Tom McClintock

Thank you for your leadership on the DCPs which ACWA views as a critically important western water issue.

His advice to them that day, which I believe is entirely applicable here, is that we should each doubt a little of our own infallibility.

One good year is no guarantee the 19-year drought is over, and prudence and experience both warn us of the need to be prepared.

It is a double standard, then. It is not the seismic testing, it is the purpose of the seismic testing?

Why are those permits good and the recent permits are bad?

I think our common sense tells us that any fish or mammal population is going to move away from such an annoying sound.

Yet, we do not see coincidence with the population of other whale species in the North Atlantic.

The central issue in this hearing seems to be the effect of seismic testing on the North Atlantic right whale.

If it is true, I am shocked, just shocked, that my friends on the left are not shocked.

Seismic testing is NOT synonymous with offshore oil and gas extraction, nor has it been found to be detrimental to marine mammal stocks.

It was the Obama administration's 2015 5-year oil and gas leasing program that initially proposed opening the Atlantic to offshore energy exploration.

Before we light our hair on fire, let's confront a few inconvenient truths.

So, Mr. Chairman, let's try not to screw all that up today, please.

Before we all set our hair on fire, let's confront a few inconvenient truths.

The problem with visions of impending apocalypse is that after the initial hysteria passes, life goes on and the world does not end.

Ironically, it may have been saved from outright extinction by--wait for it--fossil fuels, which made whale oil obsolete.

Your job is to revisit the Act, and I am hopeful and expect that you will do it.

I was as much a critic of acting contrary-wise to Congress by the executive in the previous administration as I am presently.

I don't favor open borders and I don't know anybody here that does either.

I don't think you can be the referee of your own game.

I am a life-long Republican. I have been a Republican longer than some of you have been alive.

It is time to drop the politics and pick up our principles.

It does not create new water. But it is something that we have to look at. And it can be expensive.

It is just a matter of where the precipitation falls and the timing of the precipitation.

The southern portion of the United States and the southern portion of the Southwest clearly are looking at hotter and drier conditions.