Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1231, Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DENHAM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying legislation. The rule we have before us today allows for an open process and provides this body the opportunity to debate an issue of increasing importance to our constituents back home. The future of our energy policy in this country is at stake here today, which is why I'm proud to cosponsor this bill reversing the President's offshore drilling moratorium.

This past weekend, I visited with a number of constituents at gas stations throughout my district. Some are asking, Will we get to $5 gas prices? If you come to my district, we're already there. I visited Wawona, California, last week. Everybody likes to talk about tourism. In California, we've got a great deal of tourism. But everybody that I talked to at that pump said, We planned this trip quite a while ago. We can't afford to do it today. We wouldn't have done it had we known gas prices would have been this high. Well, gas prices are still going up. We're afraid that in Wawona, we'll see $6 gas prices. You want to affect tourism, try hitting America's pocketbook at $6 a gallon.

But it's not just tourism. If you go to one of the farms in my district, diesel gas has gone up. If you are frustrated about paying higher gas prices, wait until you pay higher grocery prices, because in California's great ag economy, the prices are going up. In fact, some crops are going to stay in the field this year just because we can't afford the gas to bring them to market.

Parents are feeling the same thing. You know, as I'm going to swim practice over the weekend, talking to parents, they are frustrated about just being able to get their kids to school every day. You think this bill won't do something for gas prices? It's common sense to know if we've got a greater supply here in our great Nation, gas prices are going to go down. We want American jobs. We want to be self-reliant.

We talk about veterans here on this floor. I am a veteran. I served my country. I don't want to be reliant on foreign oil anymore.

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Mr. DENHAM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

A lot is always talked about us utilizing 25 percent of the world's gas. And where we disagree is the number of 2 percent of the world's oil. It's not a disagreement. The fact is, we've got 65 percent of the world's reserves between our oil shale. You just have to be willing to go get it. Natural gas, we want to use natural gas. Let's utilize our own natural gas. We have some of the largest oil reserves in the world. We just have to be willing to have American jobs and reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

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