Restoring American Energy Dominance Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, Representative Boebert's so-called Restoring American Energy Dominance Act would have only one effect: furthering Big Oil's dominance over our public lands.

This bill, H.R. 6009, would force the Bureau of Land Management to withdraw its proposed oil and gas rule. This rule will implement reforms that Democrats enacted in our historic climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, along with other long-overdue reforms to the onshore oil and gas program. The rule will help hold Big Oil accountable for cleaning up after itself, provide a fair return for the use of taxpayer-owned resources, and end speculative leasing of our public lands.

This is important but also very basic stuff. If you make a mess, you should be responsible for cleaning it up. If a public company extracts a publicly owned resource for profit, taxpayers should get a fair return.

It makes sense to me. Those are not difficult concepts to understand.

It is for these reasons that BLM's rule has broad support across Western voters. Mr. Speaker, 92 percent of comments provided from all 50 States in response to BLM's proposed rulemaking were in favor of the rule. That is listening to the people.

What we are seeing here is out-of-touch House Republicans attempting to block this rule as a giveaway to the fossil fuel industry. It is a blatant effort by Big Oil and corporate lobbyists to game the system in their favor.

The proposed rule is common sense. The reforms have long been recommended by the Government Accountability Office and nonpartisan entities like Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Republicans call it Biden's war on American energy, but with domestic oil and gas production and profits soaring, it is hard to see how Big Oil is suffering. As I said, their pockets are not on life support at all, but our public health is.

It is past time to commit to reforms to protect taxpayers and the environment. We are talking about modest increases in royalty rates, going from 12\1/2\ percent to 16\2/3\ percent. Texas royalty rates are up to 25 percent. In the bill sponsor's home State of Colorado, they are at 20 percent.

To repeat, these rates have not impeded domestic production. Domestic oil and gas production and profits are at record highs. No one is disputing that.

As if that were not enough, these companies continue price gouging the consumer. It is obscene that these polluters, these extremely profitable corporations, are now pushing for more tax handouts. They are the last industry that needs it.

We must vote down this out-of-touch giveaway.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose H.R. 6009, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Speaker, I am so relieved to hear my colleagues from across the aisle continue to talk about national security concerns. It makes me question why they want to support isolationist values.

If we are so concerned about Russia and our adversaries, then why are we not voting on a supplemental to help Ukraine?

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There is so much to fact check and so little time. My colleagues have mentioned bonding proposals, but the BLM's bonding proposal would help ensure that oil and gas foot the bill for cleaning up their messes, not the American people. By requiring them to post adequate bond money before they drill, we can help avoid them shirking that duty later on by selling off their exhausted wells to shell companies and similar tactics.

My colleagues across the aisle have said this proposal is unnecessary; no need to post bond ahead of time. Trust Big Oil. They are good for it.

Pardon me if I am skeptical. We have been hearing so much about posting bonds over the last week or so. It is often the same story: A company or an individual will brag and brag about supposed wealth, but when it comes time to put that money up, suddenly they come up short. Sometimes they even have to file for bankruptcy.

Many oil and gas companies operate in the same way. They benefit from resources but are afraid of regulations that would set bond amounts that ensure that they actually clean up after themselves instead of skipping town. The proposed BLM rule would require fossil fuel companies to provide reasonable collateral to ensure they pay to clean up after themselves.

I have another fact check for you before I yield. We have heard Republicans say that bonding reform isn't needed to make sure the oil and gas companies clean up after their messes, supposedly because BLM has identified only 37 orphaned wells on Federal land.

Well, let's widen the land to show the truth. An unplugged well can sit idle or even abandoned for many, many years before a Federal agency seeks to enforce reclamation requirements and finally have it declared officially orphaned. That process eats up valuable staff time and resources. In that time, these unplugged wells can leak oil and gas, creating environmental and public health hazards, regardless of whether or not they have been officially deemed orphaned yet.

We are talking huge numbers here. In 2019, a nonpartisan GAO identified 2,294 unplugged wells that had not been produced in over 10 years. That is 2,294 wells specifically on BLM Federal land. The oil and gas industry should pay to plug and remediate those wells, not the American people.
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Ms. KAMLAGER-DOVE. Mr. Speaker, my Republican colleagues always want to bash California, and then they find ways to sneak into the State to visit. California is bringing it today as it relates to H.R. 6009.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can stay focused on the issue. We keep talking about foreign policy issues, and I think we should just, then, pass the supplementals to support Ukraine and our other allies rather than supporting isolationist foreign policies that actually encourage the kinds of human rights violations that my colleague keeps talking about.

I am also very grateful that my colleague mentioned helping the military. I have to say that Republicans voting for H.R. 6009 doesn't, in fact, do that. It doesn't do that at all. Republicans could actually help our military personnel if they voted to support them with housing supports and making sure that our military personnel have access to quality healthcare, especially our female military personnel. Instead, they want to vote for tax breaks for oil and gas.

Republicans have claimed that H.R. 1, their polluters over people bill, would solve all of our Nation's energy problems and that it is their number one priority for this Congress.

Lately, some of them have even started saying that Senate Democrats and Leader Schumer are letting this legislation gather dust on the other side of the Capitol. Let's just fact-check. I love doing it. It is false.

The truth is that the do-nothing Republican House hasn't even sent H.R. 1 to the Senate. Despite passing in the House a year ago, this bill has never been transmitted to the Senate and has languished in limbo with Republican leadership, gathering dust first on Speaker McCarthy's desk, then on nobody's desk, and now on Speaker Johnson's desk.

If Republicans are so proud of their energy policies for the American people, why are they burying their landmark legislation and trying to blame Democrats? Why are we here passing sections of H.R. 1 for the second time? It is because it is all show.

The do-nothing Republican House has no real solution. Instead of taking real action to invest in a cleaner and safer energy future for every American, House Republicans are just repeating the same stale, tired arguments and passing the same washed-up bills over and over again, fully knowing that these messaging bills aren't going anywhere.

The American people deserve better.

I reiterate that this Republican legislation is a messaging bill that, fortunately, is going nowhere. House Republicans should be doing the bare minimum work this week of funding the government and keeping the lights on. Instead, they are trying to win political points with people's lives and livelihoods on the line.

This legislation creates unacceptable risk, and the President should have every single tool to protect public health and the environment.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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