American Energy and Conservation Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I commend my colleague Senator Murkowski, who occupies certainly one of the most important positions in the country with regard to energy as the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, for her leadership on this bill and so many other bills. I am proud to be a cosponsor, with a number of other Senators, of the American Energy and Conservation Act, which will be taken up here in a few minutes.

I echo what Senator Murkowski said about this bill. It is a commonsense bill. We already have revenue sharing for onshore oil and gas production, so it only makes sense--really it is only fair, as she noted very articulately--that the States closest to the impacts of OCS drilling also receive their fair share of revenues from resource extraction off their coast.

Again, as Senator Murkowski mentioned, this is not going to open up development where States don't want it. It is just providing a fair share to the communities that bear some of the impact of development in the States that do want it, like my State. That is what this is about.

I am hoping all of my colleagues will vote favorably for this very important bill. Senator Murkowski also talked about how this bill does not open new areas. At the same time we certainly should not be shutting down areas that exist right now for responsible resource development in this country.

In addition to focusing on this bill, which I certainly hope we pass soon, we also--I just want to mention we are hearing indications that despite the fact that our country needs more energy and more jobs to grow the economy, the President might move to close the OCS development off the coast of my State to further oil and gas exploration and production before he leaves office. This would not only unilaterally harm Alaska's economy and kill thousands of good jobs, but it also fundamentally misunderstands what is going on in the country right now.

It fundamentally misunderstands the enormous opportunity of energy for America.

For 8 years we watched the Obama administration delay, disrupt, and block energy development for America, certainly for Alaska but also for the whole country. It shows an incredible lack of understanding of what a great opportunity this is. Let me give some examples: making sure that we have our own energy, that we produce our energy, that we can be energy independent, that we can create jobs. These are great jobs, by the way, for our country.

Also, something that is never really acknowledged is that in Alaska and other places in the United States we have the highest standards on the environment, the highest standards of developing our natural resources offered anyplace in the world. So when the Obama administration has been delaying projects year after year--tiny cuts-- Shell had to spend 7 years and $7 billion to get permission from the Obama administration to drill one exploration well in 100 feet of water. Eventually they just said: We give up. We are leaving. What does that do to the country? It harms our energy independence. It kills jobs.

But here is something else it does. It doesn't help the environment as some claim, as the Obama administration claims. What it does is take capital to develop energy resources from America, from Alaska, the places that have the highest standards on earth, and it shifts that capital to places like Russia or Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan or Brazil.

Remember when the President said: Yeah, we should drill off the coast of Brazil in thousands of feet of water. He was supportive of that, but he is not supportive of drilling off the coast of his own country. It moves the capital to these places that do not have high standards on the environment. So, overall, the global environment is negatively impacted by these policies. Developing energy in America is a win-win- win for everybody, including the environment.

I certainly hope my colleagues will vote in favor of this bill that we are going to vote on in a few minutes. I certainly would urge the Obama administration not to make the shortsighted decision to kill more jobs and energy production in my State by locking up the Arctic OCS before they leave.

I yield the floor.

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