Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman from California.

The transportation bill should be about increasing the number of riders on our mass transit systems to reduce our oil dependence. It should be about increasing the number of riders in HOV lanes to ease commuters' lives and to encourage people to get more energy-efficient vehicles. The transportation bill should not be used as a vehicle to force approval of the Keystone XL ``export'' pipeline, because that's what it is--it's an extra large export pipeline.

The American Petroleum Institute ads claim that the Keystone pipeline will deliver oil ``to power our country.'' Sounds great. But in fact, there is no legislative guarantee that even a single drop of this oil and fuel from the Keystone ``export'' pipeline would stay in the United States for American consumers.

When I asked, in the hearing, the president of the TransCanada pipeline company whether he would guarantee that the oil that came from Canada through the entirety of the United States would stay here in the United States, he said no, I will not give you a guarantee. So let us not hear again from the Republicans about how this is oil for America because the president of the pipeline would not give us a guarantee that he would keep the oil here in the United States. And why is that? Because the pipeline is going to Port Arthur, Texas.

Now, what's so special about Port Arthur, Texas? Well, it just happens to be that it's a tax-free zone. So they're going to bring this pipeline, without any environmental safeguards because they just want to approve it themselves, the Congress--and a congressional expert is an oxymoron, okay. There is no such thing compared to real environmental experts, real experts in this area. A congressional expert is like jumbo shrimp or Salt Lake City nightlife--I mean, there is no such thing. And yet they're saying, no, let's approve the pipeline. No environmental safeguards--we'll just move it through, we're experts. We're going to supersede the Environmental Protection Agency and send it to Port Arthur, Texas. And then, in Port Arthur, Texas, it's going to get sent, and guess where it's going to get sent? You don't have to be Dick Tracy to figure this out. It's going to be sent to China. It's going to be sent to Latin America. It's going to be sent to Europe--tax free.

By the way, if you represent Port Arthur, Texas--if you represent any part of Texas, vote ``yes'' on this resolution. I'll throw in Louisiana and Oklahoma as well. But if you come from another State, I don't know what you're thinking. I really don't know what you're thinking. You don't have a guarantee on the environment. You don't have a guarantee that the oil is going to stay here in the United States. You're going to accept the canards, the fabrications, the misrepresentations that this is oil for America, when no one will put it in the bill that the oil must stay in America.

You won't hear the president of TransCanada or ExxonMobil or Chevron saying the oil is going to stay in America--let me know when that happens. This is oil that they're going to sell in other parts of the world. And why do they want to do that? Because right now a barrel of oil in the United States is $93 a barrel, and a barrel of oil in Europe is $115 a barrel. You don't have to be a finance major to figure out that they want to sell that oil on the world market.

So all we are is just a big conduit for that dirtiest oil in the world coming out of Canada, coming right through the United States--without environmental safeguards--going to Port Arthur, Texas, tax-free zone, to send it so that ExxonMobil and the rest of these companies can make a fortune on the global market. Now, is that crazy or what?

Why are we debating this right now? And why are we listening to these people at the same time that we export? You know something else we export, ladies and gentlemen? We export our young men and women over to the Middle East in order to protect oil coming into the United States. We should not be exporting young men and women at the expense of domestic oil which we could keep in our own country. That should not be exported, not if more young men and women have to be sent overseas in order to protect the oil lines coming in from the Middle East. That's our greatest vulnerability.

So vote ``no'' on this resolution. This is the capstone of the Republican majority's commitment to the oil industry. It is something that is very consistent with everything that they have done since they took over the majority. But the truth of the matter is is that this is just a one-way trip to exotic locations in China and Morocco and Singapore for oil that is going to compromise the environment of the United States and not protect our security one whit.

I'm waiting for the first Republican to stand up and accept an amendment which would keep that oil in the United States. It just is not going to happen.

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