hoopla on that we are spending a whole lot of time arguing about whether permits are coming out at all and how fast they are coming out and all isn't it true that mexico has got some drilling going on in the gulf of mexico china is undergoing issuing leases just right off our coast basically in the gulf of mexico for various oil companies to drill on chinese and mexican lands mister hayes congressman  mexico is looking at potential deepwater drilling the secretary and i were in mexico city about a month ago meeting with the energy minister and we are actually working with them and the president has indicated his interest farenthold wouldn't we be better off rather than spending all this time and money with the complicated permitting process focusing our efforts on spill response and technologies to train people and get the equipment and knowledge in place so if there w something that happened be it in foreign waters or domestic waters we could respond to it and protect our coast wouldn't that be a better use of our time and resources mister hayes congressman it certainly spill response is a very very important focus but i think the primary lesson out of the presidential commission and other the national academy of engineering is that we have the capacity and should prevent these occurrences from happening in the first place and our safety upgrades focus on that and industry has since two thousand and three aren't there two truths about that though first of all it takes about hyears at best case to get from the beginning of the process to drilling production so isn't all the credit for this new peak in the previous administration simply you haven't been here long enough for anything you have done in the way of new leasing to have any yield isn't that absolutely true that not one new lease that you put out is today producing  i would say it differently congressman there has been a lot of focus suggesting the obama administration has been holding up permits which are the last the last event to occur before the production occurs the fact that production has increased demonstrates the fact regulators all understanding that speculation is about twenty seven dollars on a barrel of oil it is a serious matter and this casino of future speculators is perhaps where i had hoped this hearing would have gone and i sent a letter to the chairman asking that he would do that and i hope he does get down to the real businesses of what is going to make a difference of prices at the pump now looking at this drilling idea from what i see in the united states energy information administration they say that if we were to permit the outer continen second interior secretary salazar just testified in front of the senate that about hpercent of the tens of millions of offshore acres currently leased to oil companies are inactive that includes about twenty four million inactive leased acres in the gulf of mexico where i guess  an estimated eleven point six billion barrels of oil and fifty nine two trillion cubic feet of natural gas that are technically recoverable and they're going unused why is the industry just sitting on those leases mister secretary  hpercent of the leased acresh that is about twenty two million acres in totalh are not being explored nor developed so what can the president do what can the department do to encourage these companies to start using what they have mister hayes one of the recommendations that the administration has made is to change the lease term of the mineral leasing act of one thousand nine hundred and twenty now onshore every lease is leased for a full ten years it does not take ten years to make a decision of whether to invest or not we would prefer to have that lease term reduced and thus if a company does not decides not to invest have the leases returned so another company that might be more willing to invest will do so mister tierney i look at this even more and the interior department as a report on oil and gas utilization so they say about fifty three million acres were offered for sale in two thousand and nine under this administration fifty three million acres hmillion acres i am sorry hmillion acres were bid on and sold so five percent hpercent of the technically recoverable oil and gas in the outer continental shelf is that right mister hayes i am not familiar with the exact report but i assume so mister tierney well i guess i am having some difficulty understanding why the oil and gas industry believes they don't have enough of the taxpayers land to work on already and were given those numbers let me ask you this what more can we do about speculation that seems to be the real problem and the one that i hope the chairman will have a hearing on if it is twenty seven dollars or thirty dollars of every barrel what can we do or what aren't we doing about really focusing on the real problem mister hayes well congressman as you know the president has indicated a strong interest in addressing this issue and has asked the attorney general to set up a special strike force to investigate potential speculation and i know that  are an awful lot of folks in tennessee four that are obviously excited about you being here as well because obviously i had several calls back from the district and we have questions that were sent in on facebook and other medium to ask you so  do really appreciate you being here one of the reasons i was sent to congress was to help create jobs and as part of our oversight committee i have traveled tennessee's fourth district over the past several months visiting businesses and industries and asking them what is standing in the way of job growth and almost unanimously the number one thing that people were telling me was to get government