North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I rise today to offer a commonsense amendment to H.R. 8. The Gosar-Bridenstine-Yoho amendment ensures timely review for legal challenges of energy projects and limits attorneys' fees for such challenges in order to discourage frivolous lawsuits and foster American energy production.
This amendment will streamline the process and encourage production of natural gas, hydropower, clean coal, geothermal, solar, oil, biomass, and all other sources of energy that are produced on Federal lands.
Specifically, this amendment requires that U.S. district courts hear and determine covered civil action challenges as expeditiously as practical and that all covered actions be filed within 90 days of the final Federal agency action.
This amendment is a responsible, commonsense step that a government accountable to the people should take to show proper stewardship of the public's dollar, time, and resources. If you support transparency and cutting red tape that is holding up energy development, then you should support this amendment.
Just this week, the House passed legislation unanimously in the form of H.R. 3279, the Open Book on Equal Access to Justice Act. This bipartisan bill tracks how much money is paid out under the Equal Access to Justice Act, EAJA, and from which agencies. This legislation was necessary because, while Congress used to track such information, these practices were stopped in 1995.
The Gosar-Bridenstine-Yoho amendment improves on this excellent bipartisan work by limiting attorney fees and frivolous lawsuits against covered energy products, including renewables.
While no one knows the exact cost of EAJA payouts, as they have occurred untracked and in the dark for 20 years, the Government Accountability Office last reported in 2009 that special interest Washington, D.C., lawyers were billing the Federal Government at exorbitant rates, as high as $750 an hour.
It seems only appropriate that H.R. 3279 should be signed into law, those reporting requirements should kick in, and our amendment should be adopted before the Federal Government squanders more taxpayer money paying out D.C. trial attorneys who specialize in holding up American energy production.
House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop supports our commonsense amendment.
Our amendment is endorsed by the Americans for Limited Government; the American Petroleum Institute; Anglers United, Inc.; Arizona Builders Alliance; the Arizona Farm Bureau; Arizona Liberty; Arizona Pork Council; AZ BASS Nation; the Bass Federation; Concerned Citizens for America; Gavel Resources; Grand Canyon State Electric Cooperative Association; the Rural Public Lands County Council; Shake, Rattle and Troll Radio; Sulfur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative; the Yuma County Chamber of Commerce; and countless citizens around the country who are tired of red tape and bureaucracy holding up American energy production.
I thank the chair and ranking member for their tireless efforts on the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act, and I strongly support H.R. 8.
I urge my colleagues to support the Gosar-Bridenstine-Yoho amendment.
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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, this amendment is simple. Either you are with American energy producers, or you are with overpaid, high-priced Washington, D.C., attorneys and extremist special interest groups that are holding up American energy production.
This amendment still allows the public to seek assistance in Federal court and actually encourages that an up-or-down review of their legal challenges occur in a more timely manner.
This amendment does not affect NEPA or environmental requirements whatsoever. All American energy producers will still have to go through the full environmental review and permitting process. As I mentioned earlier with regard to previous amendments, that process takes an average of 1,709 days to complete, and it allows public input from all Americans.
Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, as I stated earlier, the amendment encourages an all-of-the-above energy strategy and has specific language that ensures the amendment applies to solar, natural gas, hydropower, clean coal, geothermal, oil, biomass, and any other source of energy that is produced on Federal lands. It actually embraces and supports those folks out there in America; so I ask all of our folks to vote for the Gosar-Bridenstine-Yoho amendment.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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