Date: 2005-10-07
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. House Resolution 481 is a structured rule that provides for the consideration of H.R. 3893. The rule provides 1 hour of general debat6 evenly divided and controlled by the chairman and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The rule also provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions. Mr. Speaker. in the last 24 years. our refinery capacity has dropped from almost 19 million barrels a day to less than 17 million barrels a day. Now. this has happened at the same time that our gross domestic product has quadrupled. In other words. because of the sustained growth of our economy and the fact that we have not built a new refinery in almost 30 years. the United States is now forced to import over 4 million barrels a day in refined products. and that is when our refineries are running at full capacity. I thought it was impacting when I learned this fact that I have just relayed. We have not built a single refinery in the country during the time period that our gross domestic product has quadrupled. I think if there has ever been an example of a great superpower really sitting on its laurels. it is pointed out by this example. We have to take steps. as we are with this legislation that we bring to the floor today. to maintain the necessary infrastructure to continue being the most successful economy in the world. Now. any change in our refinery capacity can cause supply constraints and price spikes. especially. for example. in the gulf coast. where we have almost 50 percent of our refinery capacity. That is what happened when we had the two natural disasters in the last weeks. hurricanes Katrina and Rita. They hit the gulf coast. causing gasoline prices to rise significantly. On August 25. Hurricane Katrina began her path of destruction. The eye of that hurricane passed right by my district. It was fortunately then only a category 1 hurricane. but it hit us in South Florida. and then of course. as we all know. it went into the Gulf of Mexico and became a monster storm. That storm then headed towards Louisiana and then the Mississippi gulf coast as a category 4. almost category 5. storm. Once that storm passed. we awoke to the greatest natural disaster that the United States has ever faced. The Mississippi gulf coast was decimated by that deadly combination of the powerful winds and the storm surge caused by Hurricane Katrina. In Louisiana. the storm surge submerged a large portion of the southeastern part of the State. toppling over the levees that protected the area. including the city of New Orleans. In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. several refineries were shut down. accounting for about 11 percent of the total United States refinery capacity. As of the beginning of October. four oil refineries remain closed. Now. those refineries provide almost a million barrels a day. almost 5 percent of our refining capacity. and even at this time it is still not known when those four refineries will be able to reopen. A month later. we had Hurricane Rita hit the TexasLouisiana Gulf Coast with 120mileanhour winds. causing widespread damage and flooding. In anticipation of the storm. several oil refineries in the warning area. constituting over 4 million barrels a day in refining capacity. were shut down. Some of those refineries were able to restart. but as of the first of October. nine refineries with the capacity to refine over 2 million barrels a day. about an eighth of our capacity. remain shut down. Now combine that with the four reTineries closed because of Hurricane Katrina. approximately 18 percent of the refining capacity in the United States is off line. Pipelines from the gulf to the Midwest and East Coast have also been affected by the hurricanes. The Colonial and Plantation pipelines serving the whole East Coast with refined products resumed operation not long after Hurricane Katrina. However. they were shut down again by the subsequent hurricane. Hurricane lRita. and are still not working at full capacity. In order to prevent the sharp price increases we have seen after the hurricanes. we have to make sure that we do everything possible so that refineries. new refineries. are built. And if another hurricane or a terrorist attack were to hit our refineries. we will still have the capacity to produce enough gasoline for the needs of our economy. that must be our goal. Mr. Speaker. H.R. 3893. I am so pleased to see the author.. the gentleman from Texas (Chairman BARTON) here who has done 6 tremendous job. He has done a tremendous amount of hard work in a very difficult area. This is an area that you cannot alleviate. much less solve. this problem overnight. It requires the kind of hard work. dedication. seriousness. that the gentleman from Texas has demonstrated day in and day out. We are seeing it in legislation that we are bringing to the floor today. Now. this bill. H.R. 3893. will remove some of the obstacles that have prevented the construction of new refineries. The underlying legislation streamlines the cumbersome environmental and energy provisions that affect construction of facilities such as refineries and oil pipelines. Bringing new refineries online will alleviate our reliance on foreign sources of refined products. will allow us to have enough refinery capacity to meet the needs of our growing economy. while providing a backup if any of our refineries are shut down in the future. Now. to help conserve gasoline. the legislation also directs the Secretary of Energy to establish and carry out programs to encourage the use of carpooling and van pooling. After the hurricanes. we saw reports of unscrupulous business practices engaged in in some instances. The bill addresses unfair or deceptive facts or practices of any person selling crude oil or gasoline or diesel fuel or home heating oil at a price that constitutes price gouging. Mr. Speaker. H.R. 3893. as I stated before. required a tremendous amount of hard work. It was introduced by the gentleman from Texas (Chairman BARTON). reported out of the Committee on Energy and Commerce on September 29. It is a good bill. I think it is very important to our energy needs. to the health of our economy and to the national security of this country. So again I thank the gentleman from Texas . I know the ranking member. the gentleman from Michigan has worked extraordinarily hard. as he has for decades in this House on so many important issues. I urge my colleagues to support both the rule and the underlying legislation. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.