out of the way and not surprisingly  administrator jackson the epa often comes up that they feel that there are burdensome regulations that are preventing job creation now when we started here earlier today the ranking member cited the gulf oil spill which was obviously very tragic and he said that it was our job and your job to never ever ever never never ever allow that to happen again do you feel if you had unlimited an earlier hearing and they were citing the mining accident in west virginia that took so many lives and i had asked over the past ten years if they could show me an improved safety record because of their inspections and the fines that they levied because they do go into these  mines and levy fines for any number of things and then when they leave i assume that they are satisfied that the mine is safe but then there is a disaster and it is always the mine's fault it is not the msha's fault if there is a disaster  within the environment does the epa take responsibility do they feel accountable for that ms jackson no in general in this country the belief is that the polluter is responsible and it is the job of the regulatory agency to set the rules of the game if you will and to enforce them so there is a level playing field mister desjarlais i get the impression from the folks that i am talking to that if you are going to wield that much power then maybe you ought to take some responsibility as well so that is just the opinion that i get but the folks that are engaged in callingh and i did want to get a couple of their questions in the oversight committee chairman reads our mission statement before each hearing and our goal is to work with citizen watch dogs to deliver more efficient effective government that works for taxpayers businesses and their families many americans are concerned that the epa's mission seems to be pitted against efficiency and effectiveness we invited you here today and we will invite you back to give you a chance to show the taxpayers otherwise this is your chance ellen wetherill one of our citizen watchdogs from facebook wants to know is the goal of epa to protect the environment or to drive up fuel costs in order to force americans houses of congress preventing the private sector from creating good jobs but no u s capandtrade plan would solve the massive pollution generated by growing industrial countries this fact is not lost on american citizen watchdog gary delong from facebook wants to know why is cap and trade viable when in a few short years india and china will produce significantly more air pollution and cannot and will not be held accountable despite anything done by america ms jackson well please assure your constituents that epa is not implementing a capandtrade program but you might also and i am happy to speak to him as well mention to him that marketbased programs have been used successfully in this country to control other pollutants such as so the prime contributor to and i want to get in one more i am trying to help these folks out citizen and watchdog melody mcmahon worthington from facebook wants to know why do we support the subsidizing of drilling in brazil and hamstring our companies here at home  inference to be drawn that the choice you were presented is in fact the choice i mean surely we can both drill and produce and do it in an environmentally safe way it is a false choice to say it is one or the other i would think what do you think ms jackson it is indeed a false choice and in terms of responsibility for our actions i would point out to doctor desjarlais that epa is responsible for the fact that air pollution is down hpercent in this country over narrative to be that this administration is so environmentally conscious that it has hamstrung the ability of domestic producers both in oil and gas to produce so deputy secretary hayes i just wonder if i could run through some statistics with you and have you confirm or correct them my understanding is that actually in the bush administration production domestic production actually fell from hmillion barrels per heard the chairman for example which i want to applaud him for pointing out that there is a time lag between the issuance of permits and the actual bringing on of product to the market something many on our side of the aisle have actually been trying to point out to our friends on the other side of the oil when they say drill here drill now allowing the impression with the public that somehow it is magically going to change the price of oil and it isn't however dealing with permit applications it is my understanding that in the last year of the bush administration there were five thousand applications listed and under the obama administration last year that went from five thousand to seven two hundred so the permit applications actually went up significant we have cut down significantly in the last two years mister connolly now also part of this narrative is that president obama has just caused an absolute moratorium after the worst deepwater oil spill in american history hundred and forty six million barrels in two thousand and eight to six hundred million barrels last year is that correct mister hayes that is correct mister connolly so much for moratorium switching subjects just a little bit ms jackson there is a lot of talk and promise about hydraulic fracture is there any evidence that hydraulic fracturing however can affect aquifers and water supplies ms jackson there is evidence that it can certainly affect with restricting access to domestic oil supplies that when policymakers on capitol hill are trying to open up a greater amount of supply here in the united states that somehow that supportive of big oil but really the economic