Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself the balance of my time. The Republican slogan 2 years ago was, ``Drill here, drill now, pay less.'' Today the slogan is, ``Drill here, sell to China, pay more in the United States.'' If all these terminals get built, the Energy Department says the price is going to go up by 54 percent for American consumers. Let me tell you what Boone Pickens says. Boone Pickens said something that is very, very clear about exporting natural gas. He said: ``If we do it, we're truly going to go down as America's dumbest generation. It's bad public policy to export natural gas.'' American energy for American jobs. Oil and natural gas are not lobsters. They are not toothbrushes. They are our key to the strategic protection of our national security. This is a signal to OPEC that we mean business. We're going to drill for the natural gas. We're going to keep it here. And we're going to tell them we don't need their oil any more than we need their sand. Vote for the Markey amendment. Keep the natural gas, which we drill for off of the beaches in this country, in our country, and tell them they can keep their sand. We'll keep our natural gas right here in America. Vote ``aye'' for the Markey amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Last year, ExxonMobil made $41 billion in profits. Together, the top five oil companies made a combined $137 billion in profits. You would think that every time these large oil companies extract oil from public lands offshore in the Gulf of Mexico that they would be required to pay the American people a fee, a royalty to do so, since the lands are owned by the people of the United States. Well, you would be wrong. As a result of an oil company court challenge to a 1995 law, oil companies are not paying any royalties to the American people on leases issued between 1996 and 2000 on public lands of our country. The Republicans want to drill into the pensions of Federal workers to fund our highways. They want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, America's Serengeti, and off our beaches in California and Florida and New Jersey to fund this transportation bill. But if we are looking for revenue to fund our road projects, we should just start by ending this free ride Big Oil is getting on public land. In recent years, the amount of free oil these companies have been pumping has gone through the roof as more of these free drilling leases have gone into production. In fact, right now more than 25 percent of all oil produced offshore on Federal lands is produced royalty free, tax free. They don't have to pay any taxes whatsoever. Let me say that again. These companies get a complete windfall profit by paying no taxes for drilling off of the coastline of the United States, owned by the American people. What kind of plan can that be to make sure that we have sufficient funding in order to pay for Medicare, pay for kids going to college, pay for the research to find a cure for cancer? Of all the companies that should be kicking in their fair share of the dues to run this country, it should be the companies who made $137 billion last year and are getting away scot-free and not paying taxes for drilling off of the coastlines of our country on public lands. At this point, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. May I inquire once again as to how much time is remaining on either side?

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself a minute and three-quarters. The amendment that I'm offering would give these oil companies a strong incentive to renegotiate their leases and to pay their fair share of royalty taxes. My amendment would offer these oil companies a choice. They can choose to either continue to produce royalty tax-free in the Gulf of Mexico on public lands but not be able to receive any new leases on public lands, or they can agree to pay their fair share and be able to bid on new areas. They can't have it both ways. With oil prices at $100 a barrel, this free drilling is absolutely unacceptable. The Congressional Research Service has repeatedly found that this amendment would not be an abrogation of contract or constitute a taking. In 2010, the Congressional Research Service wrote of my amendment: To reiterate, the amendment imposes no legal compulsion. Just as in Ruckelshaus, Congress simply would be posing an election. This amendment does not require these companies to renegotiate their leases to pay their fair share; it just gives them an incentive to do so. And this amendment would not force companies to give up their leases; it would just impose a condition in issuing future leases. As CRS has stated, as a general matter, the United States has broad discretion in setting the qualifications of those with whom it contracts. These companies would be perfectly free to choose to continue producing this free windfall oil even if prices climbed well past $100 a barrel and gas prices go past $4 a gallon--they can do that. They can hang on to these windfall leases if they want. But if they do, they will not get any new leases from the American people on the public lands of our country. