Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. All you have to know about the political nature of this bill--and the next bill that we're going to be voting on that allows for drilling off of the beaches of Massachusetts and southern California and Maine and Maryland, New Jersey, without new safety safeguards being put in place--is that they kind of pick a whole bunch of States that are on the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, but they leave out one State. Now, why did they leave out that State? I wonder why they left out Florida. Why isn't Florida on the list? Why did they exclude that one State out of their systematic goal of increasing energy independence and compromising, if necessary, the beaches of all of these other States in the advancement of that goal to help Exxon Mobile and BP and Shell drill off of our coastline? Why don't they want to drill off of Miami Beach? Why don't they want to drill off of Jacksonville's beaches? Why don't they include Florida? Hmm. Ah, Gore v. Bush. Florida could decide the Presidential race. Ah. Oh, the Republican convention is in Florida this year? Oh. They don't want 1 million people coming to protest the drilling off of the beaches of Florida? Oh. That makes a lot of sense. That's a good justification for excluding Florida, but not Massachusetts, not Maine, not Maryland, not Virginia. But Florida, they're out. So all you have to know about the blatant political nature of these bills is that they're intended to embarrass President Obama, just as he has proven he is a historically successful President in increasing oil production in America. He has reduced oil dependence on overseas sources from 57 percent down to 45 percent--something George Bush never did. In fact, it spiked to 57 percent under his watch over 8 years. That's a long time to get something done on that front--and he now has 50 percent more rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. So this is really all about politics: 131 votes out here to help the oil and gas industry, no votes out here to help the wind and solar industry. And the story line continues, even up to the point where they exclude Florida. I mean, it's so nakedly obvious what is happening here in terms of the political nature of what the Republicans are doing on this subject. But please, for the sake of the country, can we get to an all- of-the-above strategy? Can we get to something that actually has you saying positively what you're going to do about the renewable energy that we have in our country that can make it possible for us to say to OPEC, totally, that we don't need your oil any more than we need your sand? Can we actually say that? Can we agree upon that, that it's a common goal and we can find a way of giving the incentives to the wind and solar industry in the same way you do, over and over again, want to give to the oil and gas industry? Please, let's work together, as a common goal, as a country, to accomplish that goal. Let's not just favor oil and gas. Let's have an agenda that includes all of the above. Because today is just another repetition of the same syndrome that has an ancestor worship at the altar of oil and gas that plagued us in the 20th century but can be alleviated, if we put together a plan to exploit all of our domestic resources, in the 21st century. The agenda of the majority is sadly lacking in that area. I urge an ``aye'' vote on this suspension vote.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. I thank him for his great work on this bill. Despite the best efforts of Republicans in Congress, our Nation has actually made significant progress over the last several years protecting the health and the well-being of Americans. Democrats have passed legislation ensuring that Wall Street plays by the rules. They can't continue to turn it into a casino where the rich clean up on the way up and the poor get cleaned out on the way down. Democrats modernized food safety laws so that Americans can feel secure in the knowledge that the food we put on the dinner table won't make our families sick. Democrats passed legislation to protect the privacy of Americans' sensitive health information. But all of these laws are still in the process of being implemented. That's what's bothering the Republicans here today and all of their supporters across the country. They cannot go fully into effect to work for the American people until those regulations are finalized. Republicans are determined to keep these vital health, safety, and consumer protections from reaching the finish line to offer protection for ordinary families. GOP used to stand for ``Grand Old Party.'' Now GOP stands for ``Gut Our Protections.'' I released a report today, called, ``Protection Rejection: GOP Abandons Consumer, Health, and Safety Measures''--across the board. It describes the safeguards that would be jeopardized under this misguided legislation. If you're a wounded veteran needing home care, it will be harder for your family to take time off work to care for you. Family members were going--finally--to be able to take up to 26 weeks of job-protected leave to care for a wounded veteran back from Iraq and Afghanistan, but the implementation of this new law will be stopped cold by this coldhearted Republican bill. The bill prevents new fuel economy standards, increasing our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, forcing families to pay more at the pump, rather than a law that backs out 4.3 million barrels of oil a day from OPEC, telling them that we don't need their oil any more than we need their sand. They're saying stop those regulations from going into effect. And as we approach the 2-year anniversary of the worst environmental disaster in the history of our country, the BP oil spill, this misguided Republican bill would stop new safety standards for the blowout preventers on drilling rigs that could prevent future spills. This makes no sense. The safety of the American people should be put above the special interests that want to stop all of these regulations. The Republicans say this is about cutting red tape, but it's really nothing more than a red herring, a desperate attempt to distract from the GOP's abject failure to spur job creation in this country. There are so many red herrings out here we might as well put an aquarium here to deal with all of them that the Republican Party is throwing out here on this bill. We must not allow this Republican regulatory freeze bill to set consumer protections back to the ice age. There's simply too much progress at stake.