reality is counter to that the economic reality is that when you open up a greater amount of supply it is the small guy that benefits it is the small business owner it is the small trucking firm it is the mom taking the kids to school it is the small guy that benefits when we have more production greater supply which will lower the cost and those two things are inextricably linked now when we restrict supply like administration policy especially this administration's policies have been that increases the profits for the big oil companies because they have a smaller quantity of precious resource to access and therefore they can charge more at the pumps it seems to me that the rhetoric coming out of this administration while they are saying they are increasing supply is run counter t that the restrictions the higher regulations you know we all care about clean water and clean air but we also want to be able to drive our kids to school we also want to be able to have a job to go to so that we can make the mortgage payment secretary on your web site the blm web site and i quote it says blm are working with local communities state regulators and industry and other federal agencies in building a clean energy future by providing sites for environmentally sound development of renewable energy on public lands are you familiar with that mister hayes yes sir chairman issa why is it i can't and it goes on about solar and wind i can't find anything about blm represents the greatest amount of resources of natural gas and oil of any land owner and in fact it is the second largest revenue to the u s treasury why is it that what we are talking about here today the access to federal lands which i know you are saying it is going uph our figures and our studies show maybe not so muchh why isn't it anywhere on your web site are you not proud of the availability coming from oil and natural gas it is not coming from windmills mister hayes we are proud of both things mister chairman we are proud of the fact that until this administration there was no largescale renewable development on the public lands and we have responded to the market demand particularly in california and have provided siting opportunities for thousands of megawatts of utility scale so we are and fifty hbarrels per day for each of the next two years are you concerned about that precipitous drop in production in the gulf mister hayes i should say mister chairman there is no question that because of the deepwater horizon judge said that your moratorium was wrong and after that was forced to be lifted by federal action didn't you then go to alaska and do the same thing so that it requires federal action again mister hayes no sir a federal judge in alaska allow people to come in here to be called all kinds of things and not being treated fairly now this man has to go home he is got people watching this and i ask you to give him an answer give him an opportunity to answer the question you asked  hayes no thank you ms speier all right you know for all the talk about expanding the drilling opportunities in this country if we were to do everything in the fantasies of every and having that oil drilled would actually have the effect of lowering the cost of gas at the pump by one percent is that correct  indicated that was quoted earlier suggested that ms speier so for all this hyperbole going on in this hearing room today it would suggest that if we allowed every ceo of every oil company in this country to drill everywhere they wanted to drill that the most that consumers would see would be in my state which is about four dollars a gallon a four cent reduction and that would be in out years it wouldn't be this year it wouldn't be this month it wouldn't be tomorrow correct mister hayes that is correct congresswoman and that is why the president has focused on the importance of looking forward and having an energy economy that doesn't just focus on oil and gas production domestically although we will focus on that but also focuses on efficiency alternative fuels and a clean energy future ms speier so i have the i guess audacity when i first got elected to congress to introduce my very first bill which was to lower the national speed limit in this country by five miles except in rural areas so in rural areas it could continue to be at the higher speed but lower it to sixty five in other areas it would if i am recalling correctly reduce the actual cost of gas to the consumers today as much as forty cents or fifty cents on the gallon is that defer to administrator jackson who says yes ms speier ms jackson would you like to respond ms jackson well i can certainly respond on the savings one easy way for people to save money is by slowing down on epa's web site there is a page that talks about things you can do including maintenance on your car the speed you drive how you drive that can actually have a total effect if i am recalling correctly of around fifty or so cents a gallon ms speier all right mister chairman i would like to submit for the record a letter signed by fifty four of my colleagues and myself asking both attorney general holder and chairman gensler to immediately start an investigation see if there is any other questions i might i guess i would like to have mr hhayes speak to us about what is being done to streamline the royalty process mister hayes thank you for asking that question we have had a very vigorous reform effort on the royalty collection side this is an area that has been of special interest to the chairman and i appreciate his leadership in this area two main reforms number one we eliminated the royaltyinkind program that we believed provided potential abuse in terms of nontransparent collection of royalties