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. These oil giants are the most profitable companies in the history of the world. Yet the Republicans are going to give them $40 billion in tax breaks over the next 10 years. And rather than reclaiming them for our soldiers or for Medicare recipients, they say no, you can't touch that. And so I turn to them and I say: What about all of the royalty tax- free drilling they're doing? Twenty-five percent of all oil drilled for off of the coastlines of our country on public lands, no taxes. No royalties. No contribution to America. They're not paying their fair share of the dues. And the gentleman from Texas just said the more they drill, the more they pay. Absolutely not true. The more they drill, the bigger their profits. They don't have to pay a nickel in royalty taxes. They get off scot-free. Everyone else gets tipped upside down by the tax man on April 15 to pick up what they're not willing to pay. It's time for them to pay their fair share of the dues. That's what the Markey amendment says. Either start renegotiating those leases or you're not drilling any longer on the public lands of the United States of America. Vote ``aye.'' I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. So last year the oil industry made $137 billion in the United States. This year, of course, heading to $5 a gallon gasoline. They're tipping American drivers upside-down so fast that they'll probably make $200 billion. They've got to raise about another $40 billion to pay for this transportation bill. They could take away the $4 billion in tax breaks each year over 10 years, $40 billion that they give to ExxonMobil. They really don't need that money. The taxpayers shouldn't have to pay twice, once at the pump and then once as taxpayers. So they could have solved all of this just by taking away the oil tax breaks. But here's what they do: They say, one, we can drill for shale in Colorado and Wyoming. And we know that Shell Oil and the Department of Interior say that there is no commercially available technology. Two, they can drill in the Arctic refuge, but we know that there are no votes in the Senate to make it possible for that to happen. And three, their next proposal is to drill off of the beaches of California and Florida for oil--off the beaches. The Republicans are lining up themselves in these States to say I want to make the amendment to make sure we don't do that. So, none of this is going to happen in terms of the revenues that they say they're going to generate. These are phantom revenues from phantom drilling that's never going to happen. Moreover, they want to export the natural gas out of our country. Well, let me tell you what T. Boone Pickens says about this. This is what T. Boone Pickens says about exporting U.S. natural gas: If we do it, we're truly going to go down as America's dumbest generation. It's bad public policy to export natural gas. Why is that? Because natural gas in the United States is six times cheaper than in Asia, it's three times cheaper than in Europe. That's why our agriculture is doing so well, that's why manufacturing is coming back. The cost of a unit of production of any product in terms of the energy which is needed has plummeted. That's our advantage in coming out of the recession. Finally, on the Keystone pipeline, why don't we keep the oil here in the United States? The Canadians want to take the oil, build a pipeline through the United States over our environmentally sensitive areas, bring it to Port Arthur, Texas, an export zone, and then send the oil to Asia and Latin America. Where's the American part of this? What do we get out of the Keystone pipeline? Nothing. So I will have an amendment that says, if we build that pipeline--if we let the Canadians--that we keep the oil here in the United States because the oil should stay in the United States, the natural gas should stay in the United States. We shouldn't be pretending that we're going to be raising the revenues from these other places where they are just phantom revenues from phantom drilling, which is never going to happen.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Unfortunately, according to the Congressional Budget Office, these drilling measures the Republicans are bringing out on the House floor today, together, would only raise $4.3 billion over 10 years, less than one-tenth of the revenue shortfall needed to fund our highways. In reality, this bill amounts to little more than a giveaway of our public lands to Big Oil under the guise of funding our Nation's transportation projects, and most estimates are that no new revenue will be produced that is usable for this transportation bill. Across the United States, oil production is at its highest level in nearly a decade. Natural gas production has reached levels we have never seen before in the United States. Oil production on public lands offshore is higher than it was during each of the last 3 years of the Bush administration. According to industry analysts, by this summer, there will be nearly 30 percent more floating rigs operating in the Gulf of Mexico than there were prior to the BP spill. Yet the Republican bill would threaten the tourism and fishing economies of coastal States by allowing drilling off of our beaches in Florida, in California, up and down our east and west coasts, and, as well, in an area extensively used by the military where even Secretary Rumsfeld said ``drilling structures and associated development would be incompatible with military activities'' in this area. This Congress has not enacted a single safety improvement since the BP spill. The bill would allow for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, ripping out the heart of the crown jewel of our National Wildlife Refuge System. The Arctic Refuge is America's Serengeti. It is one of the natural wonders of the world, like the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, or the Great Barrier Reef, and it should be protected. If we allow drilling in the Arctic Refuge, it will set a precedent that will allow