Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008
Floor Speech
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 26, 2007)
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Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the passion of the introducer of this amendment. I understand his arguments. I should. We have talked about them at least twice a week for the last 3 or 4 years.
I agree with a lot of his argument, but the problem is that this amendment wouldn't solve most of those problems. It really isn't directed at those problems.
In the outer continental shelf, there are vast areas of the outer continental shelf that are available for drilling for oil and for gas.
But in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, there are some very environmentally sensitive areas that have been protected by this Congress since 1983. This amendment would undo those protections. In recent years, something very important has come about, and this is the military mission line. The Defense Department, the Air Force and the military who exercise and train in areas of the Gulf of Mexico tell us that east of the military mission line it would be disastrous for their training if we allowed drilling for oil or for gas.
Congress spent a lot of time this last year on this very subject, and Mr. Peterson was part of the effort to come to a compromise. We came to a compromise finally. It wasn't easy.
Mr. Peterson didn't really like the compromise, and I give him credit for standing up for that, but he agreed to it.
Now, this amendment would undo the compromise that Congress worked so hard on last year. This amendment is not going to solve the problems that the introducer of this amendment suggests exists today, problems that we are all pretty much aware of.
But this amendment could be a disaster for environmentally sensitive areas of the Gulf of Mexico and certainly would cause the degradation of necessary military training east of the military mission line in the Gulf of Mexico.
So I think that while Mr. Peterson is very passionate, and he certainly understands the issue of natural gas, and the benefits of natural gas, I don't think that he really understands the need to protect certain areas from drilling for oil and for natural gas.
So I would hope that the Congress would once again step up to the plate on this issue, defeat this amendment, and let's get on with this good bill.
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Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate very much the gentleman yielding me the time.
This amendment is aimed at the military mission line in the Gulf of Mexico. The only place that has a larger area of Outer Continental Shelf in the moratorium. Where the military mission line runs through the Gulf of Mexico.
Mr. Moran spoke earlier of the flights that are training around Oceana in Virginia. I will speak to the training areas in the Gulf of Mexico that are used very, very effectively by the United States Air Force to train pilots in some of the newest, highest-technical aircraft that we have. That is what this amendment is about. It goes to violate the military mission line that we agreed on last year.
I don't get offended very often, but I am a little offended by this, for this reason: many of us in this Chamber voted for that bill last year, and we voted for it because it protected the military mission line in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the environmentally sensitive areas. We voted for it because it provided a permanent solution to this issue of moratorium.
Now if the Peterson amendment passes, it hasn't been very permanent. By the way, Mr. Peterson, and Mr. Abercrombie, who is one of the architects of this agreement, agreed to this, and so we agreed to it as well because we thought that having a permanent solution was a good idea. But now this amendment goes back on the agreement.
That does offend me somewhat. When I make an agreement, I keep it, and most everybody in this House Chamber, when they make an agreement, they keep it. But these two Peterson amendments violate the agreement that brought most of us to vote for this bill last year.
Just one more point: if anybody thinks that drilling another well, and there are vast areas of the Outer Continental Shelf still available for drilling for oil and for gas, if anybody thinks another oil well in The Gulf of Mexico is going to bring down the price of gasoline, drive up to your gas station. Mr. Peterson himself mentioned the fact that no matter what the supply would be, that the Wall Street traders control the price.
What are you paying for a gallon of gasoline today? A lot more than we ought to be paying. One more well, two more wells, 10 more wells aren't going to make a difference in the price of gasoline at the pump.
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