Transparency Around Energy Production

Floor Speech

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Mr. LOWENTHAL. Mr. Speaker, almost a quarter of the United States' energy-related greenhouse gas emissions are from fossil fuels that are produced from our Federal lands and waters. However, recent Government Accountability Office reports show that we don't have very good data on much of these emissions, including the methane gas that is released that is leaked, vented, and flared.

The first step on the path to reducing carbon pollution is simply to know what we are dealing with: What are the greenhouse gas emissions, and where are they coming from? That is why I am pleased to introduce a commonsense, bipartisan bill with my friends in the Climate Solutions Caucus and the congressional Safe Climate Caucus, which would simply require the Department of the Interior to calculate and publish, online, the amount of climate-damaging greenhouse gas pollution from oil, gas, and coal extracted from our Federal lands and waters.

I urge the chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources to move swiftly to hold a hearing on this bipartisan bill and provide the American people with the transparency around energy production that they deserve.

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