the oil and gas industry to place a bull's-eye on each of the 540 wildlife refuges across this country. And this legislation would rush to give away 125,000 acres of public land in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming to Big Oil for oil shale development. However, there is no commercially viable oil shale technology, and oil shale development could have significant impacts on water quality and quantity in the West if there were a commercially viable technology available, which Shell Oil and the Department of the Interior says does not yet exist. In fact, the Government Accountability Office has said that the impacts of oil shale development on water could be significant but are unknown. What's more, this provision has been included by the majority, despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office says that it would not raise any revenue over the next 10 years to fund our highways. So understand that. This is a provision which CBO says raises no revenue in the next 10 years, but it's just stuck in here. The oil and gas industry would like to see it, so they just tossed it in. Nothing to do with funding transportation. And the majority's drilling bills wouldn't even ensure that American natural gas stays here in America to help our consumers. Natural gas prices are six times higher in Asia than they are right here. They are more than three times higher in Europe than they are right here. Low natural gas prices have been driving the economic recovery of the United States. We have far more natural gas in our country--and it's very low-priced--then we have oil. What the Republican bill will allow to happen is for this natural gas to be exported around the world, and exporting our natural gas would eliminate our competitive edge by driving prices up by as much as 54 percent, according to the Department of Energy. Not ensuring that the natural gas stays here in the United States ensures that the majority, the Republicans, are imposing a de facto natural gas tax on American agriculture, manufacturing, chemicals, steel, plastics by allowing our gas to be exported. Here's what T. Boone Pickens says about the idea of exporting American natural gas. Here's what he says: If we do it, we're truly going to go down as America's dumbest generation. It's bad public policy to export natural gas. Our natural gas is six times cheaper than Asian; it is three times cheaper than European. What are we doing exporting it? We should keep it here for our own farmers, for our own industries, for our own consumers. That's how we begin to put ourselves on a path of energy independence. I agree with T. Boone Pickens. We should keep our natural gas here. We should not be following the Republican energy plan of drill here, sell there, and pay more. If we sell this natural gas around the world, the Department of Energy says the price is going up 57 percent here because we'll have less of it. That's how supply and demand works. The same dynamic exists in the Keystone portion of the bill, where Republicans have failed to include any assurances that even a drop of the oil or the fuels will stay in this country. When I asked the president of TransCanada, the pipeline company from Canada, whether he would be willing to commit to keeping the oil that passes through this pipeline in the United States, he said no. And why? Because the oil companies and the refineries want to export the fuels to the highest bidders around the world, leaving the American people with all of the environmental risk and little or none of the energy or economic benefit. So drill here, sell there, pay more, that's not the Republican mantra. Drill here, drill now, pay less. Now they've morphed into what the oil and gas industry want, and all of the economic indicators point to the conclusion that our consumers will be harmed by that. On the question of the totality of the economic benefits for our country, they are simultaneously proposing to kill the tax breaks for the wind industry, which is now creating 85,000 jobs in our country, in the face of the wind industry, saying that they will have to lay off 40,000 people over the next year unless the production tax break for the wind industry stays on the books. So all of this is basically upside down as an energy policy. My strongest admonition to the Members who are listening to this debate is to vote ``no'' on this Republican proposal. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. When the Democrats controlled the Congress in 2009, we passed a bill out here on the House floor that created an advanced energy technology bank that included $75 billion that the nuclear industry could have qualified for, $60 billion for the coal industry for clean coal technology. Although we also built in incentives for wind and for solar and for energy efficiency, we did it all. We gave everyone a running head start. We didn't say ``nothing'' to nuclear. No. What have the Republicans done over the last year? They passed out here on the floor a bill that zeroed out the money for loan guarantees for wind and solar, but they left in the loan guarantees for the nuclear industry. That's not an all-of-the-above strategy, and you all voted for it unanimously. No. Here's where we are. This oil-above-all strategy that you have, not all-of-the-above, this is basically at the heart of what this whole debate is all about. Last year, the oil industry in the United States made $137 billion. This year, they're going to blast right past that $137 billion. Every person watching this debate is looking at the pump right now at $3.50, $4, $4.50 that they're paying, and it's going straight up. They're going to be reporting profits of upwards of $200 billion. The Republicans continue to keep in the $4 billion-a-year for tax breaks for the oil industry. Over 10 years, that's $40 billion that would pay for the transportation bill. Subsidizing the oil industry in 2012 to drill for oil is like subsidizing fish to swim or birds to fly; you don't have to do it. The consumer is already doing it at the pump. They're being tipped upside down. So, there's an easy funding mechanism here. It's just taking away the oil company tax breaks.