and then secondly we are announcing today  n initiative on royalty simplification we are asking for comment on a proposal that would involve using marketbased pricing for the basis of royalty calculations rather than the current system that looks at transactionbytransaction casebycase evaluation of transportation and processing costs a lot more potential for expense by industry and the agency and also potential abuse so try to answer questions that we throw at you but coming from western pennsylvania marcellus shale was obviously a great opportunity for pennsylvania and for the country my concern is right now dep is sitting on a lot of permitting and the big question is lot of it has to do with depapproved regulations for wastewater people to do the treating and they make a lot of money doing that if you were to check dep all the rivers in western pennsylvania everybody is right at where they should be there has been no substantial change in it my question is why all of a sudden is the epa interested in what is happening in pennsylvania with the dep because there really isn't an instance there to question has there been any water contamination or am i wrong on that jackson i am not aware of any water contamination associated with the recent drilling there has certainly been issues i am aware of in western pennsylvania around surface water contamination and other issues like mining especially in west virginia on the epa is involved for two reasons sir one because the state is a delegated authority under the clean water act they run most aspects of the water program in pennsylvania but not all for example epa runs the industrial pretreatment program in the state of pennsylvania which is the program that regulates what drillers are allowed to send to wastewater treatment plants so it is a shared jurisdiction although my understanding is that the staff are working together and that  state should be the frontline agency mister kelly but they haven't found any examples of any real dangers right now and they are working well within dep regulations it is just all of a sudden epa is involved and i have got to tell you when i am back home in the district the epa doesn't really sit well with a lot of those folks and it is about job creation it is about opportunity we are really looking at things that are kind of crazy and i noticed today that the talk is about are we getting gouged are we getting gouged and i think most would go to oil but nobody questions gold and silver commodities and why they are rising in prices and are we getting gouged there i think a little bit is disingenuous as to what it is that we are trying to regulate who makes too much money who is making too much money in such and such we do have a tendency to available but i got to tell you for investors it is the uncertainty of what is happening with regulation that keeps people from going forward and i think we all know that because the only people that don't worry about a positive return on investment is the u s government all the rest of us really are driven by the fact that we actually have to have a positive return on it and i understand why we have regulations so that is fine but i do want to ask you this the npdes or the national pollutant discharge elimination system right now backlog in their off an already lengthy burdensome process so what is the end game and how can we speed up this permitting ms jackson well sir we are happy to work with the state to ensure efficient oversight and review of permits i am not aware of exactly which permits you are referring to let me simply say to you and your constituents as epa administrator i see the credible potential in natural gas i think it is important for our country and i look at it through the lens of my job and duties which is its potential to decrease pollution so the only thing that i see as our job is to work with the state with regulators with communities to respond to their concerns because public acceptance of safe and responsible exploitation of its resource in a good wayh exploitation in a they are highly motivated they are highly organized and they are very vocal they are addressing problems that really don't exist right now and in fact if you were to go back and look at what mr hkrancer says and other people in pennsylvania they are more concerned with facts than they are with fear but what it is doing is it is driving a market thank you mister chairman and i also want to thank the witnesses for being here today and i know it can be uncomfortable and difficult at times and we do respect and value your time for being here that  are people in my district who listened to that they would be quite angry because in your statement basically what you said is that everything is so  rosy and it is really the oil company's fault they have the potential to drill they are just not doing it they have the potential to drill for oil and natural gas they are just not doing it no one believes that absolutely no one believes that now you can get creative in the way that you present the information and you can sugarcoat it and present it in a way that may support your position but no one believes it let me ask you this question you keep talking about that under the current administration there is more opportunity to drill more leases all that kind of stuff so would you say that on average the obama administration has had more leases or less leases than the bush hayes i don't have the exact number of leases i know that in terms of the number of acres that have been leased that the numbers are quite similar both administrations mister mack so on average in a year hmillion i don't think those are close but that being said again i think that just points to the fact