Offshore Production and Safety Act of 2011--Motion to Proceed

Press Release

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Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about the Republican bill to expand coastal drilling without environmental review, without the normal planning process, and without important safety measures. But before I do, I just have to respond to the remarks of my distinguished colleague from Alabama about our bill debated on the floor yesterday.

Only in Washington--only in Washington--could taking $21 billion from the oil companies' tax breaks, which the legislation clearly stated would go to deficit reduction, at a time that oil companies are making anywhere between $125 billion and $144 billion in profits--not revenue but profits--would that be not reducing the deficit. Only in Washington could you say taking $21 billion from the oil industry and the tax breaks they get, with record profits--and the law said very clearly that was going directly to deficit reduction--only that could be viewed a different way. And to suggest the oil companies cannot do without that $21 billion of the taxpayers' money when they are making $125 billion to $144 billion in profits is pretty outrageous.

But I know what today's legislation is about. Yesterday, the Republicans were standing up for Big Oil and today they are standing up for Big Oil again because this is not about reducing gas prices.

Haven't we learned anything from the tragic death of 11 men aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig a little over a year ago? Haven't we learned anything about the families who lost livelihoods and the gulf economy that will take decades to finally rebuild? Just over a year ago, I came to the floor to speak about this human and environmental catastrophe, a spill that many in this Chamber said was inconceivable--well, inconceivable despite the fact that a remarkably similar spill had happened a year before off of Australia's coast. Two hundred thirty miles of coastline in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida was spoiled by toxic oil, and countless families who made their living on the coast had their lives turned upside down. This chart reflects the oilspill in Australia, but this is similar to what happened in the gulf.

Despite that sobering reality, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have introduced a bill that would open new areas to coastal drilling and put millions more families at risk of losing everything. And at the same time they are calling on coastal communities, such as my home State of New Jersey, to risk everything, they have blocked efforts to address the fundamental safety concerns raised by the Deepwater Horizon blowout and the results of what the commission said. This reckless bill would allow drilling in sensitive coastal areas even though current safety and oversight laws have been deemed to be inadequate to prevent a repeat of the gulf disaster.

So I ask, have we learned nothing? My home State of New Jersey would face a risk of drilling along Virginia's coast, less than 100 miles from the Jersey shore. If the gulf spill happened in Virginia waters, many New Jersey families and much of our coastal economy would be ruined. We have magnificent pristine beaches. The dunes along the coast are breathtaking, wildlife is abundant, and tourism depends on it. It would all be in jeopardy. This is the second major driver in billions of dollars for our economy. And for what?

This photo shows what happens to wildlife when coastal drilling goes wrong. It shows a risk we cannot take. A spill similar to the one in the gulf could quickly travel to Cape May and blanket the entire Jersey shore in a sheen of toxic oil. This would not only be an environmental disaster but also an economic disaster for New Jersey. If our coast was covered in oil and our wildlife disappeared, tourists wading into the ocean would be replaced by cleanup crews in biohazard suits. That is not what I want for the people of the coastal communities of my State or any other State.

With approximately 60 percent of New Jersey's $38 billion tourism industry generated by the Jersey shore, we cannot afford to let this happen. And when we add the effect a spill would have on my State's multibillion-dollar fishing industry, the economic consequences are unimaginable. It simply does not make sense to play Russian roulette with an asset that generates thousands of jobs and tens of billions of dollars per year for drilling assets that could never generate even one-tenth of that.

My colleagues argue that we must risk our coastal economies in order to bring down the price of gas; that what we need is more production domestically. But here is the problem. As this chart shows, we now have greater production than at any time since 2005. Yet what do we see? Gas prices haven't gone down. So how does that theory play out? We have greater production domestically than ever before, but gas prices haven't gone down.

What does the Department of Energy tell us? It estimates that opening all the shores--all shores--to

drilling would reduce gas prices by--how much, Mr. President?--one, two, three cents in the year 2030. That is from the Department of Energy of the United States. Drill everywhere and a 3-cent reduction in 2030. I don't think that is about providing relief right now. Three cents per gallon in 20 years, and yet we would risk tens of billions of dollars in damage to our coastal economies?

So instead of doubling down on 19th-century fuels, we should be investing in a new 21st-century green economy that will create thousands of new jobs, billions in new wealth, and will help protect our air and water from pollution. It is time for this country to move forward and embrace the future rather than clutch at the ways of the past.

Over the last 2 days, we had two bills presenting clear choices--my bill to cut oil tax breaks and this bill to recklessly expand oil drilling. Neither bill will do anything to gasoline prices. And despite rhetoric on the other side of the aisle, neither bill is about gasoline prices.

I said it very clearly. My bill to cut oil subsidies was about lowering the deficit and doing so by cutting wasteful subsidies. It is hard enough to be paying nearly $4 a gallon for gas, but then to have the taxpayers reach into their pockets and give more money to Big Oil to have them make bigger profits is pretty outrageous. The Republican leader's bill is about enriching oil companies by granting them new areas to drill without normal safety or environmental review. My bill was designed to help taxpayers, and their bill is designed to help oil companies.

When it is all said and done, this is what we are deciding today: Are you with the working, middle-class Americans or are you with Big Oil? I think there is only one fair answer, only one answer that makes sense for American families, and only one answer for ourselves as a country looking to future generations.

If we learned nothing from the tragedy of a year ago, then that is a sad commentary. But if we have learned, yes, we can pursue drilling in certain areas, but it must be done safely or else we spend billions afterward cleaning up the mess. I don't want to clean up the oil companies' messes. I don't want to put future generations of Americans at risk in terms of the conservation of their environment. And I certainly do not want to wait for 2030, to take all of that risk, to risk all of the billions of dollars in our coastal economies for three cents.

Mr. President, let's vote no on this suggestion, and let's move forward to a green energy future that finally breaks our addiction to foreign oil and breaks our addiction to those gas prices we suffer with today.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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