Jim Costa: “as Sergeant Friday once said, for those of us who remember back to our youth and the old television series, he used to…”

“as Sergeant Friday once said, for those of us who remember back to our youth and the old television series, he used to say, ``Just the facts, Ma'am.'' While we are debating the importance of a 20-year study that puts about an additional set-aside of land in New Mexico for a wilderness study, it seems that we have gotten off track here. But let me for the record, as Sergeant Friday once said, just state the facts. Between 1999 and 2007, the number of drilling permits issued beginning with the Clinton administration, during the Bush administration to present day issued an increase in development of public lands on application of permits to drill increasing 361 percent. Let me repeat that. In the last 8-plus years we have increased the applications for permits to drill in public lands, both onshore and offshore, 361 percent. The Bureau of Land Management has now issued over 28,776 permits to drill on public land. Yet at that time, today, only 18,954 wells have been actually drilled. In other words, 10,000 wells have been stockpiled in terms of the permits that have not been drilled.”