On the recordJuly 30, 2010
I thank Mr. Rahall for his great leadership working with Chairman Waxman and Chairman Stupak and I on the Energy and Commerce Committee to include new safety procedures. This bill takes lessons learned and will turn them into laws. That's what we need to do. Included in this bill is a provision which is going to collect $53 billion from the oil industry, where they are drilling in American waters without paying any royalties to the American people. And in this bill we reclaim those $53 billion from the oil companies, and we will reduce the Federal deficit by $53 billion. That's in this bill. And it is going to be the dues which the oil companies should be paying to the American people for using American waters. At $80 a barrel, for the American people to be subsidizing Big Oil to drill, it would be like subsidizing a fish to swim or a bird to fly, to subsidize the oil industry to drill for oil at $80 a barrel. You just don't have to do it. So with this bill we cut the deficit and we stop Big Oil from cutting corners on safety. This is BP's spill, but it is America's ocean. That's what this bill is all about. That's what this vote is on today. Are we going to reclaim the oceans of America so that they are not polluted, so that BP and the oil companies pay the royalties that they owe to our people and not avoid them, that we reduce the Federal deficit and we make sure that we never again see a day where the American people for 100 days have to watch oil flow into our oceans?
