Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the gentleman from Texas, and he described once for me his district, Midland, and the oil and gas production there. I must stress, I actually did spend a lot of time talking to the industry when we were putting this methane emissions program together. I can speak firsthand that I spoke to the industry. The main thing they were concerned about is they did not want this program to be punitive. They said: We want to correct this problem. We don't want to waste methane, but you have to give us some sort of incentive to do this. That is what we did. Rather than have a punitive program, we have $1.5 billion to assist industry with reducing current and legacy methane emissions. Mr. Speaker, $700 million of that is specifically set aside for small producers, which I know there are a lot of those in the district of the gentleman from Texas. Unfortunately, much of that $700 million to help the small producers has been stalled by President Trump with his funding freeze. That harms the small producers who are counting on those critical funds. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. {time} 1315”