Building America's Energy Security

Floor Speech

Mr. CRAMER. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity for the next hour to bring to the attention of the House of Representatives and to the American people some very important issues pertaining to America's potential to be energy secure.

This is an interesting week that we would have this discussion. This is a week when the House Committee on Natural Resources is bringing forward two bills for consideration that will tear down some of the barriers and remove some of the regulations that have gotten in the way of tapping into the vast resources of oil and gas off our shores.

We know that there's been growth in oil and gas development in our country, but not offshore. And yet we know there are vast resources that would be very, very important to America's energy security.

At the same time, this week we also have our President, who made official his declaration of war against coal, stating, once again, that fossil fuels are the bad guy somehow. At a time when we're looking to create jobs, create wealth, create opportunity, he puts up yet more barriers to the development of these vast resources of fossil fuels.

Since coming to Congress 6 months ago, I have heard our President and his allies in this Chamber often reference the fact that since Barack Obama was elected President, America's oil and gas production have actually increased. They brag about this increased production and the jobs that it creates as though they had something to do with it.

Well, on behalf of the citizens of my State of North Dakota, let me just say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you're welcome because the fact of the matter is that, yes, production of oil and gas in this country is up. It is up, except where the Federal Government is the landlord, because the large reserves under Federal lands and offshore resources are going untapped because of Democratic opposition to using the incredible opportunity that new technologies have created to get us more jobs, more opportunity, and more energy secure.

I want to illustrate a point today by reading one sentence from a recently released State Personal Income Growth Analysis put out by the United States Department of Commerce. Here's the sentence. It's very profound:

State personal income growth ranged from a -.2 percent in South Dakota to 12.4 percent in North Dakota.

That's right. Two rectangles in the center of the North American map, two Dakotas, side by side, two States that basically have the same size and land mass, the same size in population, the same climate, same cultures, they grow vast amounts of food to feed a hungry world.

We're similar in nearly every way. And yet the Dakotas differ in one significant way, and that is my State of North Dakota has fossil fuels that South Dakota does not have.

I point to this distinction because I believe it represents the possibilities of America. It represents what can be done in much of our Nation if the Federal Government would just get out of the way and allow the unleashing of American ingenuity and the development of American energy.

Instead, what we get from our President is more restrictions on the use of fossil fuels and more fantasizing about unproven, uneconomical, unreliable alternatives. And while billions of tax dollars get wasted experimenting on whimsical dreams of a carbonless future, American job opportunities are lost and our debt rises.

Our President continues to pursue an energy policy based on an old model, an old model of resource scarcity, rather than on the new reality of resource abundance.

According to the Institute of Energy Research, underneath Federal land and offshore, that is to say, Federal oil and gas reserves, at today's prices, the United States taxpayer has $128 trillion worth of fossil fuels that we're not tapping into.

Resource abundance: abundance based on the application of new technologies is transforming our economy and has us on the path to security. And North Dakota is evidence of what can be done in our country.

But there are a lot of speakers today that have a lot to offer in this discussion and this debate, and right now I'd like to yield to my good friend from Colorado (Mr. Gardner).

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Mr. CRAMER. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and I appreciate his raising the point of the war on coal and talking about the economic benefits of coal in Pennsylvania.

I don't know if anybody noticed, but deep in that 21-page declaration of war on coal, or the climate change document, the President actually talks about another important fossil fuel that Pennsylvania is tapping into--and that's gas--in the attack on methane. So those that think perhaps natural gas will be the next great fuel to replace coal ought to think again, because as soon as they have their way shutting down every coal plant, they'll be after the gas plants as well. We truly need an all-of-the-above.

At this time I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reed).

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Mr. CRAMER. Thank you so much. Thanks for your stories. I think they illustrate so beautifully the importance of an all-of-the-above energy policy that keeps prices rolling.

You know, one of the things I thought about as you were talking about jobs and this cascading impact of this war on coal and war on fossil fuels, there is a survey every year that's taken by an area development magazine, it's called Site Selector Survey. It asks site selectors, What are the characteristics, what are the factors that you look at when making a determination of where to put a manufacturing facility or some other business?

