Bill Cassidy

Mr. CASSIDY

Mr. CASSIDY. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. CASSIDY. Assuming that the gentleman continues to yield to me, I would say, in that case, we need to go back to every State which has a better royalty sharing arrangement with the Federal Government than we and ask to reconsider that. We're not even asking to have the 50 percent on the inland or the no cap on the other coastal States. We're just asking that you raise the cap and keep our revenue sharing royalty percent at the same lower level than it is on the inland. Now, I don't know why we're being singled out when those other States do so well.

Mr. CASSIDY. So, when I spoke to someone from Wyoming today, she goes, Oh, you're only getting 37.5? Wyoming gets 48 percent.

Mr. CASSIDY. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. CASSIDY. How much time do I have left?

Mr. CASSIDY. I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

Mr. CASSIDY. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASSIDY. Yes, we do have onshore and offshore drilling, absolutely.

Mr. CASSIDY. Well, if you decide to cut off your economic nose to spite your face, I can't help that.

Mr. CASSIDY. If I may say, I admire your verbal sleight-of-hand because never in the past has royalty sharing been considered earmarks. But if now we're going to start considering royalty sharing earmarks, heck, let's go back and look at every State. But that is, again, a verbal sleight-of-hand. That is not under the definition of an earmark, and I think the gentleman knows that.

Mr. CASSIDY. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. CASSIDY. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. CASSIDY. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASSIDY. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASSIDY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CASSIDY. This is what is broken. This is our coastline, which is melting away. This is what increases our risk. We've lost a land mass equal to Rhode Island in Louisiana. Now, the money that is received, our share will go to this, but it is not adequate to rebuild this coastline. And the other thing which is broken is--

Mr. CASSIDY. Because we channeled the Mississippi in order to create navigational services for the rest of the inland nation. And so as you channel that Mississippi, the wetlands lost the nourishing sediment that comes to them.

Mr. CASSIDY. If we want to speak about lucrative revenue, all I ask is to have the same deal that every other State has. No, I don't even ask for the same deal that every other State has, because every other State, if they're interior, gets 50 percent of the revenue. Other coastal States, for example, California, have no cap on the amount of royalty sharing that they may have with the Federal Government. It is only in the gulf coast that there is a cap. Now, if you want to have the same deal for our State that other States have, I would love to have the 50 percent that Wyoming has.

Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. Chairman, I'll just close by saying--and I'm not sure I understand the logic of my friend on the other side of the aisle--apparently, this is going to increase our Federal revenue by $1.5 billion. But more importantly, it generates dollars for the State of Louisiana to preserve these, the homes of these families. This allows revenue that has been from our Outer Continental Shelf to come back to preserve this coastline, these families, and these businesses to remain in existence. And that's what this is really about, equity, increased revenue for the Federal Government, and families in Louisiana being able to preserve their existence. I urge support for our amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment simply stipulates that no later than 60 days after the enactment of H.R. 2231, the Secretary of the Interior shall issue rules to provide clarity, certainty, and stability to the revenue streams we just discussed that were created by GOMESA of 2006. This Federal law allows the State to use this money for the restoration of coastal areas and the mitigation of damage to natural resources. However, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, formerly MMS, has yet to issue the necessary rules and regulations. In 2009, a letter signed by the Governors of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas asked for these rules to be published and recommendations incorporated. It's now 2013, over 6 years since Congress passed in 2006, and the rules have still not been published. The lack of clarity in this phase 2 implementation of GOMESA impedes the ability of Gulf States and eligible coastal political subdivisions to conduct and achieve the planning efforts needed to maximize coastal protection. It's long overdue for these rules to be published. The amendment is simple. It just directs it to do so. I move for approval of the amendment.

Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. Chairman, in 2006 Congress passed the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, or GOMESA. This legislation for the first time allowed States to share in revenues generated from offshore drilling. GOMESA provided 37.5 percent of revenue to the Gulf States, to begin in the year 2017, but arbitrarily placed a $500 million cap on the collectively shared revenue. Conversely, the Mineral Leasing Act requires the Federal Government to allocate 50 percent of the energy revenue generated on Federal lands to interior States in which the revenue is generated without an annual cap. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is straightforward. It simply moves offshore royalty sharing more in line with the benefit onshore interior States experience by moving the GOMESA cap from $500 million to $1 billion. This would begin 10 years from now. It's almost $1 billion, just short of $1 billion. My amendment does not impact onshore producing States. If your State is receiving revenue sharing from onshore, my amendment does nothing to change that. It just moves Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama a little bit closer to parity. You can look at this graph right here, and you can see that this graph shows that interior States are receiving 50 percent with no dollar cap. Gulf States, less a percentage and with a cap. And all other States have the same percent with no cap. The House has previously passed a similar version of this amendment twice: once in the PIONEER Act and second on the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, both last year, overwhelmingly with bipartisan support. In fact, the House laid the groundwork for this with the landmark passage of the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act of 2006. This was the first offshore revenue-sharing bill to pass a congressional Chamber, and it did not include an arbitrary cap. So I ask my colleagues, if you're worried about rising energy prices, I'd recommend a ``yes'' vote on this amendment. Thirty percent of the Nation's energy comes off the gulf coast. If you're interested in treating Gulf Coast States equally, the way we treat onshore drilling in Federal lands for inland States, I also recommend a ``yes.'' And if you're interested in the environment, let me just make the case here that by the Louisiana Constitution, 100 percent of the Federal tax revenue that comes from this will go to coastal restoration. That is important to us because every place you see red is a place where we will lose in Louisiana land over the next 50 years. And where you see red, I see families. I see families and businesses which will no longer exist unless we do something proactively to restore those lands.

Mr. CASSIDY

Mr. CASSIDY. Madam Chairman, I oppose this amendment. We advocates for American farmers know that we need free world markets. The proponents of this amendment ignore that other countries, such as Brazil, subsidize their sugar industry as much as $3 billion per year. This amendment unilaterally disarms our economy. By doing so it threatens 142,000 farming jobs and potentially places the U.S. consumer at the mercy of market manipulation by foreign governments. At stake is our food security, 142,000 jobs, and the American consumer. By eliminating this program, which operates at zero cost to the American taxpayer, we hamstring the ability of our farmers to provide food security for our people. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.

Mr. CASSIDY

Mr. CASSIDY. Thank you, Congressman Fortenberry. Mr. Speaker, a couple of things. First, I associate myself with the remarks made by my colleagues. I think that there is a concern regarding our religious freedoms here in the United States. But for just a moment, I want to draw the attention of those watching and the Speaker to an issue of Pastor Saeed Abedini. He is an American, originally from Iran, who is now incarcerated for 8 years--this is his sentence in Iran--for crimes, as they defined it, that happened 13 years ago. This is a question of religious freedom which involves an American citizen who happens now to be abroad. Pastor Abedini is 33 years old, was born in Iran, and there converted from Islam to Christianity. Here, that would not be a big deal because we have religious freedom. Theoretically, so does Iran. In his early twenties, he helped start house churches. It was legal to do so. At some point, he moved to the United States and married his wife, who I gather her family also is originally from Iran. They have two children and they live in Idaho. He went back to Iran to work on a nonsectarian orphanage. He was arrested by the state police and incarcerated, at first they said for activities disruptive to the state. Now they apparently are attributing it to his work in house churches around the year 2000. But he has been incarcerated in prison and is tortured. He's been taken to the hospital on a couple of occasions. The physician recommended that he be admitted to a hospital. The Iranian Government will not allow it. He went to seek medical care on another occasion. The nurse refused to touch him saying that because he was a Christian, or if he had been Baha'i, either, she would not touch him. So here we have a fellow, an American, who is being imprisoned for activities which happened 13 years ago in a country which is a signatory to the UN Declaration of Human Rights in which someone may have religious freedom. Now, it is upon we, as Americans, if you're a person of faith, to pray for the Abedini family. If you're a person not necessarily of faith but just believe in human rights, this is something which should be incredibly important to you. If you're just a person who has compassion for a 33-year-old man whose wife and two children are here alone as he is being imprisoned and tortured for no other crime than attempting to start an orphanage for children who might not have another option, even that would offend someone who is of no faith whatsoever. So what can we as Americans do? One, we have to draw attention to it. We have a resolution that has been submitted that calls upon the U.S. State Department to intervene on his behalf--and, in fairness, the State Department has attempted to do so in the past, but there is some feeling they could do more--and for the Iranian Government to free him. So one, we have this resolution before Members of Congress. If you're watching this, ask your Member of Congress to sign on to this resolution. It has bipartisan support now. Number two, contact our State Department and ask them to redouble their efforts to free Pastor Abedini. Number three, include him and his family in your prayers. We can only imagine if our loved ones were abroad, in prison, being tortured, without access to health care, and what that would mean for both wife, children, and also parents. Lastly, join us all in admiration for a man in his commitment to the people whom he loves, who was willing to risk something that he knew might be a possibility as he was living out his faith, caring for those, treating those as he would have them treat him but, as an impulse of his faith, going to those who were otherwise without care. So thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of Pastor Abedini, and I thank you for having this discussion of religious freedom here tonight.