Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I offer this amendment on my behalf, and in addition to Senator Shelby, Senators Domenici, Lott, Nickles, Breaux…”

“I offer this amendment on my behalf, and in addition to Senator Shelby, Senators Domenici, Lott, Nickles, Breaux, Murkowski, and Landrieu. This amendment will continue an existing provision that will prevent the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, MMS, from implementing an overreaching and unwise new oil royalty valuation system. This moratorium was adopted by the Senate Appropriations Committee and continues the same restrictions that have been passed by the Senate and the House and signed by the President three times previously. I add that it has been bipartisan, and the initial moratorium and its subsequent extensions have been supported by Senators on both sides of the aisle, and the same is true on the House side. This will be the fourth time that Congress will have to act to stop this action by the Minerals Management Service. I regret that, and I wish there did not have to be a first time. But this moratorium is absolutely necessary in order to stop the MMS from overriding its regulatory authority by imposing a backdoor tax on the production of oil from Federal leases. We have heard about judges legislating from the bench. This is, I think, legislating from the cubicle. This new rule violates both the language and the intent of Federal law governing the assessment and collection of Federal royalties from oil and gas drawn from Federal lands in the Outer Continental Shelf.”