Rush Holt

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the so-called Election Support Consolidation and Efficiency Act. This would eliminate, as we have heard, the Election Assistance Commission. And let me remind my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing more crucial to democracy than guaranteeing the integrity, fairness, accessibility and accuracy of elections. Democracy works only if the citizens believe it does. The system must work, and the people must believe that it works. But voting shouldn't be an act of blind faith. It should be an act of record. The EAC helps maintain the integrity of the American electoral process. And too many people across the country lack confidence in the legitimacy of election results, and the dismantling of the EAC would further erode that faith that is so essential to democracy. How quickly Members seem to have forgotten the Florida recount with its hanging chads and pregnant chads and uncertainty counts of ballots to determine voter intent. The 2000 election exposed critical flaws and inconsistencies in how elections were conducted and, in its wake, Congress, under the leadership of Representative Hoyer and others, approved the Help America Vote Act to assist State and local jurisdictions. Yet, the legislation we're considering today willfully ignores this history. The bill closes the EAC, transfers some of its vital functions to the Election Commission, an agency that doesn't have the capability or the expertise to do the job and has other important work to do. This bill takes this in exactly the wrong direction. While millions of Americans are casting their votes on unauditable voting machines and the results of many elections are not audited, eliminating the EAC would increase the risks that our electoral process will be compromised by voter system irregularities. Can we afford to take that risk? Certainly not. H.R. 672 is another example of the desire of this Chamber that seems to exist to cut recklessly valuable services, rather than engage in the hard work of making government work at its best. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this misguided bill.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 2112, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2012. This bill ignores the plight of hundreds of thousands of women and children who struggle to obtain nutritious food in neighborhoods across America. The measure originally put forward by the Republican majority proposed $833 million in cuts to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC. This program provides assistance to new mothers, babies, and children under five who have been identified as nutritionally at risk. In any decent society, this is the most basic obligation we have to our fellow citizens. Yet the funding level proposed by the majority would have left 400,000 to 550,000 women and children without this aid. I am pleased that the Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment by my colleague, Representative DeLauro, to reinstate $147 million in WIC funding. Even with this restoration, however, between 200,000 and 350,000 low-income women and children around the country would be dropped from the program next year. In New Jersey, as many as 6,500 citizens could lose this assistance. I would remind those who claim that we cannot afford the cost of this program that just one week of lost revenue from the Bush tax breaks for millionaires, which were extended over my objection, would more than fill the gap in funding for this program to ensure that every mother and child has access to healthy meals. On average, nationwide, we are talking about just 57 dollars per month for nearly 10 million mothers and infants who cannot afford nutritious foods. Almost one-half of the children born in our country rely on WIC. Many of these enter the Medicaid program, and experience has shown that the nutritional benefit to pregnant women results in up to $4.20 in Medicaid savings for each dollar spent through WIC. Restoring full funding for this program is the smart thing to do for our budget, just as it is the right thing to do for our citizens. Women and infants are not the only vulnerable population put at greater risk of food insecurity by this bill. The 22 percent cut to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program will prevent at least 130,000 low- income seniors from receiving desperately needed food packages. The 23 percent reduction to the Emergency Food Assistance Program will leave empty shelves at our local food banks, pantries, faith-based organizations, soup kitchens, and shelters. With food prices continuing to rise sharply and Americans continuing to struggle to get ahead in a tough economy, now is not the time to remove the critical safety net provided by these food assistance programs. In addition, food aid for 1.1 million people around the world will be unavailable as a result of the $476 million cut to the Food for Peace international humanitarian program and the McGovern-Dole program, which provides for the donation of U.S. agriculture goods to school feeding initiatives around the world. Furthermore, the drastic reduction to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission budget will leave the U.S. economy and consumers in peril. The Commission will not have the resources necessary to prevent the big banks from making the kinds of speculative bets that led to the recent financial crisis. And as gas prices continue