Mr. MARKEY. Hundreds of regulations are going to be taken off the books right now. And over the life of this bill, thousands of regulations that would have protected the health, the safety, the consumer interests across our country will be wiped off the books. This is a wholesale destruction of the protections that ordinary people need against wealthy corporations taking advantage of them in their homes, in their neighborhoods. And so, ladies and gentlemen, there has not been a more important bill that comes out this year of this Congress onto the House floor. All of you have access to this report I'm putting out here today, ``Protection Rejection: GOP Abandons Consumer Health and Safety Measures.'' It's on my Web site. If you want to understand the full damage that's going to be done across all of these areas, from Dodd- Frank to health care, to food safety, to privacy protections for families across our country, vote ``no'' on this bill.

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself, at this point, 2 minutes, and it's just to lay out how simple this amendment is. It would ensure that the government could act to protect the public from extreme weather, including drought, flooding, and catastrophic wildfire. The Republican bill on the floor today is so broadly and badly written, who knows what could fall through the holes it blasts in America's safety net. Given the record-breaking extreme weather events our country has experienced in the last few years, it cannot risk tying the helping hands of government when it comes to dealing with droughts and floods and wildfires and extreme events. Mr. Welch was just talking about these fuel economy standards that lift our fuel economy standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by the year 2026. Well, that's a message to OPEC that we don't need their oil anymore than we need their sand. But it's also a message that we can reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we're sending up into the atmosphere in a dramatic way. And do you know who's complying with that? Do you know who said they support it? The auto industry of the United States of America. So it's not that we're doing anything that's radical. The radical activity is coming from the majority, from the Republican Party, that just has an aversion to anything that is put on the books as regulation, even if it helps America's safety, helps America's climate, helps America's foreign policy to back out imported oil. And that's really what's very troubling here today. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

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

Mr. MARKEY. Would the Chair be able to give a recapitulation of the time remaining?

Mr. MARKEY. Corn is shriveling. Pastures are dying. More than 1,000 counties in 29 States are eligible for drought disaster assistance. Increased food prices from droughts act like an extreme weather food tax on every single American. Even if the drought is not in your neighborhood, you will feel the pain at the checkout counter. Even if the heat wave has broken in your State, your cupboard may be emptier as you have to make hard choices at the grocery store. Even if the storm skips your town, the disruptions will be felt all the way to your dinner plate. Many of our Western forests are also extremely dry. Wildfire has already burned millions of acres this summer. Tens of thousand of people have had to evacuate. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed. Lives have been lost. We also know that increasing carbon pollution increases the risk of extreme weather. We all buy flood and fire insurance for our homes. This amendment is the flood and fire insurance for America from the disaster, the disaster that is this Republican legislation. On the other side of this spectrum, parts of Minnesota and Florida experienced devastating flooding in June. The rain from Tropical Storm Debby caused Florida to have its wettest June ever. All of this occurred during the hottest 12-month period for the lower 48 States since record-keeping began in 1895, and it follows 2011, when America experienced a record 14 extreme weather disasters that each caused $1 billion or more of damage. Clearly, extreme weather is a threat to the safety and the security of the American people and the economy, but this Republican bill could smother the government's ability to prepare for a response to extreme weather events. This amendment would make sure that the government's regulatory fire blanket is ready for emergencies. The risk of extreme weather is not going away. In fact, it is increasing. Mark Twain once complained that everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Well, now we are with this amendment. By pumping carbon into the air, we are changing the climate, raising the temperature, increasing the risk of extreme weather. The Republicans just don't accept science. Vote ``aye'' on the Markey amendment.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Does the gentleman have any other speakers?

