Congressional Replacement of President Obama's Energy-Restricting and Job-Limiting Offshore Drilling Plan
Floor Speech
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Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, the bill we are considering today is very simple. Republicans are taking a proactive step to secure a more stable energy future for our country.
Just last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service published a report confirming what you can see on this chart, that President Obama's plan for offshore drilling offers the lowest number of lease sales in the history of our Outer Continental Shelf program.
There, on the left, my left, ``15'' is the number you see in red. Going back to 1980, when President Jimmy Carter was in office, he had 36 lease sales in his proposed 5-year plan. And you can see intervening 5-year plans since 1980 until today.
This is the fewest ever. Even this number is generous, because we're operating under the assumption that the administration will actually follow through on doing all of these 15 lease sales. This is not a sure bet, when you consider that since the President was elected, he has cancelled more lease sales than he has held.
Let me repeat that. This President, in 3 1/2 years, has cancelled more lease sales than have been held.
Now, the administration proposes a new leasing plan that offers for sale the fewest leasing sales ever and locks away 85 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf from any development.
Why would the President propose the fewest number of lease sales ever? Is it because we've solved our dependency on foreign oil? No. We import 5 million barrels a day.
Is it because we've developed all of our domestic resources so there's nothing left to develop? No. The President's plan leaves tens of billions of barrels of oil off limits and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas untapped, unused, and unavailable for the American consumer.
The President says over and over that he supports U.S. energy development, then we see that, at every opportunity, he makes the choice to prevent efficient energy development from happening.
We must do more for the American people in generating more energy for lower prices and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. This bill does exactly that.
I ask my colleagues to join me in voting for this bill. Vote for American energy and American jobs. Let's replace the President's do nothing plan with a plan that moves America forward.
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