to strain household and small business budgets, this bill will do nothing to help the Commission go after excessive speculation in oil markets--even though recent data suggest that nearly 90 percent of those trading in the oil markets are speculators, not legitimate users of oil. These speculators are driving up the price of petroleum and gasoline, and without an effective CFTC with adequate funding, consumers and taxpayers are the losers. This bill also includes severe funding cuts for the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, which will undermine food safety in America and weaken efforts to ensure that medical products and new drugs are safe and accessible. It underfunds research programs to improve food production, safety, and quality as well as initiatives designed to advance organic farming and related markets. And it eliminates almost one billion dollars in conservation programs to protect soil and farmland, maintain healthy agriculture in rural America, preserve key resources, and restore wildlife habitat that supports associated recreational and economic opportunities. Mr. Speaker, the Agriculture Appropriations bill before us today is one more step in the wrong direction for the Nation's budget, our economy, and our people. It leaves vulnerable low-income women, infants, children, and seniors to fend for themselves even though we know that good nutrition improves health and saves money in the long run. It allows Wall Street speculation to continue unchecked, threatening our economy and driving up gas prices. It says that we should ignore the needs of our faith- and community-based food service organizations as well as those of hungry children and impoverished people around the world. And it leaves us all at greater risk of encountering food-borne illnesses, sets back research programs, and ignores our conservation needs. The American people expect more of their government, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this deeply flawed bill.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week I voted against allowing the United States to default on its debt. Although the preamble of the bill took a gratuitous poke at the President by stating erroneously that it is the President's budget for Fiscal Year 2012 that makes it necessary to increase the debt ceiling, this statement was insignificant in relation to the effective part of the bill. For more than two centuries, the United States has been a trustworthy creditor. In previous years, members of both parties have set aside their policy disagreements to ensure the United States fulfills its obligations to creditors and maintains its credit rating. Unfortunately, the Republicans didn't want Tuesday's vote on the debt ceiling to be about maintaining our creditworthiness. Instead, it was the latest in a series of reckless political games being played by my colleagues who brought this bill to the floor to have it fail. Even the author of this bill voted against it. We saw this brand of economic brinkmanship just last month, when Congressional Republicans brought the federal government to within minutes of a shutdown. While these actions may please some narrow ideological constituency, they endanger needlessly the financial security of the United States and the economic security of the American people. Whether one blames the debt on unpaid bills of the Reagan defense buildup, food stamps and other social programs, the Bush tax cuts and two wars not paid for, or any other action of government over the past decade or past century, this was not the place for that argument. Whether you think taxes are too low or spending is too high, this was not the occasion to try to impose one's own idea of a correction. This was not the occasion to reshape our economy or score ideological points. If House Republicans were serious about improving the nation's fiscal outlook, then they would have voted in favor of this measure so we could move on to legislation that will help Americans get back to work. I acted responsibly so the United States can continue to fulfill its financial obligations by voting in favor of this clean debt ceiling bill.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, this proposed amendment has a simple purpose: to prevent the reckless cuts to passenger rail security. Mr. Speaker, you probably read that at the time the al Qaeda leader bin Laden was killed he was planning attacks on U.S. passenger rail systems. Even as we debate this bill, our intelligence and law enforcement communities are running to ground leads about these and other potential terrorist plots. This discovery underscores the need to sustain, not to cut, transit security funding. Following the terrible events of 2001, our Nation took unprecedented steps to secure our Nation's airlines--appropriately so. However, transit security grant programs remain badly underfunded. We need these funds to field canine teams, install surveillance cameras and security fencing, provide the resources for incident response training, and a host of other mission-critical activities that are required to help secure our trains and buses. Transit provides 18 times as many passenger trips as aviation, but receives 12 times less security funding. In other words, aviation security receives 215 times as much Federal funding per passenger as land transit. We have to do much, much better because the threat is real. In 2004, terrorist cells conducted successful and deadly bombings in Spain; the next year in the U.K.; in India; in Belarus, hundreds of people killed, thousands of people wounded. Let's not put off the necessary rail security steps until after the tragedy here. Let's thwart bin Laden's plans. I urge support for this amendment.