The assumption that Federal regulators from other States understand the geologic strata and energy process better than State enforcement is beyond credible.

I am very skeptical that thousands of wells and many different types of rock and soil conditions across the country can be overseen from Washington better than by State leaders who know the people and the land.

The importance of Uintah County is very simple--50 percent of all the jobs in that particular county are tied up with the extraction industry; 65 percent of all of the natural gas that is produced in Utah comes from this particular county.

Why redefining now, why BLM putting in the new regulatory environment now before EPA has finished its study?

I am second guessing whether Congress in 2005--I was not in Congress in 2005, none of us on this panel were--was considering crude oil a diesel fuel or as broad as petroleum distillates as a diesel fuel.

Sometimes when you actually establish regulation when there is no problem, the usual result is some kind of overreach in coming up with an abstract that does not fit the reality that happens to be there at the time.

There is an answer I haven't heard in a long time in Congress.

My concern is on the expanded definition of diesel. It is very clear that diesel fuel is included in the 2005 but if I drove a diesel truck, which I don't, and then poured kerosene into it, I would not consider that a diesel fuel.

I understand. Right now there has been an incredible shift on it. This has been known for several years, as I mentioned, the 2005 legislation.

As Representative Lankford correctly pointed out, it was interesting because the reports of no health impact would always come out on a Friday afternoon at about 4 p.m.

No one--I repeat, no one cares more about the water resources of Oklahoma than Oklahomans and the people who live there.

I also do not accept the assumption that local regulators cannot be trusted because they have political pressures that would discourage enforcement but Federal regulators have only pure motives and no political agenda.

The President and the Administration talk often about production and how production has increased. Can anyone identify an element that this Administration has done to increase production?

It is as if the train is moving and they ran and jumped in the engineer's position and said, hey, look, I'm at the front of the train.

So I am astounded by the fact that if we were to really become energy independent, to really go after the energy that we have, to produce that and to use it ourselves, the job creation, the tax revenue that would be the least money that we…

I would like to have unanimous consent to add to the record a letter from the Governor of Wyoming mentioning that he feels the rules are very duplicative to what they already do in Wyoming and this will create two different sets and a…

If a State doesn't abide by the guidelines, will they lose primacy in this?

Mr. President, while the Republican alternative was definitely better than the Democrat-endorsed proposal, at the end of the day, neither option presented a long term answer to the impending rise in student loan interest rates. In 2007…