Date: 2015-10-09
Speaker: GENE GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. I rise in opposition to H.R. In the past 10 years. the United States has undergone an energy revolution. Our production of oil and gas has far exceeded all analysis or prediction. The success in the field has materialized into jobs in our district in the Houston area. both in the chemical and the refining industries. The price of oil dropped from $100 a barrel to $45 a barrel. Gasoline prices have fallen from $4 per gallon to less than $2 in Houston. I have represented our refinery complexes for many years. All of these benefited our economy and the consumer. Unfortunately. the success has brought hardship upon the upstream producers. The energy sector. which led our country out of the recession. has now laid off approximately 150.000 folks. Bloomberg estimated that 40 percent of those layoffs were in Texas. I know the oil patch is facing a tough and difficult time. and I want to help. That is why it is very difficult for me to oppose this bill today. I support crude oil exports while protecting our domestic manufacturing jobs. including refining. We have the resource. We should use as much as possible here at home and sell what is left. I am a legislator who would like to solve this problem. and I like working across the party lines to get results. In fact. I worked with my good friend from Texas. JOE BARTON. on many issues during our years in Congress. In fact. JOE and I sat together for years at the Texas A&M football games until we realized A&M would lose when we sat next to each other. So last Saturday. when they beat Mississippi State. we sat a ways apart so we didnt jinx them. For months. I talked with Representative BARTON about the crude export issue. The crude oil export ban has been in place since 1975. In the seventies. the United States was in a tough spot. and we put the ban in place to protect our national interests. That is more than 40 years of legislative history. Before we throw all of that away. we should make sure we have a policy that will make sense for the next 40 years. I am hoping we can craft a bill that would create a process at the Bureau of Industry and Security within the Department of Commerce that would establish an authorization and reporting requirements for crude oil. Crude oil is a valuable national resource. and the government should have some oversight as to where and when we send it overseas. We export liquefied natural gas through a process developed at the Department of Energy. I have not been a fan of that process. but we have worked to improve it. We should have some basic requirements at the Department of Commerce to oversee crude. Unlike LNG. crude is a raw commodity. Unlike refined products. raw crude oil doesnt have value added. Our refiners add value to that. and we export that refined product. So those are jobs created in our community. Building LNG terminals and exporting refined product creates goodpaying jobs and lots of capital expenditure. If exporting crude is the right policy. then lets do it correctly. Lets maximize the benefits for the United States. Lets make sure U.S. crude doesnt end up in the hands of North Korea or any of our other foes. We need to know where this resource is going. how much of it is being sent. and how often it is being sent there. We need to ensure that. if at any time. a potential bad actor enters the marketplace. the Department of Commerce has the ability to enforce the law. The Department of Commerce is not an obstacle to exports. In fact. I have struggled to find a more industryfriendly government agency. The Department of Commerce has approved every application to export oil in the last five years. Thats 138 permits. Whats more impressive is Commerce approves 99 percent of all export applications. regardless of product. Now. I agree that the Department could approve permits more efficiently but thats something we can legislate. Thats a "fix" I can support and believe would help our upstream producers. Unfortunately. we were unable to find that compromise. I did not want to oppose this bill but without changes it is not in the best interest of our country. The time to address exports is now but we cannot just open the tap and hope for the best. I do not want the United States to become a resource nation and I certainly do not want to go back to the days of the 1970s. I look forward to working on this issue again and hope that a reasonable. commonsense approach can be reached. I want folks in all sectors to get back to work. For these reasons. I am forced to oppose H.R. 702 and I urge all my colleagues to do the same.