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate that this bipartisan amendment offered by my colleague Representative Runyan of New Jersey has been accepted by the majority, and I thank Chair Culberson and Ranking Member Bishop and their staffs for making this possible. As you may know, Mr. Chairman, last month the Federal Ninth Circuit Court sided with two veterans groups that sued the Department of Veterans Affairs for failing to provide timely care to veterans at risk of suicide. The court noted that on average, 18 veterans per day take their own lives. I'll repeat. On average, 18 veterans per day take their own lives. We must end this suicide epidemic. This amendment is one important step in that process. Our amendment is simple. It fences $20 million of the billion dollars in advance funding for the VA for fiscal years 2013 and 2014 and dedicates these funds to suicide prevention outreach. Specifically, our intention is to use television ads and social media. We know that when veterans are made aware of the national suicide prevention number, which is 1-800- 273-TALK, they use it. And lives are saved. 1-800-273-TALK. Indeed, in the State of New Jersey, we have our own veteran counseling hotline, the Vet-to-Vet Program run by the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey. Since it went live a half dozen years ago, no New Jersey Guard member who has used its services has taken his or her own life. It is a successful program. We want to see this expanded. When we get the word out about these counseling services, we save lives. It's past time that we push the VA to do the advertising and the outreach that's necessary to reach the people who need it. This amendment is budget neutral, it's vitally needed, and I thank my colleagues for carrying it forward.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, the House is once again in an unexamined rush to make semi-permanent the government's ability to seek all matter of records on citizens without having to demonstrate to a court that citizens under suspicion are actually engaged in terrorist activities. The power of government for surveillance and enforcement are among the most important but also the most fearsome. We know these authorities and others have been abused, because the Department of Justice Inspector General has told us so. I know it, because for 8 years I served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Let me tell you, American freedom and security are not well-served by the excessive secrecy imposed on our society and government by this legislation. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is responsible for approving government surveillance requests under the PATRIOT Act, is the kind of court that should be used only rarely and in the most special circumstances. Instead, it has become part of a kind of routine clandestine government. Treating some Americans as above suspicion and others as suspect without cause has made us a less just and also a less secure society. The PATRIOT Act was originally passed at a time of high emotion in this country. Nearly a decade at the PATRIOT Act enactment, the death of Osama bin Laden has provided us with an opportunity to stop and reflect on all that has transpired over the last 10 years. It is past time for us to pause and reexamine the validity of the assumptions that led to the passage of the PATRIOT Act and the validity of its current application. But, you say, we cannot debate the validity of its current application because those applications are classified at a very high level. That is precisely one of the points we should be debating thoroughly before any reauthorization. Sitting on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for 8 years, let me tell you, that secrecy does not serve America well.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Today and each day, on average, 18 American warriors take their own lives. Over the last 2 years, America has lost more troops to suicide than to combat itself. Yes, you heard me correctly. These painful facts were ignored by the majority last night when they blocked an amendment I offered to this bill. As I explained to the Rules Committee, this amendment that I offered had passed the House previously, and would have provided badly needed suicide prevention services to over 123,000 Guard and Reserve combat veterans who currently have no established suicide prevention network. My amendment proposed a tested, effective approach to counseling. The message to these Guard and Reserve combat veterans is unmistakable. If the intrusive memories of the horrors you have witnessed in war are too much for you and you are thinking of ending your own life, you are on your own. Yes, I am angry. Blocking this amendment is an insult to the servicemembers and the families who have already lost a loved one to suicide. The deliberate exclusion of this badly needed suicide prevention, by itself, is a compelling reason to vote against this bill.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. HOLT. I am opposed.