Joe Barton: “Mr. Speaker, we don't get elected to come to Congress and be against things. As the chairman of the Energy Committee in…”

“Mr. Speaker, we don't get elected to come to Congress and be against things. As the chairman of the Energy Committee in the last Congress, I was honored to chair the conference committee which passed the most comprehensive energy bill to become law in the last 20 to 30 years, so it is with a heavy heart that I come to the floor today to oppose this particular energy bill. I don't oppose it out of spite and I don't oppose it because there is a different majority; I oppose it because of what is in it and what is not in it. Let's talk about what's not in it. There is nothing in it for coal to liquids. There is nothing in it for the domestic oil and gas industry. There is very little in it for the nuclear industry. So for all of the conventional energy sources that fuel this great Nation, this is basically a no-energy bill. We are not a have-not Nation in terms of energy. We have the ability, if we wish to, to be close to self-sufficient in energy production for our own consumption in this Nation. Hypothetically, this bill may do something to reduce the amount of oil that we import, but only hypothetically. We use about 12 million barrels of oil per day that is converted to gasoline, and my guess is, in the year 2020, we are going to use more than 12 million barrels of oil a day to convert to gasoline and diesel fuel.”