Date: 2006-06-06
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

The rule provides 1 hour of general debate. equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The rule also provides one motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker. over the last several years. we have seen gasoline prices increase steadily in the United States. The rising cost of gasoline can be attributed to several factors. including increased demand in the United States and in other countries such as China and elsewhere. decreases in oil production in politically unstable countries. including Venezuela and Nigeria. and a lack: of refinery capacity in the United States. In the last 24 years. our refinery capacity has dropped from 18.62 million barrels a day to less than 17 million barrels a day. This at the same time that our gross domestic product has increased in current dollars from 3.1 trillion to 12.4 trillion. Because of the sustained growth of our economy and the fact that we have not built a new refin-. ery in almost 30 years. we are now forced to import over 4 million barrels a day in refined products. and that is when our refineries are running at full capacity. Any changes in our refinery capacity cancause supply constraints and price spikes. especially in the gulf coast. where we have approximately half of our refinery capacity. And that is exactly what happened when the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the gulf coast. causing gasoline prices to rise almost 50 cent a gallon. 2 months after the storms hit we still had lost almost about 18 percent of our refining capacity. leading to sharp price increases. In order to prevent the steep increases in gasoline prices that we saw after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. and to try to moderate the continuing price increase. we must make certain that we build new refineries to meet our current demand and to prevent a loss of capacity due to another hurricane. or a terrorist attack for that matter. Without an increase in our refinery capacity. we will be at the mercy of countries such as Venezuela for the importation of refined oil products. Now. these countries are not reliable sources of refined products due to their politically unstable and/or unfriendly governments. One of the biggest challenges to the building of new refineries was pointed out by Daniel Yergin of the Cambridge Energy Research Associates during a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Mr. Yergin stated that. and I quote. "the building of new refineries has been hampered by costs. citing and permitting." Mr. Speaker. H.R. 5254 would help alleviate some of the problems associated with the building of new refineries. The legislation directs the President to appoint a Federal coordinator to manage the multiagency refinery permitting process. Working with the governor of any State where a refinery is proposed. the coordinator will begin by identifying and then convening all relevant agencies to coordinate the schedules for action so that no process called for in statute or regulation- is shortchanged. and public input opportunities are preserved. but also to allow the project to proceed as fast as otherwise possible. The goal of this leg.islation is to eliminate needless delay from agencies that are either dragging their feet or simply acting in sequence when parallel action would be more efficient. Bringing new refineries online will ease our reliance on foreign sources of refined products and will also allow us to have enough refinery capacity to meet the needs of our growing economy while providing a back up if any of our refineries are- shut down for an extended period of time. Mr. Speaker. the House has already taken steps to help lower the cost of gasoline. Last month we passed legislation to combat price gouging as well as legislation to open up ANWR to environmentally friendly energy development. However. more must be done. The underlying legislation is just another step in our continued efforts to provide relief from the high cost of gasoline. H.R. 5254 was introduced by Representative BASS. A majority of the House has already voted in favor of this legislation. However. the bill did not pass because it was brought up under suspension of the rules and it did not obtain a twothirds majority. Now we have another chance to pass this bill which is important to our energy needs and our growing economy. I would like to thank Chairman BARTON and Representative BASS for their leadership on this issue. I urge my colleagues to support both the rule -and the underlying legislation. And at this time. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.