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, time and again over the past week, I have referred to the majority's trio of offshore drilling bills as ``amnesia acts.'' They willfully forget the lessons derived at great cost in lives and livelihoods from the Deepwater Horizon spill last summer. Mr. Speaker, and with these amnesia acts, the majority offers false promises to Americans who are struggling to make ends meet as gas prices continue to rise. The truth is that giving away more of the American people's offshore resources to Big Oil companies will do absolutely nothing to ease the prices at the pump. How do we know? Because the oil giants already are sitting on 11.6 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico without lifting a finger to extract it. If my colleagues really believe that more domestic drilling is the answer to high gas prices, then they should support this final amendment, which does two things: first, to encourage the oil companies to drill on the tens of millions of acres of public land they already hold so that Americans can benefit from domestic oil production before the oil companies rush to lock up more land; and second, the amendment would help to keep the oil produced within the United States of America here at home. Mr. Speaker, the facts speak for themselves. Opening vast portions of the east and west coasts to drilling makes no sense when 79 percent of all the potential oil resources on the whole continental shelf already are available in the current offshore leasing program. Why risk every inch of American coastline, which supports millions of jobs in tourism and fishing and over $225 billion in related economic activity when the Energy Information Administration tells us that unrestrained offshore drilling might lower gas prices not at all in the foreseeable future and maybe pennies two decades from now? Oil companies are active on just 10 million of the 34 million acres under lease in the gulf. My Republican colleagues say, yes, but it takes time and money to explore before you can start production. Well, the fact is that of the 24 million lease acres lying fallow in the gulf, they hold 70 percent of the region's technically recoverable oil, but the companies aren't exploring on a single one of those acres. They haven't even submitted exploration plans in those areas. Why should they when they can squat on these resources and still make $32 billion in profits just in the last 3 months? Mr. Speaker, every kindergartner knows you should clean your plate before you get a second helping. Evidently the oil company executives never learned that lesson. Here is our chance to deliver the lesson to them, and if my colleagues truly believe that we need more drilling, not just more giveaways to Big Oil, then let's at least make sure the oil companies use the resources they have already leased instead of stockpiling them, and let's make sure that Americans get to use the oil produced on their land. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to now yield to the ranking member of the Resources Committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, here we go again, considering legislation that is written as if the largest oil spill in U.S. waters did not occur. This is the third of the amnesia acts that we have seen offered in the last week. I say to my friend from California, no one is saying that we oppose this bill because we shouldn't drill, ever. But let's be smart. H.R. 1231 would force the Interior Department to open up vast swaths of the American coastline to drilling, including California and all of the Mid and North Atlantic. It is incomprehensible that the majority would take such a reckless radical step before we even know the full cost of the gulf spill. Let's be smart. This bill in particular represents something worse than the pre-spill mentality; it represents an alternative reality: facts evidently don't matter. Never mind the fact that, 1 year ago, 11 workers died in a Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. Never mind that about 60 died over the last decade. Never mind the fact that, prior to the gulf spill, offshore drilling in U.S. waters was four times more deadly than drilling of the same operations, the same kinds of operations by the same companies elsewhere in the world, even in the inhospitable territory of the North Sea. Never mind the fact that the Gulf of Mexico workforce suffered 1,550 injuries, 948 fires over the last decade. Never mind that Congress has not enacted a single piece of legislation to improve the safety of offshore drilling. Never mind the fact that there were 79 reported losses of well control in the gulf between 1996 and 2009. Never mind the fact that a single blowout caused more than 4 billion barrels of oil to spew from the Macondo well for 87 days, coating 1,000 miles of coastline, closing over 88 square miles of some of the Nation's most productive fisheries. Never mind the fact that the independent Energy Information Administration has concluded that unlimited access to U.S. offshore resources would have zero effect on gas prices over the next decade and might have an effect of pennies after that. Never mind that U.S. oil production will remain above the 2009 pre- gulf spill levels through 2035, as calculated by the Department of the Interior, without the proposed acceleration in leasing and drilling. Never mind that the United States cannot drill our way to lower pump prices when we possess about 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. About 2 percent of the oils reserves. We are not dominant in this field. Oh, yes, we have some of the best