I thank the gentleman from Georgia. Madam Speaker, when I was first elected, I declined my health care benefits because I don't believe we can fix a system we were not a part of. I declined my retirement benefits because our Social…

What bothers me is that we always want everybody else to increase their production capacity for our gain, and we don't want to take responsibility for what we could do ourselves.

Our government is working against us. Dana Dugas in St. Martinville wanted to continue to live the American Dream. He wanted to start his own small business. Mr. Dugas had all the credentials needed to secure a loan: he had run a small…

Mr. Speaker, we need to get our government back on the side of Mr. Dugas and the American people, back on the side of free enterprise, back on the side of small businesses, and back on the side of the job creators.

We shouldn't wait for that spill to occur to make the necessary legal changes.

the current $75 million liability cap remains a laughable amount.

My first priority is always the safety and economic well-being of my constituents in Coastal Louisiana.

I believe that more agencies at the Department of Interior... will ultimately create more red tape without improving human or environmental safety.

the Commission's recommendations are diametrically opposed to the Administration's own stated goals of reducing unemployment and lessening our dependence on foreign oil.

the decision to deny them their jobs and to shut down every rig in the deepwater area, every exploration rig, is one that I think is highly contentious, excessive, and hard to justify.

I certainly would like you to look in the eyes of the people who are losing their jobs down in Louisiana, who have built this industry, who have basically been drilling since 1947 off of that coast, and tell them that.

I am having trouble understanding how you all can come to the conclusion that there are these systemic failures...

Rest assured, I will continue to work with my fellow like-minded colleagues on the Natural Resources Committee to create and keep jobs in the offshore energy sector.

The risk of not making the new agency as autonomous as the Commission recommends is that the new agency, especially after there is less political attention paid over time to the risks of well blowouts, will, as in the past, place greater…

It is with great enthusiasm that I rise to encourage my colleagues to stand with the American people--the hardworking families and the small business owners across our country-- and vote for repealing the job-killing health care law. In…