Kendrick Meek: “I want the gentlewoman to do that, but I also want to point out, being on the Committee on Armed Services, some of the…”

“I want the gentlewoman to do that, but I also want to point out, being on the Committee on Armed Services, some of the other issues that are in this bill. It is very unfortunate. I am not going to be one to talk about the oil companies and special interests and the lobbyists and the K Street project and all of that, because guess what? The American people elected a Congress to protect them from greed, from doing it because we can. And we just passed, the majority did, an energy bill 7 months ago, but they are doing it on the backs of individuals of devastation, communities that are not in place to be able to come to Congress and lobby against this kind of action. This is what is happening within this bill, I say to my colleagues. We just went through a BRAC process, military base closures. If they close, that means that the government can give this land to oil companies to go in and drill. Local communities have plans for military bases to help their economy, to be able to do the things that they want to do, because it is within their community. Here is the kicker in this whole thing. There are a number of kickers. You can get kicked to death under this bill. If an oil company was to move in and contaminate or do something to harm the public, if the mayor of that city or county or parish or State were to bring a lawsuit against the oil company, and they were to lose, they would have to pay the oil companies' legal fees.…”