companies and certainly the most profitable, but we consume 25 percent of the world's oil while we have about 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. Prices are determined by OPEC, with fluctuations above that basic price determined by speculation on the commodities market. Never mind the fact that 79 percent of all of the potential oil reserves on the entire Continental Shelf are already available under the current leasing; 79 percent, I repeat to my friends, are already available under the existing leasing program. Never mind that 60 million acres are already under lease but not producing oil. That is onshore and offshore. And offshore, the existing leases contain more than 11 billion, billion with a B, barrels of oil. Never mind the fact that the entire Atlantic contains less than 5 percent of the potential U.S. offshore oil reserves and less than 9 percent of the natural gas reserves. Never mind the fact that the entire Pacific contains only about 12 percent of the potential U.S. offshore oil reserves and less than 5 percent of the potential natural gas reserves. Never mind the fact that, in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil companies already hold the drilling rights to 34 million acres, but are producing oil on only 6 million acres. Never mind the fact that the 28 million nonproducing acres in the gulf have more natural gas and about as much oil as you would ever get total from drilling up and down the east and west coasts. Never mind, my friends, the fact that, from 2005 to 2009, Big Oil used less than 10 percent of their profits to explore for oil while they used between 60 and 90 percent of their profits to pay dividends and buy back stock. These are behaving like financial industries, not energy industries. Never mind the fact that the majority refuses to end the $4 billion, actually more like $8 billion, in tax breaks for oil companies at the very time that the top five oil companies took home over $32 billion in profits in just the last 3 months. Never mind the fact that when the top four oil companies took home $485 billion in profits during the 5 years from 2005 to 2009, they still reduced their combined American workforce by 10,200 employees. And my friends here are talking about jobs, when these companies make profits of nearly $500 billion, they lay off more than 10,000 workers? What kind of reality are they living in? Never mind the fact that the Gulf of Mexico tourism and fishing industries employ five times as many people as the oil industry. Five times as many. Never mind the fact that the annual value of coastal tourism and fishing in the U.S. exceeds that of oil and gas extraction by tens of billions of dollars. Never mind the fact that this bill before us is one more unjustified giveaway to Big Oil. Never mind all of those facts. Ignore the spill. Drill, baby, drill. No, thank you. I prefer to live in the real world where facts matter, and where this bill could have devastating real-world consequences. I urge my colleagues, Remember the spill. Vote down this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. HOLT. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps), who knows this subject very well.

Mr. HOLT

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

Mr. HOLT. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. I yield myself such time as I may consume. The majority, the sponsors of this bill, say that we need it because supply is dwindling and gasoline prices are climbing and employment is terrible. Well, I'll grant they have got a point on a couple of items here. But it has nothing to do with this legislation. They bring forward a bill to help the oil supply when it is a fact, I say to my colleague, that 79 percent of all of the potential oil reserves as calculated by the nonpartisan prospectors on the whole Continental Shelf are already under the current leasing program. Sixty million acres. This is indisputable. Sixty million acres offshore are under existing lease and contain 11.5 billion barrels. So this ``hurry up and drill'' legislation is certainly not necessary for that. As for employment, I said it before and I'll say it again. It is a fact. During the 5 years previously when the four oil companies took home $485 billion in profits, their combined American workforce dropped by 10,200 employees. They made money. They laid people off. So we can check that one off, too. It's not about employment. How about prices? This year's leases have nothing to do with this year's price at the gas pump--or next year's. In fact, not for 20 years. Might it have an effect? Oh, yes, there's a supply problem. The supply problem is that U.S. oil reserves amount to about 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. About 2 percent. My colleagues say, Oh, no, those calculations are wrong. Okay, I'll give you a break. Let's say we're off by a factor of two. How about a factor of three? How about a factor of four? We would still be one of the smallest oil supplies of the oil-producing countries. So this is not about that. The prices are determined right now at the pump largely by speculation. According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, speculators increased their energy future contracts--their positions-- by 64 percent over the last couple of years, totaling more than a million contracts. They are trading in each day far more paper barrels than barrels of oil are ever delivered. It's speculation, pure and simple. Speculators