Date: 2009-06-15
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Madam Speaker. among the most important issues facing us today are the twin issues of the economy and energy. And tinfortunately. in this body and across the other Chamber. we often discuss those two issues separately. as if they had no connection with one another. and yet they have a very. very important link with one another. When the economy is down. it ha$ an impact on the energy. and when energy prices go up or when energy pricbs go down. it has an immediate impact on the economy. The strange thing is that as we look at an energy policy thats going to be presented to us by way of a bill from the majority shortly. there -appears to be a lack of appreciation for changes in energy policy and their impact on our economy. There seems to be some sort of question as to whether or not we ought to exercise our responsibilities to utilize those energy sources that are most abundant in these United States. Coal appears to be one of those things that were going to wrap up. close up. put on the shelf. not allow ourselves to use it. Rather than a real effort for clean coal energy. there appears to be an effort to try and demonize coal and not allow it to be utilized. That makes about as much sense as Saudi Arabia making an announcement tomorrow that theyre going to close off all of their production of petroleum. Why do I say it makes about as much sense? Because we are the Saudi Arabia of coal. Similarly. with tar sands. shale oil. those sorts of things that we have in abundance in North America. we. appear to be saying we ought not to take a look at those. . Similarly. we have abundant sources of petroleum offshore: offshore my State of California. offshore some of our other States in this Union. And yet we have a policy which basically says we ought not to utilize American technology. which has been utilized around the world. to safely extract petroleum. If you look at my State in California. you go to Santa Barbara. you will see historically there have been leaks from the bottom of the ocean there because of the pressure. because of the petroleum that lies under the ocean floor. We can actually take some of that pressure off by drilling and producing there. Lastly. I would say someone would have to be a hermit somewhere. stuck in a cave. not to understand that we have a terrible econonic problem in California. a terrible problem with our budget. terrible deficits. And one of the ways that we could achieve some sort of stability with our budget in California. our State budget. would be to allow offshore drilling and take those royalties that would come to the State as a result of having that offshore drilling. bringing those moneys into the State Treasury. We would do two things. We would help increase the security of this Nation with respect to energy on the one hand because this would be U.S. energy production. and secondly. we would have royalties going to the State of California in the billions of dollars. helping take off some of the pressure that we have currently as to which services were going to cut. Classroom size is going up in the State of California. There are the suggestions that a lot of services will be cut. some severely. and yet we continue to turn a blind eye to the possibility of environmentally safe extraction of petroleum products offshore. As one who basically was born just a stones throw from the ocean. who lived the first half of my lifeactually. more than thatthe first 42 years as a resident of Long Beach. California. assomeone who enjoys the beauty of my home State and the beauty of the coastline..I also understand that American technology. American ingenuity. American creativity thats applied elsewhere in the world can be applied here in the United States to produce energy. Why will we have an energy policy brought forward on this floor that ignores some of the most abundant sources of energy for this Nation. makes no sense to me. Surely I support the alternative sources of energy. wind aid solar. the traditional ones of hydroelectric. thermal power. But we cannot forget the abundance of natural resources we have in this country. 0Printed on recycled paper.