Political Quotes

“In 2006 Congress passed the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, or GOMESA. This legislation for the first time allowed States to share in revenues generated from offshore drilling. GOMESA provided 37.5 percent of revenue to the Gulf States, to begin in the year 2017, but arbitrarily placed a $500 million cap on the collectively shared revenue. Conversely, the Mineral Leasing Act requires the Federal Government to allocate 50 percent of the energy revenue generated on Federal lands to interior States in which the revenue is generated without an annual cap. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is straightforward. It simply moves offshore royalty sharing more in line with the benefit onshore interior States experience by moving the GOMESA cap from $500 million to $1 billion. This would begin 10 years from now. It's almost $1 billion, just short of $1 billion. My amendment does not impact onshore producing States. If your State is receiving revenue sharing from onshore, my amendment does nothing to change that. It just moves Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama a little bit closer to parity. You can look at this graph right here, and you can see that this graph shows that interior States are receiving 50 percent with no dollar cap. Gulf States, less a percentage and with a cap. And all other States have the same percent with no cap.…”