Date: 2006-05-18
Speaker: GENE GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. I was really going to wait and discuss this on the Peterson amendment or at least on the PutnamCapps amendment to strike the Peterson language that is in the bill. but listening to all the Members. I thought maybe we ought *to at least have a voice that is on the other side. I cant near entertain as much as my colleague from Hawaii. who I agree with on this. and I am not going to call environmentalists Taliban. but I know we have considered this amendment for over a year and this issue has been debated on this floor many times. including the energy bill last year. Supply and demand for energy is out of whack and our Nation needs more energy. The Federal Government tried to mandate demand reduction in the last energy crisis and it contributed to a nationwide recession we do not want to repeat. Opening the Outer Continental Shelf could save $300 billion in natural gas costs over 20 years for consumers and manufacturers. High natural gas costs are sending manufacturing jobs overseas. following the cheap gas. Environmentally conscious nations like Norway. Denmark. Canada. Japan and the United Kingdom are safely and successfully producing natural gas from their coastal waters. Canada uses natural gas only wells in Lake Erie. but right across the line the U.S. is not allowed to do the same. No nation can produce energy more responsibly than ours. I have been on oil and gas rigs and they have such few discharges into the ocean. -a medium sized fishing boat will leak more in a year. The Peterson language is a major opportunity for us to respond to todays energy crisis with a national solution. I feel justified in supporting the amendment because I come from a coastal district. My constituents feel the same way. Chemical production and oil and gas exploration. processing and refining are Texas top coastal industries. My colleagues from California and Florida think only they have beaches. We have coastal tourism and it is our second biggest income producer. That fact alone shows that the argument that oil and gas production and coastal tourism is mutually exclusive is just plain wrong. I would close by saying if youre acting like Chicken Little and cannot point to one beach in Texas that has been ruined by oil and natural gas. then you should oppose the Putnam. Capps. et al. amendment. There will be less need for LNG facilities and LNG tankers when we tap our own offshore resources so we can use the safest mode of transportation in the worldpipelines. To address the needs of American families. we need a 3 pronged strategy. First. we need more production and infrastructure to meet our needs of today and tomorrow. a Second. we need more conservation to keep our economy going as resources become more competitive globally. Third we need more research to transition our economy to future sources of energy. for a time when petrochemicals are only used for materials. and not as an everyday fuel. Suppprting only longterm solutions and conservation is just not enough. It might be easier if it was. but we need to do more for todays energy problems. We will need continued American energy production for some time. If we allow domestic production to die out. conservation and research will not save us. and we will have. to pay a terrible economic price. I urge my colleagues to support oil and gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf. and oppose this amendment..