Tom McClintock

These types of nonsensical regulations create man-made shortages, which in turn lead to high unemployment and increased water, energy, and food prices and unnecessary taxpayer spending.

I was proud to join Mr. Tipton on this bill.

That sound anemic to me.

The Antiquities Act was meant, in 1906, solely to protect open archeological digs from looting.

There is an enormous lead time from lease to development to production.

Is there any way for us to honor the commitments we have made to everybody in the Social Security system, and yet move that system to an actuarially sound foundation?

The gentleman from New Mexico seems to argue that that one bad actor, BP, required the imposition of the moratorium.

I believe in American energy resources, I believe in solving our energy independence through offshore/onshore deepwater GOM, deepwater Alaska, onshore on Federal lands, natural gas production, fracking, everything we can do to meet our…

There is a de facto moratorium, and it is affecting energy production, and it is definitely affecting the economies in Louisiana.

The Secretary of the Interior sat right where you are sitting a couple of weeks ago, admitted that they still don't know the cause of the catastrophic failure of the blowout preventer, which I find absolutely stunning, and a result of the…

Cut spending four percent. Now, George W. Bush takes office, and ends up increasing federal spending by a full two percent of GDP.

So, to borrow from the Clinton Administration, with obvious apologies, it is the 'spending, stupid.'

Aren't they really the same thing? Isn't the deficit is simply a future tax?

That is an extraordinarily circular form of logic, Chief Tidwell. You are closing off vast amounts of our forests, our public lands to public access.

According to the McKenzie report, 2 billion barrels of oil is off limits to exploration and production in the Rocky Mountain region alone.

So the dramatic reduction in the public's access to the public's land is actually to help them have better access to the land. Is that the logic you are offering us?

With all due respect, I have hundreds of sawmill families that are out of work today because of your policies. I would call that a distress.

The clear pattern is one of closing off our national forests to the public.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Director Abbey, my ears perked up when you mentioned--and I want to be sure I understood this correctly--that you believe there are 280 million acres of BLM land that have moderate to high potential for oil and gas…

You appear to have become an active obstacle to developing them to the sustainable prosperity of our Nation.

Again, overpopulation is an unhealthy condition for any living community, be it timber or animal populations.

We have had much more intense forest fires over the past few years in my neck of the woods specifically because of the failure of the Forest Service to provide the sound forest management practices that were employed in 1980 when we were…

Well, getting to Mr. Young's implied point then, you are no longer the Bureau of Land Management, you are the Bureau of Land Closures. Why shouldn't we rename your agency to reflect your actual work?

So the answer is yes, for every megawatt of wind or solar we put on line we also have to then have an additional megawatt of standby reliable power for those moments when the clouds pass over a solar array or the wind drops off, correct?

My question is at a time of skyrocketing electricity prices, shouldn't we be focusing on the cheapest forms of electricity rather than subsidizing the most expensive?