Doc Hastings

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller), the author of this legislation.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I have no more requests for time. If the gentleman yields back, I'm prepared to yield back.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Chairman Ralph Hall's bill to provide relief to 1.6 million people living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area necessitated because of a bizarre set of circumstances. In 1989, the North Texas Municipal Water District constructed a pumping station in Lake Texoma, providing up to 125 million gallons per day of safe drinking water to one of the most rapidly growing regions in the country, the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Sometime later, the enactment of a boundary adjustment resulted in a small portion of the pumping station being shifted from Texas to Oklahoma. In 2009, zebra mussels were discovered in the lake. This has caused a significant problem because it is in violation of the Lacey Act to transport zebra mussels across State lines. So, to resolve this, the Water District has proposed to construct a $300 million, 46-mile closed pipeline that will transport Lake Texoma water to its treatment facility in Wylie, Texas. All zebra mussels will then be destroyed there, and the entire effort will be accomplished without any cost to Federal taxpayers. This project was issued a section 404 Clean Water Act permit in May, and it was supported by the U.S. Wildlife Service district office in Arlington, Texas. However, as happens so many times, the Washington, D.C., headquarters of Fish and Wildlife is not so supportive and has suggested what it describes as a nonlegislative solution: an agreement with the Justice Department not to prosecute North Texas Municipal Water District for transporting zebra mussels. Now, just think about this, Mr. Speaker. As someone who believes that we are a Nation of law, I am deeply troubled by the notion that a Federal agency would suggest that it would not seek to prosecute, under the law, those who may violate the law. I just think that's the wrong approach, and this approach is the right approach. So I urge adoption of H.R. 6007, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the author of this legislation, our distinguished colleague from Texas, Chairman Ralph Hall.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2489) to authorize the acquisition and protection of nationally significant battlefields and associated sites of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 under the American Battlefield Protection Program, as amended.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The American Battlefield Protection Act of 1996 addressed the preservation and protection of Civil War battlefields through conservation easements or through the purchase of land from willing sellers through Federal grants. H.R. 2489 renews this effort, which will soon expire, and it adds the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 battlefields to those eligible for protection. The Natural Resources Committee made several improvements to the legislation as introduced, including a reduction of the authorization from 10 years to 5 years. Also, the authorization was cut in half to save up to $50 million over the course of the program. It is important to note that we have not raised the authorization one cent over current levels; therefore, there is no increase in spending. Finally, the committee added language to prohibit these funds from being used for lobbying activities or from being distributed to organizations that participate in lobbying. With so many existing needs within the National Park Service, we want to ensure that these funds go specifically for battlefield protection and not to outside advocacy groups. These battlefields are part of our history, and we should do everything we can to ensure that future generations understand what our forefathers went through to ensure our freedoms. So, with that, I support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, this is good legislation, and I urge its adoption. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and add extraneous material on H.R. 6082.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, this is not a foreign policy bill. This is a bill about American jobs and American energy. And these subjects that are brought up in this motion to recommit are covered in other areas, as they should be. For example, the Iranian issue is covered in standalone bills, as it properly should be. But this continues to be an attempt of the other side to change the subject away from American energy and American jobs. The President is talking about American energy, and I have said on a number of occasions that the President likes to give speeches, but virtually every time when he does on offshore energy, his actions are 180 degrees from his rhetoric. So this bill that we have under consideration today, H.R. 6082, challenges the President to live up to his rhetoric. In his speeches, the President says, ``Yes, we can,'' ``hope and change,'' ``move forward,'' ``believe in America.'' Well, to those who say that the House and the Senate should not act on a 60-day review of the President's plan, I say, ``Yes, we can.'' Let's just not hope for better, let's move the country forward. Let's change President Obama's plan to a real pro-energy, pro-jobs offshore plan that truly believes in America. Oppose this motion to recommit, vote for the bill, and vote against the suspension. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6168) to direct the Secretary of the Interior to implement the Proposed Final Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program (2012-2017) in accordance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and other applicable law.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The bill we are now considering, H.R. 6168, is a very simple bill. It would implement President Obama's proposed offshore drilling lease plan for the years 2012 to 2017. Late yesterday, the House debated H.R. 6082, the Congressional Replacement of President Obama's Energy Restricting and Job-Limiting Offshore Drilling Plan. These bills contain two distinctly different offshore drilling plans, and the House will have an opportunity to choose which one allows for more American energy production and more American job creation, and which one continues to lock up America's resources. This debate is occurring during the 60-day mandatory review period provided for under section 18 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which requires a President to submit his proposed plan to Congress for review. He must submit it to Congress before it can take effect. This 60-day clock started ticking on June 28 when President Obama's plan was submitted to the House and to the Senate. Madam Speaker, I am the official sponsor of this bill to implement President Obama's plan. I introduced this bill with the specific purpose of allowing the people's House to officially go on record as either endorsing the President's plan or registering its opposition to it. Now, while I'm the bill's sponsor, I am going to vote against this bill. I oppose the President's plan. It's a giant step backwards for American energy production and for job creation. Madam