On the recordFebruary 18, 2011
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You remember Paul Harvey's ``The Rest of the Story''? You want to hear what's really behind this debate? In the mid-1990s, worried about how much oil we're importing from the Middle East, the government encouraged companies to go out deeper into the gulf to create American-made energy here in the United States. So for 4 years they signed lease agreements. And companies here in America, they paid millions of dollars for these leases with no knowledge of whether there was oil there or not, or gas. They spent billions of dollars to drill in depths they hadn't before--again, not knowing if they would hit anything or not. They used American companies to do it on American platforms with American workers. And guess what? It worked. They created American-made oil and natural gas, and they kept it here for us. This outraged the Democrats: How could this happen? And by the way, these companies paid billions of dollars of royalty not on the price, but on how much they bring out of the ground. It was a win-win situation--taxpayers win, our jobs win, we get American-made energy. Outraged, they took it to court. Four times the court said--they wanted the American Government to break its own contract--the court, four times, including the Supreme Court, said no. Now they've tried to extort U.S. companies in saying, you must break your contract, or we will deny you any chance to do business in the Gulf of Mexico. That's what this amendment is about.
