IV 
112TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 44 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that an effective mora-
torium by the Executive Branch on offshore oil and gas exploration 
and drilling should be terminated. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 19, 2011 
Mr. BURTON of Indiana (for himself, Mrs. BACHMANN, Mr. OLSON, Mr. 
CRAWFORD, Mr. HUELSKAMP, Mr. LONG, Mr. CRITZ, Mr. POMPEO, Mr. 
MCCLINTOCK, Mr. WITTMAN, Mrs. MILLER of Michigan, and Mr. PAUL) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
on Natural Resources 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
an effective moratorium by the Executive Branch on 
offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling should be 
terminated. 
Whereas the Secretary of the Interior is required to prepare 
a five-year leasing plan that governs any offshore oil and 
gas leasing establishing a schedule of proposed lease 
sales, providing the timing, size, and general location of 
the leasing activities; 
Whereas Secretary of the Interior Salazar announced Decem-
ber 1, 2010, that the Department of the Interior will not 
propose any new oil drilling in waters off the East Coast, 
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•HRES 44 IH 
West Coast, or Eastern Gulf of Mexico for at least the 
next seven years; 
Whereas further restricting areas for oil and gas exploration 
and drilling will not change the demand for oil in the 
United States and will result in greater dependence on 
foreign, imported oil; 
Whereas a recent estimate places total job losses by 2014 at 
120,000 as a result of delaying or preventing drilling off 
the Gulf Coast, and these job losses would extend beyond 
the oil and natural gas industry and negatively impact 
businesses and communities throughout the Gulf Coast 
region; 
Whereas oil and natural gas currently supply approximately 
60 percent of our national energy needs, including 99 
percent of the fuel used by Americans in their cars and 
trucks; 
Whereas oil and natural gas are still going to be a part of 
our energy mix for a long time to come and we must be 
able to access our own resources rather than becoming 
more dependent on unstable parts of the world; 
Whereas recent technological advances have made the extrac-
tion of our domestic natural gas reserves environmentally 
safe and economically feasible; 
Whereas offshore oil and natural gas development has been 
safely conducted for more than 60 years, and during that 
time, more than 42,000 wells have been drilled in the 
Gulf, including more than 2,000 deepwater wells, which 
are wells drilled in water depths of 1,000 feet or more; 
Whereas according to the American Petroleum Institute, in 
the past 60 years, America’s oil and natural gas industry 
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has produced more than 16.3 billion barrels of oil in the 
Gulf of Mexico with just 0.00123 percent spilled; 
Whereas, industry-wide, a 2009 American Petroleum Insti-
tute-commissioned report found that annual spillage from 
offshore operations decreased by 87 percent from the 
1970s; 
Whereas the Gulf of Mexico accounts for 30 percent of our 
domestic oil production and 13 percent of natural gas, 
the deepwater areas account for 80 percent of the Gulf’s 
oil production and 45 percent of its natural gas produc-
tion, and 20 of the highest-producing leases are in the 
deep water; 
Whereas additional drilling for oil and gas is not a complete 
solution to our Nation’s energy needs, and expanding the 
areas where environmentally safe offshore drilling can 
take place will help move the United States in the direc-
tion of greater energy independence; 
Whereas steady, safe, dependable development of domestic oil 
and gas is critical to our Nation’s energy and national se-
curity needs; 
Whereas it is estimated that at least 18 billion barrels of oil 
exist untouched within areas that the United States has 
restricted from drilling, and this is equivalent to nearly 
30 years’ worth of current imports of oil from our second 
largest foreign source of oil, Saudi Arabia; 
Whereas the United States imports 10 million barrels of 
crude oil every day and 1.3 million barrels of refined gas-
oline; 
Whereas Venezuela is a major supplier of foreign oil to the 
United States, providing almost 11 percent of U.S. crude 
oil imports, and Venezuela was the third largest foreign 
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supplier of oil products to the United States in 2009 
(after Canada and Mexico), exporting about 1 million 
barrels per day of crude oil and products to the United 
States; 
Whereas United States money is going overseas for oil, much 
to countries hostile to us; and 
Whereas the United States needs to act reasonably to ensure 
safe expansion of future production, and further restrict-
ing responsible and environmentally safe oil and gas ex-
ploration threatens the economic growth of the United 
States that requires a safe, secure energy supply: Now, 
therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) it should be the policy of the United States 
to allow for the development of offshore oil and gas- 
rich areas in an environmentally responsible manner; 
(2) the Department of the Interior should 
promptly complete environmental analysis related to 
offshore leasing activities, including the 2007–2012 
Outer Continental Shelf Leasing Program and any 
other analysis related to litigation over the program, 
VA Sale 220, geological and geophysical activity 
(seismic) work in the Atlantic Planning Areas, and 
the 2012–2017 Outer Continental Shelf Leasing 
Program; 
(3) the Department of the Interior should 
promptly rescind its December 1, 2010, announce-
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ment that the Government will not propose any new 
oil drilling in waters off the East Coast, West Coast, 
or Eastern Gulf of Mexico for at least the next seven 
years; 
(4) the Department of the Interior should expe-
dite the processing and approval of both deepwater 
and shallow water drilling permits, exploration 
plans, development operations coordination docu-
ments, and development and production plans; and 
(5) the Department of the Interior should allow 
new lease sales in all permissible areas of the Outer 
Continental Shelf, including the Gulf of Mexico, 
Alaska, and Atlantic areas. 
Æ 
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