have moved from holding 30 percent of the open interest in the commodity markets to 70 percent. And you wonder why the prices at the pump are so high. Even Goldman Sachs says that speculation is responsible for many tens of dollars of the hundred dollars a barrel that is now the world price for oil. Going back a decade, the majority voted to exempt all energy derivatives from CFTC regulations. And then when the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill came along, they opposed the enactment to give the CFTC the power to regulate energy derivatives. They voted to slash the CFTC budget as part of H.R. 1. Right now in the Agriculture Committee and the Financial Services Committee, they are working to block any possibility that the CFTC would put in regulations to limit or reduce speculation. So if my colleagues want to do something to deal with the high gas prices, I will give them a list of things to do. It is not this bill. We do not need to cut corners. We do not need to deem that inadequate applications for leasing are adequate. We do not need to deem that environmental impact statements that are clearly inadequate are adequate. We do not need to open up the east coast and west coast to willy-nilly rapid drill prospecting. We certainly do not. Now, one thing I'll hand my colleagues. They yesterday said we really need to get away from these environmental regulations that are stymying the oil companies, that are making it hard for them to earn their profits, these burdensome environmental regulations. I'll give them one thing. These regulations, the environmental impact statement that was prepared for the drilling in the Gulf of Mexico this year that they want to expand on into the future that has in it a plan for dealing with walruses, because they think that's a really good environmental impact statement that's based on the real world facts--you're right. In the Macondo well in the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon, we didn't lose a single walrus's life. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. In closing, I just repeat, let's live in the real world. Let's deal with the facts. Facts matter. And this bill can have devastating consequences for workers, for those who have to travel by car and buy gasoline, and for those who earn their living fishing and dealing with tourism in the gulf and in New Mexico and in California. Let's not pass another ``Amnesia Act.'' Let's not ignore the spill and drill, baby, drill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1229. Need I remind the Members of this body that 1 year and 19 days ago, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and creating economic and environmental havoc. For 87 days following the explosion, more than 4 million barrels of oil spewed from the blown-out Macondo well, coating nearly 1,000 miles of gulf coastline and temporarily closing over 88 square miles of some of the Nation's most productive fishing grounds. Yet this Congress has not enacted a single legislative reform to improve the safety of offshore drilling. Instead, the majority now brings forward in the name of spurious claims a bill to encourage more domestic offshore drilling without applying the lessons learned from the gulf blowout. With the spurious claim that more domestic offshore drilling will lower gas prices, they claim that we have to grease the skids, we have to open the doors, we have to give further breaks to the oil companies. Now, sadly, it seems their motto is ``Ignore the spill. Drill, baby, drill.'' Frankly, the majority's trio of offshore drilling bills were written as though the Deepwater Horizon disaster had never occurred. That's why I refer to them as the ``amnesia acts.'' Collectively, they will make offshore drilling less safe while opening up vast new swaths of our coastlines without adding any new safety requirements or environmental safeguards on the oil and gas industry. So today we are taking up the second ``amnesia act.'' H.R. 1229 would impose artificial and arbitrary deadlines on the Department of the Interior to approve permits to drill. Specifically, this legislation would require the Department to act on a permit to drill within 30 days. After 60 days, whether or not--whether or not, let me emphasize that--the safety and environmental review has been completed by the Interior Department, the drilling application would be deemed approved. Need I remind my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, that offshore drilling in U.S. waters was determined by the spill commission, the bipartisan, independent spill commission, to be four times more deadly than in other parts of the world prior to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. It was four times more deadly to drill in the gulf by the same companies than to drill, for example, in the North Sea, hardly a comfortable environment. Now, under this bill, we could actually have less careful oversight and review of offshore drilling than we had before the Deepwater Horizon disaster. This bill is a dangerous solution in search of a really nonexistent problem. Since the implementation of new safety and environmental standards in June of last year, the Department has added staff, improved its review, and has issued 52 shallow water drilling permits. Only six more permits currently are pending. Since the oil industry demonstrated the capability to contain a deepwater blowout in mid- February, we think, the Department has issued permits for 