The Importance of Natural Gas
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Texas, the vice chairman of the Energy Subcommittee, who has just been a real leader on energy issues across the country and around the globe.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to talk about the shale revolution and what it has really meant not only for jobs and growth in America, but energy worldwide. The shale revolution and the dramatic increase in domestic oil and natural production has really been remarkable. American innovation did this. Technological advancements did this. It transformed the United States from an importer of natural gas to a major exporter.
The positive effects, the enormous effects are being felt around the globe. OPEC and the established gas suppliers like Russia, they all bet against the United States. And guess what. They have lost.
Now, as American energy exports reach world markets, they are losing their stranglehold on supply and prices. U.S. LNG exports are going to markets across Asia, North America, Europe, and, yes, to even some of our allies in the Middle East.
The rise of the U.S. as a global energy superpower means that energy markets are more open. They are more transparent and competitive than ever before. And we are creating great American jobs here. We really are. If you look at these regions where these finds have been discovered and now are being developed, people are getting good wages, good jobs. They are building out, and it makes us stronger.
President Trump didn't want to say, ``We want to be energy independent''; he wanted to say, ``America is going to be energy dominant.'' And that is what we are becoming. That is a good thing.
By the way, as we find this new natural gas and we build out more generating facilities, we are also reducing our carbon emissions. We are below the 1995 levels. I don't think there is a country on the planet that has reduced emissions more than the United States during this period, so we are making progress there, too.
The increase in LNG exports around the globe over the past 2 years will help us and is the result of continuing expansion in the U.S. LNG export capacity. Two LNG projects, Sabine Pass in Louisiana and Cove Point in Maryland, have been online since 2016. That has increased the U.S. LNG export to 3.6 billion--that is with a B--cubic feet per day.
There are four more projects scheduled to come online in the next couple of years: Elba Island LNG in Georgia and Cameron LNG in Louisiana in 2018, and Freeport LNG and Corpus Christi LNG in Texas in 2019. Once completed, U.S. LNG export capacity is expected to reach 9.6 billion cubic feet per day by the end of 2019. That is the end of next year.
Meanwhile, in my home State of Oregon, work continues on the Jordan Cove LNG export facility in Coos Bay.
As export capacity continues to increase, the United States is projected to become the third largest LNG exporter in the world by 2020, following closely behind Australia and Qatar.
As chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I have prioritized a progrowth, proconsumer, all-of-the-above, and, frankly, all-of-the- below approach to energy that includes a focus on natural gas. We have held a number of hearings.
We have looked into the overall impacts of natural gas development, the enormous number of new jobs, good family wages, middle class jobs and economic growth, the increased use of natural gas for power generation, the reduction in carbon emissions, the need for new infrastructure, and the advantages for domestic manufacturing and global competitiveness.
We have looked at all of that in the Energy and Commerce Committee, and my colleagues, many of whom you will hear from tonight, Mr. Speaker, have really led on this. My colleague from Texas (Mr. Olson) has really been a fine leader on the Energy Subcommittee.
I encouraged our Members to work across the aisle. Growing American energy and great-paying jobs should be a bipartisan effort. We need to improve the regulatory process so we can solve some of the challenges that may prevent us from reaching our full American potential.
This is our century. This is the American century, and we are seeing great progress. We cut taxes. We are growing a million jobs and have the lowest unemployment rate in decades. We have more job openings than people to fill them, and a lot of that has to do with energy.
For example, members of the Energy and Commerce Committee have introduced and the House has passed legislation that would modernize the permitting processes for interstate and cross-border natural gas pipelines and LNG export facilities. These bills all passed the House on a bipartisan basis, Republicans and Democrats getting together, getting things done. I am encouraged by the support they are receiving in the Senate, too.
While these bills have not yet been signed into law, the Trump administration is very receptive to our approach to improve coordination and permit reviews and dedicate a single Federal lead agency. Part of the swamp back here is there are so many people, so many agencies, and so many duplicative processes that have been accumulating for decades.
And if you are the innovator who wants to do something new, if you want to grow jobs in your community, your State, your region, you have got to navigate this morass of red tape and regulation and permitting. About the time you think you have got it done, some other agency shows up, and then somebody else and then somebody else, and your enormous investment languishes out there for years and years and years.
We can do better than that. You can maintain all of the important environmental law, but if we have a lead agency, we can find some efficiency.
I think the vice chairman would agree that we might be able to find efficiency in the Federal Government. I think it is possible. And I think with the lead agency, we can.
This one-agency, one-decision process is now being rolled out because of the Trump administration, with a goal to cut down permitting time to 2 years or less. I think you can probably do it faster than that, but, hey, we will take 2 years or less. That is a big win.
Our energy security is stronger today than at any point in America's history, due in large part to natural gas. Natural gas has contributed to jobs and economic development both here in America, here at home, and it is improving the efficiency of our power generation fleet. It is increasing the competitiveness of our manufacturers who use it as both a fuel and a feedstock. It is strengthening our hand diplomatically, and it is creating jobs, jobs, jobs, good-paying jobs. It is a win-win across the board.
And so I appreciate the vice chairman's leadership on this special time for us to come to the House floor and share the great progress of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the country, the bipartisan work we are doing, and the great innovative future that lies before us.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source