Political Quotes

“I do oppose this amendment. The legislation we're looking at today, H.R. 4480, aims to reduce bureaucracy and ensure much needed certainty to allow energy production and job creation to move forward. It will give permit applicants assurance that their permits will be processed by the government in a timely fashion and ensure that needless bureaucratic delays are not hampering energy production as they are sometimes today. The Department of the Interior is plagued with delays in permitting energy projects on Federal lands. These delays result in developers abandoning Federal lands to develop energy only on private land. This hinders the creation of thousands of American jobs. This legislation simply requires that a decision on a drilling permit be made. It does not require an approval, but simply a decision. The government must answer ``yes'' or ``no.'' It's not acceptable for the government to stall, drag its feet, or even not respond. These are decisions that State agencies are making in days, while the BLM is taking months. This amendment, however, would delete this deadline for the government to provide an answer. Under this amendment, the Federal Government could literally take forever to respond. A deadline is absolutely necessary to give energy producers the confidence they need to seek out Federal land for development rather than seeking to exclusively develop on private land.…”