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Refinery Permit Process Schedule Act

Date: May 3, 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Oil and Gas


REFINERY PERMIT PROCESS SCHEDULE ACT -- (House of Representatives - May 03, 2006)

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Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, the Republican leadership has a problem. For 6 years, they have worked to give the big oil companies everything they could ever want, subsidies, environmental exemptions, loopholes and paybacks, and the results have been spectacular for the oil companies.

ExxonMobil just announced first-quarter profits of over $8 billion. They now make more in a single quarter than they used to make in an entire year. They rewarded their CEO with a retirement package totaling nearly $400 million.

Well, it is a different story for the American people. Gasoline prices have doubled. Home heating prices have soared. Natural gas prices have risen to unprecedented levels. And we are more dependent than ever on imported oil.

The Republican leadership has a problem. They want desperately to blame State and local governments, to blame environmental requirements for the cost of gasoline. That is the myth they want to create. But the facts are completely different.

Permits have been readily granted whenever refiners have applied for them. For instance, in Yuma, Arizona, permits have been issued not once but twice for the construction of a new refinery, but the oil industry refuses to actually invest and rebuild it. And recently, this project may have been dealt a death blow when the Mexican Government announced it would not supply the proposed refinery with crude oil.

To the extent there ever was a problem with permitting refineries, Energy Secretary Bodman has stated that the problem was solved in last year's energy bill.

Well, the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators delivered a letter to the House that said this legislation would have the opposite effect that is intended. It would almost surely delay the permitting process.

Mr. Speaker, we need to reject this legislation. It is based on a faulty premise, repeals a law that is said to be successful and replaces it with an approach that will delay the permitting process. And presumably, it does all this so that we can claim we have done something about gasoline prices.

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