Date: 2005-05-19
Speaker: GENE GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. opening up the Offshore Continental Shelf will save $300 billion in natural gas costs over 20 years for our consumers and manufacturers. It is not just for businesses. but to heat and cool our homes we use natural gas. If we do not explore and produce off our potential. whether it be California. the eastern Gulf of Mexico. or anywhere else. we are going to continue to be held up by the world price. Our consumers will pay for it. Mr. Chairman. I like the beaches in Texas. I like them in Florida and California. but I also know we need to use our natural resources. 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 rot want to repeat. A recent Gallup poll found that half of family budgets have been seriously affected by the recent rise in energy prices. Opening the OCS 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 UK are safely and successfully producing natural gas from their coastal waters. 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 laak more in a year. This amendment is a major opportunity for us to respond to todays energy crisis with a national solution. I feel justified in supporting this amendment because I am from a coastal district. My constituents feel the same way as I do on this issue. Chemical production and oil and gas exploration. processing. and refining are Texas top coastal industries. My colleagues from Florida and California think only they have beaches. but coastal tourism is Texass second largest coastal industry. That fact alone shows the argument that oil and gas production and coastal tourism are mutually exclusive is just plain wrong. They are acting like Chicken Little. and cannot point to one beach in Texas that has been ruined by oil or natural gas production. 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. 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. Supporting 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. My point is not that we can drill our way to cheap oil or drill our way to energy independence. 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.