Mr. MARKEY. I am prepared to give my convincing concluding presentation to the House floor.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would like to welcome everyone back to yet another episode of the GOP Wheel of Giveaway game show here. Every week on the floor of the House of Representatives, the majority picks an industry to benefit from giveaways of our public lands. One month ago, the Republican majority voted to turn over nearly all of our onshore public lands to the oil and gas industry in just a few short years. Two weeks ago, the majority voted to eviscerate proper environmental review for massive gold and silver and uranium mines on public lands to benefit the mining industry. And here we are on the House floor once again debating a Republican bill from the Natural Resources Committee intended to hand out even more industry giveaways. Well, it actually gets hard to keep track of which industry is getting the GOP giveaway each week, so let's consult our chart--the GOP Wheel of Giveaways--so that we can make sure that everyone at home can follow along to see whether it will be the oil, the gas, the mining, or the timber industries that will be the big winner in the giveaway of our public lands this week. Of course, we all know that it won't be the solar or the wind industries benefiting from the Republicans because in the Republican ``oil above all'' game, if you land on renewable energy, you lose a turn. So which industry is getting the giveaway this week? We are back on the ``even more oil'' on the House floor today, even more oil giveaways. H.R. 6082 would place drill rigs right off our beaches in southern California, off our beaches in Maine, in New Hampshire, in Massachusetts, in Rhode Island, in Connecticut, in New York, in New Jersey--just put the drills right out there, right off the Maryland coast. And by the way, there will be millions of people, of course, out on those beaches saying get those oil rigs off the beaches, off the places where people go and have a good time during the summer, where the fishing industry is. My amendment will say, and by the way, if you do find any oil and gas out there, at least let's keep the oil and gas here in the United States. Let's not run the risk of spoiling the natural resources of our country--the beaches, the fishing areas--finding natural gas and then ship it to other countries; at least let's keep it here. And the Republicans are going to oppose keeping the natural gas that they would find off these beaches in California and Maine and Massachusetts and New Jersey and send it to other countries. This is truly the ``even more oil'' Republican Party. Whatever ExxonMobile wants, whatever Shell wants, whatever BP wants, we'll do it, even if we know millions of people will just be protesting right from the very beginning--and by the way, without passing one of the reforms from the BP spill commission to make sure that the drilling occurs in a safe fashion. They still, in 2 years, have yet to bring out one single safety reform that would implement safeguards to protect against the repetition of what happened in the Gulf of Mexico. So the natural gas that's found can go overseas. It will be done in a risky fashion because they refuse to learn the lessons of BP in the Gulf of Mexico, and they've included no new safety measures. That's what ExxonMobil wants, that's what BP wants, so it's out here on the House floor to be voted upon, by the way, over the vigorous objection of this Democrat and Democrats all across the country. This Congress, the Republican majority, has reported 11 drilling bills out of the Natural Resources Committee. Those 11 bills have been combined and brought to the House floor and this is now the sixth massive passage of giveaways to Big Oil that we have considered. Two of those bills were largely similar to the legislation we are considering today to dramatically expand offshore drilling without putting any new safety measures in place. All of the previous drilling bills have suffered from the same fate. They were all far too extreme to pass the Senate and not a single one of them has been signed into law. Well, let me let everyone in on a little secret: this bill is also not becoming law. Like the bills before it, it can't pass the Senate, and the administration has already said that the President would veto this bill. But that reality hasn't stopped the Republican House from passing giveaways to the oil and gas industry over and over again. The reason they keep passing them is the same reason when you go to a movie and you see previews of coming attractions. What they're saying here is we're passing, that is, Republicans are passing, all of this legislation for the oil companies to drill off our beaches for the big oil companies. And if just somehow or other Mitt Romney becomes President and the Republicans take over the Senate, this will become the law of the Nation. So they see this as a preview of coming attractions, and they want the public to know that that will happen. They want to run this year on this premise, and I think that's great. It's a very honest way of dealing with something that will horrify people who live all along the coastlines in these States that would run the risk of having damage done to their beaches. When you include all of the bills that have been reported by all of the committees altogether, this Republican House has already cast 139 votes--139 votes--on the House floor this Congress to benefit the oil and gas industry. We are going to pass 90 hours of debate on the floor on oil and gas legislation this Congress just today. What a streak. When most people think of the great records of American history, they might think of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, or Cal Ripkin's 2,362 consecutive games, or maybe Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in a basketball game, or Ted Williams hitting .406 in 1941. But when all is said and done, the record of this Republican Congress voting to benefit Big Oil might be just as untouchable a record. With already 139 votes and nearly 90 hours of debate on these giveaways to the oil industry on the House floor, this is a once-in-a-generation performance by this Republican Congress. It may stand as a record that can never be broken by any other Congress in terms of the number of giveaways to the oil and gas industry. Whether it's voting 33 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or voting again and again for more and more drilling, under the GOP, this isn't the House of Representatives, it's the House of Repetition. President Truman dubbed the 80th Congress the ``do nothing'' Congress. Well, this is apparently the ``do the same thing over and over and over again'' Congress. The Republican majority has already cast 139 votes to aid the oil and gas industry. How many votes have they cast to benefit the wind and the solar industry? Ah, there's a good question. Well, the answer is zero-- 139 for oil and gas, zero for the wind and solar industry. Is that all you really need to know about what's going on here in Congress? Can you imagine the millennials out there listening to this debate saying zero for wind and solar? Zero for the future? Zero for making our country more of the clean energy leader of the world, of reducing greenhouse gases, of creating jobs in these industries? Zero for wind and solar? The wind tax breaks, by the way, are expiring this year. Do not expect that to come out on the House floor as a vote that the Republicans say we must extend. But tax breaks for oil companies, extra drilling privileges off our beaches for the oil and gas companies? Oh, yeah, plenty of votes for that. While we have been spending 90 hours debating legislation to help Big Oil, recently the majority wouldn't even allow a debate on the floor on an amendment to create a renewable electricity standard for our Nation because the Republican energy policy isn't ``all of the above.'' It is ``oil above all.'' And that's what we're going to be debating for the rest of the day out here on the House floor--sad to say for the future of renewable energy for our country. At this point, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I am the final speaker on our side. If the gentleman from Washington State is ready to conclude debate, so are we in the minority.

