Jon Kyl: “And then what happened was in the Energy bill we adopted, we thought, well, if it was a good enough idea then, even…”

“And then what happened was in the Energy bill we adopted, we thought, well, if it was a good enough idea then, even though these mandatory provisions of the act expired in 2001, it would be a good idea to continue them, but the administration at that time, observing the fact that oil prices were going up now, came to the conclusion that the extension of this royalty relief was not necessary and, in fact, issued its statement of policy on the Energy bill on June 14, 2005, saying the President believes that additional taxpayer subsidies for oil and gas exploration are unwarranted in today's price environment and urges the Senate to eliminate the Federal oil and gas subsidy and other exploration incentives contained in the bill. So when the President made his statement about whether we should extend this mandatory royalty relief, he was saying at that time--this was in June of 2005, not quite a year ago; the prices were up but not nearly where they are now--but even at that level he was saying this provision is not necessary to encourage more exploration. Is that the Senator's understanding?”