the President recently had made comments that he was considering requiring all federal agencies to consider the climate change effect, including global impacts of their actions.
I appreciate that very much.
Our trade deficit last year in the United States was $539 billion.
We also are the number one natural gas producer in the world in 2010 because of recent discovery in shale fields.
We all want to reduce our trade deficit and perhaps one day have a trade surplus.
Policies that delay or prevent energy exports are detrimental to energy producing states like Kentucky, and they hurt the nation as a whole.
The last thing we need is the kind of years-long bureaucratic delays comparable to what we have seen with Keystone XL.
I would like to call this hearing to order, and today's hearing is entitled 'U.S. Energy Abundance and the Regulatory, Market, and Legal Bar...
I think that is not something that we need very much of.
But in my view, the major obstacle to energy exports from this country is the Obama Administration.
More important than the trade deficit of last year, $455 billion--$573 billion, more important than that.