that on one hand you are taking credit for the past administration's work and then on the other hand you are saying that it is the oil isn't that not true mister hayes if i can please explain thank you for raising this issue the primary reason why we are laying out these facts on how much acreage has been made available and how many permits we have processed is to respond to the argument that our administration somehow has inappropriately restricted the areas for oil and gas leasing and that we have been the cause for what is perceived to be but is not in fact the case a decline in domestic oil and gas production with regard to the reasons why to go find where the oil reserves are apply for a lease and a permit to drill in that area or is it the administration sets the areas in which they can explore to see if there is any oil which one of the two mister hayes it varies in the offshore traditionally the entire central and western gulf have been made available mister mack isn't it true though that there are areas in which are available for exploration of just the way it is if you say to them you can drill in these areas that there is no oil to drill for and then blame them for not drilling that is the problem and that is the picture that you are painting that is what people back home to make a point that there are certain areas that we believe are not appropriate for drilling very close to national parks for example other sensitive areas but the fact that we have forty million acres onshore many of which are in prime oil and gas territoryh wyoming utah et ceterah areas with history and infrastructure suggesth and the gulf hayes that you would sit down with some of the folks from oil companies and we try to resolve this together at a table and that we have a hearing saying we don't understand why these companies aren't drilling in these areas and what the permit and the process it might be a very informative conversation for us to get everybody together and all get under oath and all start trying to talk this out and be able to resolve it and get everybody together would you be open to that kind of conversation mister hayes we would be delighted to do that we have had a number of conversations in the interior department with ceos of oil companies and in fact the president's suggestions on how to facilitate more production have come out of the kinds of discussions we have had with ceos mister lankford you mentioned several times about production being at this highest level since two thousand and three can you name a specific action that interior or epa took in two yes typically those are the onshore productions that come on line mister lankford it seems to me the market has driven this when oil went to about one hundred dollars a barrel it is amazing how much production suddenly occurred and it seems to be that interior is taking credit for a hundred bucks a barrel what really happened when the market drove that up mister hayes no that is a very fair point congressman mister lankford well that is why it is frustrating for me to keep hearing you know we have got this great production we have got this great production we didn't have it in the bush administration we have a one hundred dollars barrel of oil every marginal well that is out there is no oil and we seem to be confusing apples and oranges here when we start talking about production our production is at an alltime high production is not the issue at this point great i am glad we have production but a lot of those are marginal wells those are other wells that are already drilled we need to talk about future exploration and a lot of this conversation seems to be future exploration we are talking about you are responding with production and so that's two different things in that we need to talk about what happens five years from now ten years from now what is coming on line with that let me ask you a question to both of you on this the president put out executive order and sixty three which deals with regulation and regulatory review looking backwards on it both of your agencies have you already submitted your paperwork for that that should be coming out in the next week and a half those public documents as preliminary do both of you have those reviews lankford great terrific look forward to getting a chance to go through that a major part of that statement which was a great statement from the president is talking about all the regulations need to promote predictability and reduce uncertainty in our regulatory environment if there is any area that i can tell you from  energy companies that i talk to and i interact with in my district it is the sense of uncertainty we don't know what the regulations are going to be the rumors run wild and while you can say we haven't done that there is the perception let me give you a for instance and administrator jackson you mentioned multiple times about natural gas is terrific but if you talk to natural gas companies they have no idea what is happening in this frack study and there is a large sense of founded fear that natural gas fracking is about to be crushed and they can't seem to find any response back on it since one thousand nine hundred and forty nine in oklahoma we have been doing natural gas fracking and  fracking this is a longterm use process and i would invite anyone to come to oklahoma and drink our water and look at our beautiful land and breath our air and see it as a terrific state and as you mentioned before these statepreference permits seem to being pulled back somewhat and it is creating a sense of uncertainty in it my colleague mr hmeehan earlier mentioned about the b permits and you deferred that immediately to the states and said that is a state issue i