Rob Bishop: “I am opposed to this amendment simply because the seismic activity that we are talking about has not been updated since…”

“I am opposed to this amendment simply because the seismic activity that we are talking about has not been updated since the 1980s. So the biggest problem we have in here is, if you are going to do it with the Atlantic, you are doing this in the darkness of not actually understanding or knowing what the scientific results will be, and this will eliminate that permanently. So the technology for seismic studies has improved significantly over the years and is getting better at all times, but now we have a situation where the underlying bill stopped production on these lands, and this amendment would stop any scientific study to know what we could have done or what we should do at this time. But it is a little bit more insidious than that because this amendment only stops seismic study for oil and gas development; it doesn't stop seismic study for anything else. So, if, indeed, the argument is that the seismic study hurts the animals, that Flipper is offended by these seismic studies, all this amendment does is say Flipper can be offended and harmed if you are going to put in a windmill, but Flipper can't be offended and harmed if you are going to put in an oil rig. And no one really knows, because we won't do the study, whether Flipper is going to be offended. For all we know, Flipper is out there laughing at us right now for going through this silly exercise.…”