Mr. MARKEY. Then, Mr. Chairman, I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. This is a very simple debate to understand. The Republicans want to authorize drilling for oil and gas off of the coastlines of southern California, Maine and New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, and New Jersey. Those States do not want that. They long ago decided the risks were too great for their beaches and for their fishing industries. They do not want it. But it also is in the context of this Republican aversion, this Republican opposition to wind and solar and other renewables receiving the same attention as oil and natural gas does. And the important thing about wind and solar is that they would be domestically produced 100 percent. The same is true, by the way, you would think, for natural gas. Let's just say they find some off the coast of Massachusetts or off the coast of New Jersey; that would be great. But what the Republicans refuse to agree to is that that natural gas, after we've drilled off of our beaches, cannot be exported to other countries. And the reason that's important is we could use that natural gas and substitute it for the oil that we import from the Persian Gulf, but they won't agree to do that. So the one thing that definitely has to be produced here is wind and solar because it has to be domestic. Natural gas, though, you can put it in a ship and you can send it around the world. You can freeze it like liquefied natural gas. And they won't agree not to do that as part of this package of running the risk of fouling the beaches of the east coast and the west coast. There is just something fundamentally wrong with this; nothing for wind and solar, everything for the oil industry, including their discretion to then take the oil and gas that's discovered off our beaches and selling it overseas. So this is just wrong on so many levels in terms of what we should be doing to protect our own country, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. The minority has no objection to the amendment by the gentleman, and we urge support of it.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very, very simple. It ensures that the natural gas produced under the leases issued under this legislation is sold in America. We're talking about the public lands of the United States, the taxpayer-owned lands of the United States. These are the American people's lands off of Massachusetts, off of New York, off of New Jersey, off of California that are being leased under this bill. The very least we should be able to tell the American people is that they are actually going to see a benefit from any oil or gas produced from these lands. We should be able to tell Americans that we are keeping the natural gas produced on their public lands here in America to keep prices low for Americans here in the United States, and we're going to find ways of putting that natural gas into trucks, into buses, into cars so that we can stop importing oil from dangerous parts of the world. We should be able to tell Americans that we're keeping the natural gas here so that we can create more American jobs in manufacturing plastics, fertilizer, chemicals, and steel; and that we tell those countries in the Middle East we don't need your oil any more than we need your sand because we have natural gas here in America. That's all that my amendment would do, send a strong signal to the OPEC nations. Current law does not allow for the exportation of our crude oil, and it shouldn't allow for the exportation of our natural gas either. My amendment would ensure that no waivers can be granted, no permits can be issued to export natural gas produced from the public land of the United States to other countries when we're still importing oil from OPEC. How much sense does that make that we find natural gas and start to sell it to other countries, even as OPEC continues to tip us upside down and shake money out of our pockets at the pump? So I'm going to reserve the balance of my time at this point and continue my argument in a few minutes.