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. That is the only way that we can substitute the money that stays within that sector. These guys are going to cut back on the pension plans of Federal retirees in order to pay for a transportation bill when we should be keeping the funding stream within this energy sector because that's why we have cars on the road, in order to use this petroleum. The oil industry right now is having it both ways. They're getting tax breaks from the taxpayers at the same time that they're taking the other pocket of every American as consumers, and they're taking money out of that pocket as well. That's really at the heart of what this debate is all about. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining on either side.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself 1 minute. Here is the reality. The Republicans need money to build roads, so they want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma has already made clear doesn't have the votes to pass in the Senate. The same thing is true for California and Florida and off the coast of Massachusetts and New Jersey. They want to drill there as well, and it's very clear that the votes aren't there in the Senate to accomplish that goal either. As the gentleman from California just said, the likelihood of finding any revenues from oil shale is at least two decades away, so there are no revenues there. There is another bill, by the way, that's going to come out here on the floor. And in order to find the revenues, do you know where they're going to drill? They're going to drill into the pensions of FBI agents; they're going to drill into the pensions of the researchers for cancer out of the National Institutes of Health; and they're going to drill into the pensions of the Border Patrol agents, who are protecting us right now down on the Mexico border. That's where they're going to find almost all of the money for this bill--in the pensions of those people. Is that really the way we want to build the roads of our country? I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, just 2 weeks ago, President Obama stood right here in this Chamber; and he said that he was going to propose opening up 75 percent of the oil and gas resources off the coast of the United States. That's a great plan. He doesn't want to drill off the California beaches. He doesn't want to drill off Florida beaches or off the New Jersey or Massachusetts beaches. But the rest of it, he's pretty much saying he's open to. But they're not happy with it over here. The President has a real plan and a plan that can be implemented. What they are doing is they bring out proposals here that try to build real highways with fake oil revenues that are never going to materialize. So rather than working here in the real world, where the real transportation needs of our country are dealt with with real revenues that are coming in, they talk about oil shale which Shell says is at least another 10 years away. Shell Oil, that is, not some shell collector along the beaches.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself 30 additional seconds. We are talking Shell Oil who says it's 10 years away. Jim Inhofe in the Senate says the votes aren't there to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. So that's zero dollars as well. And the likelihood of them drilling off the coast of California or Florida or Massachusetts for oil is zero. So rather than going through this facade of trying to pretend that real highways can be built with fake oil revenues, we should be taking up the offer of President Obama where he says he'll open up 75 percent of all the drilling possibilities off the coastlines of our country. That is what this debate should be all about. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself 1 minute at this time. The Republicans, over the past year, have betrayed their agenda. They have pretty much voted out on the House floor to gut the budget for wind, gut the budget for solar, gut the budget for plug-in hybrid vehicles and, at the same time, kept in the money for the nuclear industry, kept in the tax breaks for the oil industry. So that is pretty much what the debate is all about. It's about the past versus the future. In our country right now, the American people want to know that we're embracing a future-oriented, technology-oriented, advanced-technology- oriented agenda for our country. That's what all the Republicans keep voting against out here, all of the new technologies that allow us to move on from this fossil-fuel era. And it would be one thing if they just didn't vote for it, but then they have the temerity to stand up and to say they believe in all of the above. No, they do not. They believe in oil above all because otherwise they would not vote to kill wind and solar out here on the House floor over the last year. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. I think it would be helpful for both sides to understand what the time situation is for the conclusion of the debate.