can tell you in my state for the energy companies in my state they are struggling with epa right now over b because there are minnows there are bait minnows being killed in one of their cooling ponds and they are being pushed towards creating a cooling tower costing millions of dollars which will be passed on ratepayers for their own cooling pond it is not creating certainty in what prices are going to be where they can invest and what they can do so on the other side of that dealing with the state preference is not consistent with the actual actions on the field and do a b with regional haze requirements my own state has put up a proposal for dealing with regional haze it is being rejected by epa and so those dynamics don't practice out in real life it is coming out in your testimony but in reallife examples in my district and in my state those things don't actually occur so i have a significant i guess issue with some of your testimony and what is actually happening on the field  happy to answer some of those factually first with respect to the natural gas companies and their concerns about the study which again was asked for by congressh they asked us to do ith that study has been publicly scoped we had several listening sessions and meetings and hearings to hear input on how the study should be scoped we have gone through peer review of the scope of the study in a very public forum to do it in fact the scope is not yet set for that very reason so i lot of good questions there the gentlelady from the district of columbia ms holmes norton is recognized for five minutes ms norton well some of us value the seafood from the gulf region i think it is the very best so i particularly interested in the effect of the gulf's oil spill on that part of the economy which i understand is almost half of the economy a million jobs or so in your view has the tourism industry for example fully recovered from the oil spill ms jackson i think as we enter this summer season we will find out so far i hear bookings are up i think if you speak to business owners along the coast though they feel as though last summer put them because things were so depressed last summer has put them in a place where they may never be able to recoup those losses and some businesses are still potentially marginal lobsters and the rest on tv you hear a kind of pessimism in them a sense that the rest of the country thinks they are not recovered that  they may never get back to where they were what is the continuing effect of the oil spill regarding the safety of that seafood around the country  the seafood in the gulf has been tested is widely tested and fda and noaa both agree that seafood is safe the gulf fishermen and shrimpers still struggle with a bit of a stigma and of course the most recent issue that is affecting their livelihood is the horrible flooding throughout our country that has meant a lot of fresh water in their oyster beds which may threaten them it has nothing to do with the spill but it is certainly another  thursday we will be having a hearing as a result of all our trips to the gulf so we will provide you with additional information that is going to be very focused on the plight of the gulf ms norton that is very important to know because i think we need some statistics on  part of that economyh do you think that the oil spill has because of its mammoth nature has damaged the reputation of the oil industry  the next hearing we will have some sense of these two industries how they are perceived in the region and how they are perceived in the country since we have this anomaly that these two industries dominate intensely delayed the permitting process to discourage offshore drilling mr hhayes can you just address that concern directly did you or the current administration intentionally delay any permits in order to discourage offshore drilling quite an involvement of the epah we have a phosphate industry a lot of agricultural industryh and to ask a selfserving question we have had some situations where epa has been there of course doing radon studies flyovers and my office has tried to get some cooperation and find out what is going on so i would just ask you personally if you will cooperate with me so that i might respond to my constituents back home as to what is going on with regard to epa's investigation not only of radon but also of water quality studies  meet with you or to get you whatever information you are looking for mister ross thank you the other thing i want to talk to you about briefly because i notice in your bio you talk about that you and your staff of more than seventeen thousand professionals are working across the nation to usher in a green economy and i think that is pretty important as are talking about oil and gas exploration our dependence on such and the production of such from within our domestic borders but more importantly to me is that if we are going to usher in a green economy it has been my feeling that we need to do so by way of competition market forces as opposed to mandates meaning that i don't think that it is appropriate that we force a green economy on people that are neither prepared to accept it or able to pay for it again i talk to you about my district coming from a strong agricultural area in an area where we have farmers that are looking at alternative crops such as grasses algae crops that make up biofuels my concern is that we have you know from a regulatory standpoint choked so much of our industry is there anything that the epa is doing to incentivize or encourage a green economy by way of alternative fuel sources that are biofuels and not edible fuel sources either ms jackson absolutely sir under the energy independence and security act