Gulf of Mexico Security Act of 2006 - Continued
GULF OF MEXICO SECURITY ACT OF 2006--Continued -- (Senate - August 01, 2006)
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Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise to strongly support S. 3711, the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, and I also rise to put its provisions in perspective and to dispel some of the myths and simple inaccuracies that, unfortunately, have been propagated in many places, including on the Senate floor.
It is important to understand what this important Energy bill does because it does do significant and important things, and it is also important to understand what this bill does not do because it does not do several things that opponents have claimed. So let's go down these two simple lists.
This Energy Security Act does many important things. It brings new sources of domestic energy to the market over the next few years. All of us should agree that is a very important and necessary component of securing our energy future--not the only component, not the only thing we must do but a very important component of what we must do.
This bill generates new revenue for the U.S. Treasury. There has been enormous misinformation about that. There have been claims that the producing States are somehow raiding the Federal Treasury. What the States are doing is producing more Federal revenue for the Federal Treasury. If that is a raid, let the raids begin, and we will soon erase the deficit.
This bill promotes parity with nearly 90 years of onshore energy production policy by recognizing the importance of reinvesting in our offshore energy-producing areas to ensure the sustainability and liability of domestic energy production and independence.
For decades and decades, producing States onshore, on Federal land, have shared 50 percent of the royalty produced on those Federal lands. This begins to achieve some parity with that by allowing coastal producing States 37.5 percent.
This provides dedicated revenue streams for the State side of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That fund makes grants available to all of our States for 50 percent of the costs of parks, soccer fields, and other recreational opportunities.
This fully complies with the budget resolution we passed last year and the reserve fund amendment I included in the Senate's budget resolution this year, and it all reduces America's dependence on volatile foreign energy sources.
Those are all very important goals. Those are all goals achieved by this bill.
Just as importantly, there are many things this bill does not do which opponents have confused in the debate.
This bill does not in any way affect offshore California, the west coast, the Northeast, or anywhere on the east coast. This bill is focused on the Gulf of Mexico and has the support of the Senators from all of those Gulf Coast States.
This bill does not change offshore policy in any area other than the Gulf of Mexico, which today provides up to 30 percent of our energy.
This bill does not raid the Federal Treasury of funds from current revenue streams. It does not increase the deficit. As I said, what this bill does is the opposite. It allows production activity which would not occur otherwise. What does that mean? That means increased Federal revenue--$1 billion toward deficit reduction--not decreased Federal revenue.
This bill does not provide funds for the expansion of Federal land acquisition programs through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
I find, quite frankly, the opposition to this bill enormously frustrating. So many of these same Members of the Senate--others in the broader debate--are some of the loudest voices about high, increasing energy prices, oil prices at the pump, natural gas prices and what that does to our competitiveness. I agree with those concerns. Those are very legitimate concerns. Yet we bring a bill to the floor of the Senate that can absolutely have a short-term impact, a positive impact, bringing prices down, and, no, they have to oppose it. That is not good. That cannot be part of the solution.
The cost of natural gas has increased 400 percent over the last several years. Natural gas is a mostly continental commodity. Its importation through LNG is possible, but that alone cannot have enough of an impact to bring down prices the way we want to see them come down. So we need to produce more domestically. This bill will do that and help bring down natural gas prices.
Gasoline prices have increased from $1.28 in 1996 to over $3.60 in some areas of the country today. Of course, these surges were exacerbated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
These huge spikes don't impact us just at the gas pump or when we pay our heating and cooling bill. They affect us everywhere--at the grocery store, when we buy clothes, at the hardware store, the airlines when we go on trips, restaurants when they pay higher energy bills, and also in the job picture. When we decry jobs moving overseas, high natural gas prices in this country are a huge factor, particularly in select industries such as our chemical industry.
Yet, again, the folks who run to the floor of the Senate to beat on these issues and try to take advantage of them politically the most are among those who are opposing this bill. It makes no sense to me, and it is enormously frustrating to me.
They also seem to be opposed to this bill because they are just opposed on virtual religious grounds on more oil and gas production.
We need to do a lot of things to secure our energy future, and certainly that involves research and new technology and new forms of energy. But as we do that--and we are doing that, and we will do more, and we must do more--as we do that, the fact is, for the next several years and several decades we will have an economy in some ways dominated by oil and gas.
So if we want to give consumers relief, if we want to secure our energy independence in the short term, we also at the same time need to attack that side of the question, and this bill does that, domestically increasing our independence.
It is just completely irresponsible for people to say we can't address that side of the equation. We must, as we must address the longer-term side of the equation, with new technology, new sources of energy, new science and engineering. Those both have to be necessary components of a solution.
I would have a little more sympathy with some of these arguments if Senators from many of these other States, not in the directly affected region in the gulf, were producing at least other forms of energy. They don't like oil? They don't like natural gas? There are other things folks in different parts of the country can do. There is nuclear. There is solar. There is windpower. The fact is, so many of the critics from these other places do not contribute to the Nation's energy needs in any of these categories.
The Department of Energy has some interesting statistics. State by State, what does a State consume in energy and what does it produce? California consumes eight times more energy than it produces. Massachusetts is the winner. It consumes 65 times more energy than it produces. Florida consumes 11 times more energy than it produces.
This is not being part of the solution. This is not sustainable. It is particularly ironic when some voices from these very same places decry a bill as we have on the floor which can be part of the solution, which can lower energy prices even in the short term and can get us to the longer term as we transition to new energy sources.
Finally, as I mentioned, there is a whole myth that many of these same opponents bring up that somehow we are raiding the Federal Treasury. If bringing in more Federal revenue is raiding the Federal Treasury, then let the raid begin. That is what this bill does. It increases Federal revenue--$1 billion more for the Federal Treasury, $1 billion more of deficit reduction. That is the plain and simple fact. Why is that? Because this bill expands production which expands revenue which, even in the new rules of revenue sharing under this bill, increases Federal revenue and decreases the deficit.
For any opponents to claim that this somehow increases the deficit and raids the Federal Treasury is simply untrue. It is factually incorrect. There is more Federal revenue, bringing down the deficit.
S. 3711 is positive. It is concrete, it is taking action now. It is a step forward. It can have an impact that can make life better for average Americans, even in the short term, and help bring down energy prices, help increase our energy independence, help produce new revenue, not just to the producing States; but also to the Federal Treasury--help reduce the Federal deficit.
This is a win-win-win-win, and I urge my colleagues to support this important energy legislation.
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