Bill Flores: “I thank Chairman Upton for yielding me time in his effort to bring this bill to the floor today. Mr. Chairman, I rise…”

“I thank Chairman Upton for yielding me time in his effort to bring this bill to the floor today. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2910. Thanks to the shale revolution, America is a top global producer of natural gas, and in the past several years, natural gas has become the top fuel choice for generating electricity in our Nation. My constituents in Texas have seen the dramatic benefits of the shale revolution and pay some of the lowest electricity costs in the Nation. For example, last April, the residential price for electricity was just over 11 cents per kilowatt-hour. However, the average price in Massachusetts was almost 21 cents per kilowatt-hour. America's domestic energy outlook has completely flipped from scarcity to abundance, yet why do some parts of the country, primarily in the northeast, pay twice as much for electricity? There is one clear reason: some areas lack the needed pipeline infrastructure to bring natural gas to consumers. The reason for this is that some State and Federal agencies are failing to make timely decisions on the necessary pipeline permits to deliver natural gas to consumers. We can and we should modernize our pipeline infrastructure to match our abundant natural gas resources.…”