Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I submit for the Record the very people who are affected are from the home State of the Senator from California, the…”

“I submit for the Record the very people who are affected are from the home State of the Senator from California, the small producers, the independents who do not have the luxury of big margins. They are very much affected and very concerned about this rule and what it would do to somebody who has a contract, who says: Pull your truck up and I will sell you 1000 barrels of oil. Here is the price, $12 a barrel. And the Government says: No, we will not accept the $12 a barrel, even though they are picking it up right there. That is exactly what the MMS rule does. So every independent is affected and it is the independents who are having to lay people off in this industry because the oil prices have been so low over the last year that they have not been able to stay in business. Do you know what happens when somebody shuts down? Every family that is dependent on employment from that small producer no longer has a job, and they may live in a place where it is not easy to find another job. The big oil companies just chose to move overseas where they know what the regulatory environment is. They know it is stable. They do not want to create foreign jobs, but that is what they are forced to do because it is so hard to do business in the United States and especially when an unelected bureaucracy is able to change the taxes in the middle of a contract. That is just not the American way.”