When I was an economic development director 15 years ago, the cost of available energy was somewhere between 15th and 20th on the list. It's moved up to the top five. Our competitive advances in the global marketplace rest with our ability to keep energy costs low.

With that, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan), who has provided real leadership on some of the issues we are going to be taking up this week.

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Mr. CRAMER. I thank the gentleman for his leadership today and his leadership on this important legislation coming out of the Natural Resources Committee.

I would like to speak specifically to some more economic opportunity as illustrated from my home State of North Dakota just to get a sense of it.

North Dakota's gross domestic product increased from $34 billion in 2011 to $38.7 billion in 2012. That's a 13.4 percent increase, representing the most significant growth of any State in the country last year. Texas is second with a growth rate of 4.8 percent, where the national average during the same time was 2.5 percent.

So it can happen. It happened in my State because the vast majority of the oil and gas in North Dakota is not under Federal land. The vast majority--like over 90 percent--is under private land, where the only landowner is the guy that farms and ranches the land, the person whose sustainability demands good stewardship. We can show the way in how to do it around the country as well as offshore if you just unleash American ingenuity.

I suspect that my good friend from Kentucky (Mr. Barr) might have a thing or two to say about this week's declaration of war on coal, and so I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr).

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I appreciate the gentleman from Kentucky's speaking to the issue of coal, because like oil and gas, coal is also important to North Dakota. It's an industry that's been around for decades. In fact, we really learned about energy development in North Dakota on coal. We have a little better than 17,000 folks that are employed either directly in the coal industry or in one of the service industries that service the coal industry. It contributes about $3.5 billion to our State's economy. That's a lot in our little State.

We've been mining coal for decades. We've been mining 30 million tons a year for decades. We use that coal right in North Dakota, burning it to generate electricity at seven power plants in our State, and we generate some of the lowest priced electricity in the country. Again, getting to the issue of affordable energy, very important in terms of our competitiveness in the global marketplace.

So it's not just about the jobs, as important as those are--high-paid jobs, I might add--but it's also about the competitive edge it gives us with lower cost electricity.

But in North Dakota, under our beautiful prairies, there's an 800-year supply of coal. To wage war on it today and leave 800 years' worth of a product that provides wealth and jobs and opportunity and low-cost electricity in the ground makes no sense whatsoever.

With that, I want to yield some time to my neighbor and good friend who knows a fair bit about the energy industry himself--in fact, I have to admit the Bakken was actually discovered in the State of Montana--the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Daines).

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Mr. CRAMER. I thank the gentleman for his comments.

I especially appreciate your reference to the Keystone pipeline and to the importance of the role of electric cooperatives.

A lot of people forget that there is a Keystone pipeline. There was actually one sited and built with very little fanfare. I was at that time a member of the North Dakota Public Service Commission and carried the pipeline portfolio and sited the first 220 miles in the United States of the original Keystone pipeline. It didn't go anywhere near the Bakken, unfortunately; but it did cross 600 landowners' land--green field all the way, two scenic rivers. We put a lot of restrictions on it, but it was with very little fanfare. In fact, every landowner willingly signed the contract. There wasn't a single inch of that pipeline in North Dakota that had to be condemned to be built.

It was interesting because we have, I think, five or six pumping stations in North Dakota on the original Keystone, and the co-ops were all sort of arguing about whose territory would it be in because every pumping station was a load equivalent to a city of 10,000 people. For those who argue that it's not about the United States, the Keystone XL, that's big time for the people of North Dakota and for the people of the United States. It is about the United States. So I appreciate your raising that issue.

Another State that has a lot to lose in the war on coal and a lot to gain by more offshore drilling is Virginia. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith).

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Mr. CRAMER. Thank you so much for your insights and your experience in this very important industry of coal and all of the things that it supports and that support it.

I think that an appropriate way to sort of wrap this discussion up is to remind folks that while we are advocates for domestic energy development, American energy production that creates a competitive global advantage in all areas, we are also good stewards of the environment.

Let me just close with this. These counties in North Dakota that have seven power plants burning coal, all got A ratings from the American Lung Association. And I believe that the same God that created the beauty and splendor of the oceans and the mountains and the prairies and the topsoil, put the minerals underneath it, and we ought to use all of them for our benefit.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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