is required to develop renewable fuel standards for the country and we have done that and will do it as called for by law those standards mandate certain amounts of biofuels to be mixed in with our fuel supply and of course that displaces gasoline in our fuel supply in addition epa has again by law required to review an application for a waiver to increase the amount of ethanol and gasoline mister ross but why is it just ethanol i mean why aren't we looking really i mean are we not affecting other market forces food crops food sources and supplies when we are using an edible fuel crop for a fuel source i mean is the epa doing anything to look at other alternative green fuels that are bio my understanding is that they are potentially planning to drill later this year mister ross is there anything that we can do in terms of remediation or at least enforcement of regulation to make sure that what is being done there is not sure of the answer to that question i do know that the department of state is involved in this issue and following it closely mister ross would it be safe to say that the only hope that we have now is just a strong remediation program that will be located somewhere off the coast of florida in the event of a issa for the administrator if i had the department of energy here i would have three agencies all of whom are studying fracking and its effects on water wouldn't you agree when the president said we should eliminate duplication that the three agencies that are all studying fracking right now should consolidate behind one of you rather than three redundant studies ms jackson no because i don't agree that the studies are redundant and rather than consolidate i would agree that we should coordinate which is what we are doing  questions i had some prepared questions but i first want to just refer to some of the comments you just made ms jackson i heard you say that the polluter is responsible it was in response to mr h or doctor de is question and i am concerned that you are looking at coal industry and the oil industry and natural gas as a polluter rather than a job creator and someone who industries are the backbone of this country they employ millions of people they are a great source of revenue great source of tax revenue for the federal government they are not the enemy and my sense is and when i talk to the small businesses and the larger businesses in my district that the epa has moved from being someone who advises and helps and helps a business get on track and comply with all of these just a whole host of regulations now the sense is that the epa views this business as the enemy and that is a concern because now we move from being helpful to that business in making them be compliant to being  the feeling that is out there in this country and that is we many of us here came to congress came to washington because of our concern regarding jobs in the economy in this nation the last thing we need to do is to be discouraging the job creators and my sense is when the epa takes on this aura of being punitive rather than being helpful and i heard you mention about well we want to work with the community we want to work with the businesses that is not the sense i am getting out there from these people who are right on the front lines so i would like you to comment on that and your sense of whether the epa has moved from being let's help people versus we are just going to be punit well two points congresswoman first i believe you might be taking my comments a bit out of context the question from doctor desjarlais was about who was responsible for pollution and so my answer referred to polluters because the question was in the context of when pollution happens please don't take that to mean that i believe that all businesses are polluters far from it the vast majority of businesses in this country comply with our environmental laws they are good stewards they want to being punitive however we have very much so set ourselves on the path of doing our job what i said when i became administrator is that epa was once again going to protect the health of the american people not look the other way if there is pollution or if there is an opportunity to ensure that pollution doesn't happen ms buerkle well then what is the problem is it a pr problem or when i hear from these businesses that the epa and we were fortunate enough to have indistrict hearings from oversight and government reform we talked to members of the agriculture community dairy farmers and their biggest problem was with the epa so maybe it is a pr problem but my sense from the folks in the district is that it is more than that i also want to talk about deputy secretary jackson you mentionedh or hayes i am sorryh you mentioned about businesses and it is really a business decision whether or not they drill or whether or not to produce oil but i want to emphasize that uncertainty is the enemy of growth uncertainty when these businesses don't know what regulation or what tax is coming down the pike that is the problem so they hunker down and they won't take a risk and so my message to both of you is for the economic recovery of this country for job creation send a message to our businesses of certainty that you are not there to penalize them or to punish them you want to encourage them administrator jackson ih lasth i think it was friday thursday or friday i received a google alert that surprised me a little bit in the newspaper the hill they quoted you as saying that h apparently you were on the daily show and on the daily show you responded to a largely gop claim that the epa is overzealously pursuing regulation and your response was as follows it is definitely an inside the beltway line of reasoning