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Mr. President, soon we will have a chance to vote on the American Energy and Conservation Act, a bill that has been championed by our colleague from Louisiana--actually, both of them, Senators Cassidy and Vitter--and they have done a terrific job of getting us to this point where we are voting on this important piece of legislation.
This bill is about as straightforward as it can get. It incentivizes American energy production through revenue sharing agreements with the Federal Government. This is important because States like mine-- especially along the gulf coast--spend an awful lot of money investing in infrastructure to support an industry that benefits not just our States, not just the region, but the entire country. It is time to balance these costs with reasonable revenue sharing agreements such as we have struck in the past. Given that these States produce a big portion of the oil and gas our entire Nation needs to keep the lights on, it is only right that these States should benefit from some modest revenue sharing. This legislation would make sure that is possible. So I hope our colleagues will support it when we vote on it shortly.
Energy Policy
This legislation is a good example of the kind of energy policy that a new Congress can put forward next year and actually have the prospect of being signed into law under a new administration, under a new President.
One of the things I think I have observed about the Obama administration is that while the President claims to be ``all of the above'' in terms of his outlook on energy, he really isn't. He is into picking winners and losers. One of the reasons many people in coal- producing regions in our country felt betrayed by his policies and by the President was reflected in the outcome of the vote. In West Virginia, for example, I think Mrs. Clinton got 27 percent of the vote in a State that previously had been predominantly a Democratic State.
That is because many people felt as though their very livelihood had been taken from them as a result of the regulatory overreach and, frankly, what they call--and I think appropriately so--the War on Coal.
But, as I said, ``all of the above'' is actually the right policy; it is just that I don't think President Obama ever really meant it.
A lot of folks try to paint with broad strokes about energy: Either you are on the side of the environment, climate change, or you are on the side of innovation and new technologies, or you are on the side of traditional oil and gas development.
I would dare say--and this may come as a surprise to some of my colleagues--that Texas actually produces more clean energy from wind than any other State in the Nation. I know we are known as an oil and gas State, and that is true, but we really do embrace an ``all of the above'' strategy. As a result, I think it has really helped our economy stay ahead of the national economy, even during tough economic times for the country. So we can have literally an ``all of the above'' policy, including one that works well for the environment. As a matter of fact, because of fracking and horizontal drilling and the ability to produce more natural gas in the United States, we have actually seen emissions into the environment come down dramatically because more people are opting for natural gas rather than other fuel sources. So this is, frankly, a win/win proposition.
We know that, as I said, Texas is known as leading the way in oil and gas production, and this fact was underlined and emphasized just this last week when the U.S. Geological Survey announced that one shale formation in the Permian Basin near Midland-Odessa contained the largest estimate of continuous oil that they have ever surveyed in our country. This should give us a little bit of humility when it comes to making long-term predictions. I don't know whether it was 10, maybe 15 years ago, there was some discussion about something called peak oil.
In other words, the argument was that we had basically discovered all of the oil and gas there was to discover and there wasn't any more out there. This just shows how time and time again people underestimate the initiative and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs and the people who work hard, including our scientists, to create new technologies to help us move forward. That is why I am optimistic about our country as long as we don't stand in the way of those innovators and those entrepreneurs.
In Texas we have learned that the best policies sometimes are just to get the government out of the way, off our back, out of our way, with its hand out of our pocket, and frankly, let the experts do their jobs with limited bureaucratic influence. That is something the whole country can benefit from, and I am hopeful that during this new administration under President-Elect Trump, working with Republican majorities in both Houses, we can begin to untangle the stranglehold the regulatory state has imposed on so much of our economy, whether it is in the banking industry--I see the chairman of the Banking Committee here, and he knows this hot topic well. The regulations put on our small businesses, on our energy producers--all of this has stunted the sort of normal economic rebound we would see following a recession like we had in 2008.
I am looking forward to getting a lot done to help free up our Nation's economy and in particular by promoting our Nation's energy resources. We used to think of natural resources as a tremendous benefit and a comparative advantage one nation has over another, but I have to tell my colleagues that we have squandered those natural advantages we have had in this country by not unleashing this sleeping giant of American energy.
It is not just important to our economy, it is important to our national security and the world order. As we all know, in Europe and elsewhere, people like Vladimir Putin use energy as a weapon. When people have a sole source of energy and it is from Russia and he can turn it off and on at his whim, that creates a lot of problems for them and, frankly, keeps them from asserting themselves in the world order.
But by providing export capacity like we did with lifting the export ban on oil in December and, hopefully, doing the same thing with liquefied natural gas--something we have an abundance of, cheap, liquefied natural gas--we can provide an alternative energy supply to countries in Europe and around the world.
So we need to seize this opportunity to reform the regulatory process. We need to address the renewable fuel standard, which is not working for anybody, and we need to build on the energy renaissance occurring in States such as North Dakota and Texas and States that take a pro-growth, pro-energy outlook.
I am proud of the energy-friendly environment in my State. The Texas example proves that we can take advantage of the natural resources that God blessed us with to help consumers, to help seniors, to help people on fixed incomes, and we can do this without damaging the environment.
We can actually do it and improve the environment, as we have seen in the case of natural gas production and use taking the place of other forms of energy production, and a reduction in emissions occurring consistently as well.
So it is time we take this know-how to the rest of the country.
I want to make it clear that making our energy sector stronger is so essential because it benefits everyone. No. 1, it creates jobs. It creates benefits for families who are provided for by those jobs. It helps daily commuters out on the road with affordable energy. It also helps small businesses do what they can do to keep the lights on, not to mention the jobs, as I said a moment ago, created by a healthy energy industry.
With the election that occurred on November 8, with the Republicans in the majority in both Houses and now with President-Elect Trump coming into the White House, we can make real strides in energy innovation and production. It is really a historic opportunity, if we think about it. I look forward in the future to discussing even more ideas about how we can capitalize on our Nation's energy resources for everyone's benefit.
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