Protecting and Securing Florida's Coastline Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Chair, I respect the bill's author, and I understand that he is faithfully representing the opinions of the majority of his district in seeking to permanently place our offshore petroleum reserves off the coast of his State off-limits to exploration and development.

All of our Nation's coastlines are beautiful, and they all support all sorts of tourism, commercial activities, and military activities important to their local communities and our Nation. For more than a century, offshore energy development has shown itself to be entirely compatible with these uses. To suggest that it is in some places but not in others is manifestly silly and wrong.

For 22 years in the California Legislature, I represented California's Channel Islands, including the Santa Barbara Channel, which, by the way, is the home of the Pacific missile test range.

Yes, in 1969, an outdated drilling technology produced the third- largest oil spill ever recorded, devastating tourism and fishing that year. I fully understand the fears of the supporters of this bill. But a little perspective is needed.

The economic losses caused by the spill were fully compensated, and the environmental damage was quickly healed. I might add that the second-largest oil spill in history was the wreck of the oil tanker Exxon Valdez, which is the alternative to offshore production.

For more than 50 years, offshore production in the Channel Islands has been an immense positive for the region and is entirely compatible with military operations there. It has supported thousands of jobs; it has pumped a fortune into the local economy; and it has generated enormous revenues for local, State, and Federal coffers.

By the way, if you ask any sports fisherman in the region where the best fishing is, he will tell you that it is by the rigs.

I am not here today to argue for what is right for local communities in other States and other regions. I understand that offshore production suffers from what Bastiat called the paradox of the seen and unseen. We see the danger of a blowout like Santa Barbara in 1969 or the Deepwater Horizon in 2010. But what we don't see are the enormous economic benefits generated day in and day out by American energy production or the critical role it plays in our Nation's prosperity.

This is where the national interest must be put ahead of parochial ``not in my backyard'' protests. Procedures have been long established to ensure that offshore production can occur alongside commercial fishing, recreation, and, yes, military testing and training. They have proven themselves to be entirely compatible during many decades of practical experience.

Indeed, one of the many ironies of this NIMBY movement is that commercial fishing and military operations are highly dependent on precisely the abundant and affordable petroleum produced by offshore drilling, so too, by the way, is the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Offshore production is the main funding source for this program, and another shortsighted irony is that the same markup that produced this bill to shut down offshore production off the Florida coast also permanently reauthorized the very fund that depends on offshore production for its very existence.

If the Congress were to enact a permanent moratorium on production for one part of our coastline, it begs the question: Why are some people more equal than others?

Madam Chair, we are all advocates for our local districts, and the bill's author is an able and respected advocate for his. But our collective responsibility as Congress is not to local interests but to the national interest, and it is in the national interest that our Nation is energy independent, prosperous, and strong. This bill undermines these vital national objectives.

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