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The Department of Energy right now has applications from 15 companies to export 28 percent of our current natural gas consumption in the United States. Let me be very clear: exporting our natural gas will increase American energy prices. No economist or energy analyst disagrees. Why would we find natural gas here and then start selling it around the world? It would increase the price here. In fact, exporting far less than what is currently being proposed could send domestic natural gas prices skyrocketing by 54 percent. Let me just let everyone out there know right now, we are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. We are, right now, the lowest natural gas price in the world. In the United States, it's only $2.40, $2.50 in Mcf. In Japan, in Korea, in China, it's seven times higher. In Europe, it's four times higher. So if you're a manufacturer, if you're a company thinking about moving your trucking or your bus fleet to natural gas as opposed to oil and you're in these other countries, it's difficult for you to do it. It's time for the United States to figure out how to do this. We have this incredible bonanza. Now they're proposing to drill off the coastline of Massachusetts, off New York, off southern California to find more natural gas. And what are they saying? Let's export it. Well, you're going to export the cheapest natural gas in the world. Do you know what T. Boone Pickens says about this? ``If we do it, if we export natural gas, we're truly going to go down as America's dumbest generation. It's bad public policy to export natural gas.'' This is T. Boone Pickens. This is Ed Markey. This is a coalition that spans the entire spectrum of political thought, but we do agree on this one thing. Why would we take our most precious natural resource and sell it to other countries, when it gives us a massive competitive advantage? So I'm going to reserve the balance of my time to conclude debate, but this is a nonsensical policy.

Mr. MARKEY. How much time is remaining on either side, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. MARKEY. Fifteen seconds. We drill for natural gas off of our beaches, our pristine beaches and we find it, we take the risk, those States take their risk, that natural gas should stay here in America. ExxonMobil shouldn't be able to pack it up and sell it to China, sell it to South America. That natural gas should stay here in America if it's found off of our beaches. That's what the Markey amendment calls for. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, the independent blue ribbon BP Spill Commission--and this is their comprehensive compendium of what went wrong and what needs to be done in order to correct what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst environmental disaster in the history of our country--concluded that there were systemic problems that occurred in the entire industry. The Commission recommended sweeping reforms to improve the safety of offshore drilling. Yet, this Congress has still not enacted a single legislative reform and, as a result, the BP Spill Commission recently gave Congress a D, this Republican Congress, on its legislative response, and only refrained from handing out an F because it said it didn't want to insult the institution. My amendment would simply ensure that we put into the statute specific minimal safety requirements for blowout preventers, cementing, and the casing of offshore wells. My amendment would ensure that if we are going to expand drilling off of States like Massachusetts and New York and New Jersey and Maryland and California, that we put additional safety requirements on the books to ensure that a Romney administration or any other future administration cannot simply roll back the Interior Department reforms. We don't want a Louisiana mess off of the coast of Massachusetts, off of the coast of southern California. We want the safety reforms that the BP Spill Commission recommended be put in place so there is no recurrence. The Republicans are saying they want to drill off of the coast of these States that don't want the drilling. The least that they should do is build in the safety reforms. And just today, the Chemical Safety Board released its report on the disaster. The Chemical Safety Board reached many of the same conclusions as the BP Spill Commission. The government's joint investigative team and the National Academy of Engineering said that this disaster was not inevitable, that it was preventable. This majority has said they wanted to wait until all the facts were in before taking action on safety legislation. Well, the time has now come. We now have two blue ribbon reports, each reaching the same conclusions. It is long past time for the Congress to take the lessons of the BP spill and turn them into laws, so that we never have a disaster like this again. I'm afraid of what the majority is contemplating here, which is authorizing the drilling off the coasts of the East and the West in our country without building in the safety reforms. If ever there is a recipe for disaster, ruining the fishing, ruining the tourism business for these States that don't want the drilling in the first place because their economies are not based upon the same premise as the Louisiana and Texas economy, then this is that recipe. This is what we're voting on here today. I reserve the balance of my time.