Ed Whitfield: “As chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, we have had a number of hearings over the last year, and we are all…”

“As chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, we have had a number of hearings over the last year, and we are all quite excited about the additional production of natural gas and oil in America. As many people know, we now are the number one producer of natural gas in the world and the number one producer of oil in the world. This has come about because of the entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector and development of these properties on private lands, primarily in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and Texas. So we are all excited about the opportunity for energy independence in America and certainly hopeful to reach a point where we are less dependent on oil and other products coming from the Middle East. I want to thank Mike Pompeo, a member from Kansas, for authoring this important legislation. Although we have become the number one producer and we have an abundance of natural gas today, we still have one key problem. To put it simply, we don't have the necessary pipeline infrastructure to move natural gas from where it is produced to where it is needed most. I would like to just illustrate how some States are being harmed. According to the Energy Information Administration, in January this year we saw several States with residential natural gas prices way above the national average.…”