she said and washington is a place where industry interests pedal a narrative that transforms the beltway into a factfree zone and then you said outside washington and this is what made me laugh a little or maybe you were just joking because you were on the daily show ninety five percent of the american people say they want government they see one of the roles of government is protecting the air and their water she said in the interview so do you really believe that the problems with job to try to address those people where they are but i also believe that progress is made when we get outside of washington as i did when i visited your fine state and spoke to people directly about what is really happeningh no we are not regulating not regulating milkh versus the myths that are spun up by professional special interests inside this beltway to scare people mister labrador the irony of that moment for me is that i went into a meeting right after i received the google alert and the first thing that the gentleman who was a businessman not a politicianh he is not a career politician he is not a regulator he is just a regular businessman the first thing he said is can we get rid of the epa i am sick and tired of the epa destroying jobs in america and destroying this country so how is it that you can say on a show that it is an inside the beltway mentality where it doesn't matter who i talk to in idaho whether it is republican happy to visit you know i am happy to speak to this gentleman and happy to speak to constituents what i would say is i would like it understand the reasoning behind that because there are constituents in your state who preserve and protect air quality or water quality clean up superfund sites we are quite busy on a range of issues and so although i do not doubt that people have concerns about our agency and as i also said on that same show we can certainly do our jobs better and more effectivelyh we look for opportunities to do soh the poll shows that hpercent of the american people think that the reason the epa is there which is to protect their health is a function of government that should happen that no one mister labrador and i think i would agree with you that it is a function of government that should happen but the problem is the overzealous regulation and the overzealous interpretation of regulation that is killing our jobs and killing our industry and killing our economy and i think i would invite you to come to idaho and i would invite you to talk to the businessmen to the mayors the republicans democrats independents the first thing i talk to every mayor about in idaho it doesn't matter what party they belong to or whether they are nonpartisan is about the epa and about how much money i going to cost them the issues with phosphorus the issues with the water we have cities in idaho that are concerned that over the next ten years it is going to cost them over a billion dollars to remediate some of the things that is only going to improve the water by  percent or half of a percent so these are concerns that we really have that are going to cost jobs that are going to cost the economy and i think that you need to be maybe more concerned about what is happening outside of the beltway because it seems to me that inside the beltway all of your friends are telling you that nobody is concerned about the epa now deputy secretary hayes just a quick question you keep mentioning that we have actually increased production of oil what is the reality about what happened after macondo in the outer continental shelf has production of oil increased or decreased in that area mister hayes in the gulf it has remained about steady at about fifty million barrels per month in november ofh the production i believe was forty eight million barrels per month the last year we have monthly records is december of last year it was forty nine million barrels a month it is anticipated as was discussed before that there will be a slight erosion potentially later this year or next year in terms of production because of the delay in permitting that was necessary because of the disaster we hope to make up for that however with new discoveries that are being drilled chairman issa the gentleman's time has expired and i thank the gentleman mr hgibbs i thank you for your presence will try to be quick talk about the markets and the price one thing i would like to just comment on that uncertainty leads to the futures market with the people in the market the market is functioning because this administration is putting out a lot of uncertainty and  coal operation in west virginia that went through hyears of environmental impact study went far beyond what they needed do got their permit in two thousand and seven from the army corps of engineers and the epa was working in concert with them this administration came in in two thousand and ten and revoked that  and this administration has put a roadblock so i continually hear in my committee of road blocks barriers put up against the industry to develop these natural resources responsibly because clearly there is an attempt by this administration to a longer answer for the record let me simply just make three statements this administration has not any intent to increase uncertainty in the market in fact many of the rules we have done have been intended to finally answer questions many of them long overdue with respect to the spruce mine case this administration was forced with a decision either to defend a permit in court that epa had never agreed was given properly or to exercise its right under the clean water act the prime minister takes the floor we are going to stand adjourned and i appreciate your answering questions for the record