Speaker, President Obama likes to give speeches claiming support for offshore drilling; however, I have observed his actions while in office are 180 degrees different than his rhetoric. When President Obama was sworn into office in January 2009, nearly all of our offshore areas were newly open to American energy production. This was the result of the public outrage in the summer of 2008 over $4 gasoline prices that resulted in the Federal Government lifting the two moratoria that blocked energy production off both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. The will of the American people was clear: For the sake of family budgets, for small businesses, and for our economy, we must produce more American energy in America to lessen our dependence on hostile foreign sources. So when President Obama took office, there was an offshore energy plan to conduct lease sales in new areas that were no longer under the moratoria. Instead of seizing this opportunity to vastly increase American energy production, the President tossed that plan aside and delayed and canceled these sales, including a sale scheduled for 2011 that would open a section offshore of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Obama administration has spent the last 3\1/2\ years slowly writing a plan that takes our country backwards, a plan that effectively reimposes the drilling moratoria that were lifted in 2008. The President's proposed plan keeps 85 percent of our offshore areas off-limits to energy production. The Atlantic coast, the Pacific coast, and parts of the Arctic are all kept under lock and key under his plan. His plan absolutely opens no new areas for drilling. As an example, after delaying the Virginia lease sale in 2011, the President doesn't even include it in his proposed plan. Under President Obama, then, the absolute earliest that the Virginia lease sale could happen is 2017. That's 6 years after it was scheduled to take place. In total, the President's proposed plan only includes 15 lease sales. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, this means that this President has the distinction of offering the lowest number of lease sales over a 5-year plan since this program began, since this legislation establishing the review. Madam Speaker, that's worse than even Jimmy Carter's record. During the several hours of debate yesterday, there was little defense of the President's limited and weak offshore plan. In fact, a great deal of time was expended by the other side trying to change the subject, rather than endorse or defend the President's offshore plan. I think that shows just how out of touch and unacceptable this plan really is. Today we will hear the deliberately misleading claim that the President's proposed plan opens 75 percent of the known offshore resources. That is simply not true, Madam Speaker. It was meant to provide political cover for a failed record on offshore drilling. The cold hard facts are the President is effectively reimposing a moratorium on 85 percent of our potential resources offshore of America's coasts. An attempt might be made to claim that the bill doesn't represent the President's plan. Madam Speaker, it couldn't be more black-and-white. This bill exactly replicates the offshore lease sales scheduled in the President's proposed plan, both by location and by the sale year. H.R. 6168 is the President's plan. Now, just last week, Secretary of the Interior Salazar wrote that President Obama's offshore plan is what the ``American people have asked for.'' In reality, the American people want increased American energy production and new and more American jobs. The President's proposed plan fails to deliver on both, American energy production and American jobs. So by voting against this bill--which I will do, even though I am the sponsor of it--Members of Congress can stand up for the American people and reject the President's no-new-drilling, no-new-jobs plan. We can and we must do better. And that is precisely why we had the debate, and we will have a vote later on today on H.R. 6082, the House plan. So with that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), a member of the Natural Resources Committee and a subcommittee chairman.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Landry), a Representative of a coastal State and a very important member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Landry).

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. First of all, I want to tell my good friend from Massachusetts that I was hoping he would thank me for introducing the bill because now he has an opportunity to vote for the President's plan. I already mentioned that I was going to vote against it. I was very forthright. But now the gentleman does have an opportunity to vote for the President's plan, so I wish that he had thanked me for that. But I want to say this, Madam Speaker: We already know that Americans want to be less dependent on foreign energy. The Republican plan obviously does that. Americans also want to have parts of the economy start growing. Energy production is a way to jump-start our economy with good American jobs. So those are all givens. But the rhetoric sometimes coming from the other side is: Why are some areas emphasized and some areas are not? Because we use a very, very novel approach to where we should sell leases and explore for oil, and that is, very simply, where we think the resources are, and then people will bid on that and take a chance and see if there are resources. If there are, they will drill, and the Federal Treasury and the American people benefit. A good case of that, by the way, Madam Speaker, is in southern California, because reference has been made several times to southern California, and specifically to Santa Barbara, California, the Santa Barbara Channel. Now, the State Lands Commission says that there are 1,200 natural occurring seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel, and it's estimated that coming out of these naturally occurring seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel is 55,000 barrels a year--each year. Experts have concluded that that amount of seep could be translated into enough fuel to fuel the energy for Santa Barbara County for 7\1/2\ years. Now, that is a lot of oil. We believe the opportunity ought to be to go--again, with the novel approach--where the oil is. So that's why our approach says, okay, let's open up all these areas. Let's allow the private sector to ascertain if they want to pay somebody for a lease to develop those resources. That is in essence what this debate is about. And finally, let me conclude this way, Mr. Speaker. The fact is that the President's plan reinstates the moratorium that existed going up to 2008. The American people demanded that be lifted with $4 gasoline, but this essentially reinstates that. I think that's the wrong policy. So we'll have an opportunity today to vote on two proposals: one that does increase American energy and creates American jobs, or one that maintains the status quo. In fact, it doesn't even do that. It goes back and reestablishes the moratorium and locks up 85 percent of our resources. So I urge a ``no'' vote on this suspension bill, and a ``yes'' vote on the subsequent bill that we debated yesterday, H.R. 6082. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.