On the recordFebruary 11, 2015
I want to thank my soon-to- be-friend from New Jersey for bringing up the oil spill issue. In my home State of Louisiana, we actually have hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil that are unaccounted for as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We have tens of miles of shoreline that remain oiled as a result of an oil spill that happened over 4 years ago, and this administration is doing absolutely nothing to hold the responsible parties accountable for removing that oil. To hide behind some of these issues, such as the threat of oil spills, is absolutely absurd when at the same time they are not doing anything to protect the environment and hold responsible parties accountable. Secondly, there is nothing that this pipeline project is going to do to further threaten the environment. In fact, it is going to make it worse if we don't build it because the oil will be transported by barge, by rail, and other less safe means of transportation. We saw recently where the EPA released a letter contrary to what the State Department's EIS found, stating that this was going to cause a greater impact to climate change. Whatever the reality is, this pipeline does nothing to address consumption of oil. It does nothing to increase consumption. It is an absurd approach. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
