Sam Farr: “I rise on this rule, and I think it is a good rule and am going to support it, but to point out that the rule also…”

“I rise on this rule, and I think it is a good rule and am going to support it, but to point out that the rule also allows for this bill to be amended. I want to offer an amendment, an amendment that is consistent with the purpose for which this fund was created, the land and water conservation fund. The Congress back in the 1960's enacted this bill and said that we are going to allow for offshore oil drilling of Federal lands and the revenues from those Federal lands, from public lands will be put into a fund and then that fund will be used to help all the States, not just those coastal States that have offshore oil drilling but all the States for all the people of the United States. My amendment shows that we have not been doing that. In essence we have taken, that account now has about $900 million a year income, and reappropriated about $400 million out of that. Of that $400 million, $300 million goes back to the oil companies to essentially do research for multinational corporations to do research. The problem I have with that is, oil is also being drilled on State lands. It is being drilled on private lands, and there is no requirement that in those types of drilling operations that money goes back for that purpose. Then we have shortchanged the money that goes back to the Department of the Interior and to our States and from our States to our counties and to our cities.”