Mr. MARKEY. Does the gentleman intend to conclude debate with his next speaker?

Mr. MARKEY. In that case, I will yield myself the balance of my time so that I can utter the sentences that will need responding to by the chairman of the committee. Mr. Chairman, let's go back a little bit to this issue of natural gas and what this Republican bill calls for--more drilling for natural gas in our country. Okay, we can look at that. We support natural gas. We think that natural gas is the best story that's happened in our country in the last 10 years. We love natural gas. Democrats love it. It's half the pollutants of coal. It's domestically produced. We have to make sure that when we're extracting it we don't shoot chemicals down into the surface so that we pollute the water that our children drink, but we think that we can work through those issues if people of good faith are willing to work together. Otherwise, it's a fantastic story. Why is that? Because natural gas is not a world market. The world market is for oil. If it's $116 a barrel in China, it's $116 a barrel in the U.S. It's a global market. And that's what allows OPEC to hold us hostage, because they control all of that oil coming out of the Strait of Hormuz. They control all that oil so that they can basically hold the rest of the globe's economy hostage. But natural gas, not true. Here we've seen a 30 percent increase in our natural gas reserves over the last 5 years. What does that mean? Well, in China it's $16. Japan, $16 per million cubic feet of natural gas. What is it in the United States? It's $2.42. So it's six, seven times cheaper in the United States. That means it is cheaper for every manufacturer, cheaper for every retailer, cheaper for every farmer, cheaper for every consumer. What are the Democrats saying? We love natural gas; let's keep it here. Let's not be setting up terminals all across our country to export the natural gas across the planet with the Department of Energy saying, if we did that, the price of natural gas in the United States would rise 57 percent. How can that be good for consumers? Isn't that our advantage? Saudi Arabia is the Saudi Arabia of oil. We are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Why don't we use that to our advantage? Why don't we use that to inoculate ourselves against what Saudi Arabia of oil does to us by jacking the price of oil up and down? Why don't we become independent of them? Why don't we move to all natural gas vehicles? Why don't we use natural gas in the generation of electricity? Why don't we use natural gas in the production of all of our products? And why don't we use natural gas in the homes of our country, in the factories of our country, in the industries of our country at a price that's six times lower than China and Japan, three times lower than Europe? That's what we are calling for here, an energy strategy that is all- American. And if we can get to that with this debate today, I think that the American people will be the winners. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, the purported benefits of the Keystone pipeline have achieved mythic status. We have been told that this pipeline will lower gas prices, even though TransCanada says gas prices will go up. We've been told tens of thousands will be hired to build it, even though only about 5,000 or 6,000 temporary construction jobs will be created. And in a particularly egregious descent into Fairyland, we have been told that the oil coming through this pipeline would enable us to reduce our dependence on oil imported from unfriendly Middle Eastern or Latin American nations. Last month, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper even said, when you look at the Iranians threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz, I think this just illustrates how critical it is that supply for the United States be North American. But under this bill, the Republican bill, there is no guarantee that even a drop of the tar sands oil and fuels will stay here in this country. They keep saying how great it would be if we had a million barrels of oil coming into the United States from Canada. There's no guarantee in this bill, and that's because many of the refineries where the Keystone crude will be sent plan to re-export the refined fuels. This is the map of what the oil industry plans on doing with this oil. It comes right through the United States, and then it heads off to Asia, South America, over to Europe. And Valero, one of these refineries, says in its investor presentation that it plans to refine the Canadian crude at the same facility it is building in Port Arthur, Texas, an export zone, because doing so leverages its export logistics. Our amendment will say this oil coming through this pipeline from Canada stays here in the United States and doesn't head off to China. That's what the amendment is all about. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. May I inquire as to how much time is remaining on either side?