13 new deepwater wells. There are only 12 permits in the queue for approval; yet the majority is claiming we've got to grease the skids, that we've got to remove any impediments for the oil companies, that we have to ``drill, baby, drill.'' Ironically, the enactment of H.R. 1229 could halt this progress. This bill could hamper new permits being issued or stop new permits altogether because the Department might be forced to deny permits if the safety and environmental reviews are not completed in the arbitrary 60 days. Moreover, Mr. Chairman, this legislation would issue a blanket extension of existing leases. In contrast to this across-the-board approach, the Department is working on a case-by-case basis to extend existing leases affected by the temporary suspension of new drilling, where such action is warranted, not on a blanket basis but on the basis of the actual facts, of the actual evidence. H.R. 1229 would give a free ride to companies even if their leases are many years from expiring. With regard to the comment that has been made already in this debate, that this is about prices at the gasoline pump, need I remind my colleagues--now, this was under the George Bush administration--that in 2008, the Energy Information Administration said, if all drilling over the entire east coast Continental Shelf were opened up, the effect on oil prices would be ``insignificant.'' H.R. 1229 also contains language designed to close the doors of the courthouse to citizens who believe that the Federal Government is not complying with the law. Imagine that. Citizens who are trying to be diligent citizens would not be able to make sure that the law is being applied. Citizens from Florida or Alabama would be forced to bring any lawsuits regarding energy projects in the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana or Texas courts. In addition, H.R. 1229 contains language that would prevent attorneys' fees from being awarded in successful cases--a deterrent if I've ever heard of one. These provisions are aimed at environmental plaintiffs, but will almost certainly impair the legal rights of many other potential plaintiffs, including other oil and gas companies. In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the principles guiding offshore drilling should be smart and safe. If H.R. 1229 is enacted, the guiding principles will be fast and loose. This is the wrong response to the largest oil spill in U.S. waters. We should not rush to allow drilling permits to be deemed approved without the appropriate safety and environmental checks. We should not provide blanket extensions to existing leases. We should not close the doors of the courthouse to American citizens. We should not pass this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the ranking member on the full committee, and someone who has done as much as anyone in this body to create green jobs in America over the decades.

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

Mr. HOLT. The gentleman used the term ``trifecta.'' It's a curious selection of words because, indeed, you could see the oil companies right now lining up at the ticket window to cash in their trifecta winnings if this goes forward. The oil companies are currently sitting on 60 million acres of public land onshore and offshore in which they are not producing. The oil industry is sitting on more than 11.5 billion barrels of oil, nearly as much as they could ever get from drilling up and down the east coast and the west coast. This is where they should be directing their attention, but instead, where are they directing their attention as they bring in profits that for this year looked to be something like $100 billion? They are using those profits not to provide more resources for the American people but to buy back stock. Exxon, which had about a $10 billion profit in the first quarter of this year, just the first three months, used most of its money, more than half of it, to buy back stock. So it is curious that my colleague used the phrase ``trifecta'' because, indeed, this is a bonanza, a big winning ticket for the Big Oil companies. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. We are indeed concerned about jobs. For the example that my friend from Louisiana gives about someone whose livelihood is at stake, I could produce dozens of others, maybe a shrimp fisherman. You know, my friends maybe remember the ``Forrest Gump'' movie. They've seen those pictures. In fact, my friend from Louisiana probably has been out on one of those shrimp boats. Well, they were sitting idle. They were sitting idle for weeks and weeks. The breeding grounds, the fisheries, were and still are in jeopardy. People all over the country are not buying the fish that drank of this black gold. In fact, 88,000 square miles, as I said earlier, of fisheries were polluted by this tremendous spill, and need I remind my colleagues that the coastal communities of the Gulf of Mexico, the heart of offshore drilling, that the jobs that are dependent on tourism and fishing exceed all the natural resource extraction and mining jobs by a factor of five, five times as many jobs dependent on tourism and fisheries. Yes, we should learn the lesson, rather than hurrying through these permits. We should learn the lessons of last year's oil spill and protect those jobs. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Santa Barbara, California (Mrs. Capps), who has experienced firsthand the economic cost of oil spills.