Energy Policy Act of 2005 - 1

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - April 20, 2005)

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Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly rise in opposition because the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) is a good member of our committee, and we work on lots of issues together.

I represent a blue collar district. We have probably more refineries in the district I represent now than anyone else in the country and those are our jobs, are our tax base and what economic development we have, and they are blue collar jobs. They are minority jobs in our district.

I am concerned, though, about what is happening in our country. We continually transfer our blue collar industrial capacity overseas. My concern is we are seeing the same thing happen whether it be with refineries or petrochemical plants just like we have seen with our textiles. It would not be very difficult to move a chemical plant to where they are still flaring natural gas or to have a refinery ship us refined product.

That is why I think the provision of the bill is really good, and I think the amendment does a disservice maybe to our whole country because we need to expand our refining capacity, again, reopening those, make them get the permits, but also make sure that we keep those jobs in our country instead of moving overseas.

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