Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Relating to ``Protection of Marine Archaeological Resources''

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, we are just 2 months into this Congress, yet we have already seen one favor after another to Big Oil from our friends across the aisle.

Republicans just can't get enough, and so we are back here once again giving another favor to Big Oil. One gets the feeling that the majority is just warming up and that this is going to be a recurring theme in this Congress.

Meanwhile, we are 1 week away from a government shutdown. We are on the heels of what we know is a Republican plan to gut Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Today, are my colleagues across the aisle talking about any of those things? No.

Republican Members have brought us here to talk about repealing a minor rule that simply protects marine archeological resources. If that sounds ridiculous to my colleagues, that is because it is.

This bill targets a rule from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is the agency that regulates offshore energy development in Federal waters. The rule says that underwater surveys, which these companies already conduct before they drill, simply have to meet some basic, consistent standards. Wow, the heavy hand of government.

Republicans have argued that this is simply too burdensome for their friends in Big Oil. Yet, the rule doesn't even require companies to conduct any new surveys. Companies already do these surveys.

The rule simply states that future surveys need to adhere to minimum standards to be used for archeological reports. No matter how my colleagues slice it, this rule will not cause a substantial financial burden to operators. It just ensures that the data that companies collect can be used to look for things like shipwrecks and other historically important objects.

Mr. Speaker, the chairman said in his opening remarks that he doesn't like the fact that they need to look for these things in areas where they are not known to exist.

That is kind of the whole point. If you are not going to look for them while already there doing a survey, we may never know that things actually exist in some areas. Without these surveys, operators might not discover these archeological resources until they go to drill.

Here is what happens when they find out at that point: It forces costly delays for their friends in the oil industry because, regardless of whether this survey work is completed beforehand, companies still have to comply with laws that protect shipwrecks and mitigate impacts to sites that were once above water and home to indigenous peoples.

The rule actually promotes efficiency, something Republicans say that the majority cares a lot about. It prevents delays and extra costs for good actors who report unexpected finds, as they are required to do under the law. It keeps bad actors from just quietly working and hoping that no one notices, something that is much easier to get away with if you are not required to do those studies in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, why do Republicans want to roll this rule back? Well, for one, my guess is that Republicans saw that it was a Biden regulation on offshore oil and gas. If Biden did it, it must be bad.

My colleagues want to pick a fight with anything that Republicans perceive to be a threat to Big Oil, even a minor rule that actually helps the industry avoid unexpected costs.

The second very likely reason that we are here is that my Republican colleagues are looking for ways to kill time. The majority needs some pretext to chew up some floor time here in Congress to distract the public.

This resolution does that, and it allows Republicans to keep working behind the scenes on their plan to find tax giveaways for their billionaire friends and working behind the scenes on their plan that we know is coming to cut Medicaid and SNAP deeply, hurting working families all over this country. My Republican colleagues have voted on the framework for that last week and are still squabbling with the Senate over the details and what comes next.

Clearly, we are not doing work this week to fund the government or to stop Trump's new tax on energy, which he calls a tariff, standing up to self-dealing billionaires who are taking a sledgehammer to our Federal Government, or dealing with their illegal firing of workers and constituents of many of us and causing complete chaos across the country.

Instead of holding this administration accountable for all of that, House Republicans are urgently tinkering, trying to create the appearance that my colleagues across the aisle are busy doing something here in Congress on a minor rule that simply requires scientific standards for underwater surveys.

Republican Members don't want people to remember that the majority voted just last week to set in motion devastating cuts to Medicaid and SNAP or that, a few days ago, Elon Musk said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Yet, the other night, my Republican friends stood and applauded for him like he was Elvis Presley.

The majority also doesn't want people to remember that the Trump administration has announced plans to cut staffing in half at the Social Security Administration, guaranteeing that services for seniors will suffer, or that the Trump Secretary of Agriculture just went on television and told Americans who are struggling with food prices to get a chicken.

That is why House Republicans want to talk about something else. That is why we are here to debate and vote on this rule.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues across the aisle are arguing that the rule is duplicative and that the offshore drilling industry is already doing these surveys.

Mr. Speaker, that is kind of the point. The fact that these surveys are already being done is exactly why this rule is so simple and not burdensome. The rule does not require any new or standalone surveys for the vast majority of leases. It simply makes sure that these surveys are done right, these surveys that are already being performed, so that we can protect archeological sites by identifying them before the work starts.

This is common sense. It is a tweak that will provide important protection for offshore archeological resources, bring the agency into compliance with the law, and actually promote efficiency.

Elfreth).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, let's talk about this claim of a double standard and of hypocrisy. Oh, the poor fossil fuel industry is being singled out. Poor Big Oil with its record profits and its record exports and its executive bonuses and its collusion with OPEC to gouge American consumers, they are just such a victim in the telling of my friends across this aisle.

I hate to intrude on that narrative with a little bit of truth, but the fact is, the offshore wind industry already does this stuff. They have to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act.

The reason that the fossil fuel industry is the subject of this regulation is to bring them into compliance. I guess it reflects the radical proposition that the Big Oil oligarchs, your pals in the industry, should play by the same rules as everyone else. That is not socialism or wokeness or anything else. It should just be common sense and fairness.

Mr. Speaker, I will talk about the real human cost of our Republican friends' allergy, opposition, reflexive opposition, to any type of regulation and what this CRA would mean for working men and women on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Marine archaeological surveys are not just a nice idea. They actually are safeguards that protect workers from hidden dangers lurking beneath the waves. These surveys can detect unexploded ordnance, UXOs, which are military ammunition, that has never detonated.

There is actually a lot of that out there. From World War II into the 1970s, the Federal Government dumped massive amounts of UXOs into the ocean, including depth charges, torpedoes, munitions, mustard gas, and even chemical weapons, all in designated explosive dumping areas. If that wasn't bad enough, these same waters were used to dispose of radioactive waste.

The old technology used to map these areas was crude at best, leaving countless unexploded devices scattered beyond known dumping areas, but modern marine archaeological surveys can identify these things and save lives before disaster strikes.

Rather than protect workers from these deadly hazards, Republicans want to repeal this commonsense rule, rolling the dice with human life in the name of corporate profits. They wrap it all up in a phony pitch about prices like they are standing up for the little guy while they look the other way when their oil oligarch pals collude with OPEC to gouge American consumers.

Well, what about the working-class men and women who power our offshore energy industry? What about their safety? Are they just collateral damage for the latest favor to Big Oil? Let's be clear. This resolution isn't about helping the common worker, it is about Republicans making good on their promise to deliver for Big Oil billionaires destroying our planet.

My Republican colleagues decided that the best use of our time today is to debate whether or not we should keep a commonsense rule that protects Tribal resources, worker safety, and our Nation's history. They claim we must do this because this rule is too burdensome for oil and gas companies and will create higher energy prices for American consumers. All of that is nonsense.

What does this rule actually require of companies like Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, companies that make between $28- and $85 billion a year? It requires them to tweak surveys that oil and gas companies are already doing so that they can proactively look for marine archaeological resources or unexploded ordnance, discoveries that would actually stop oil and gas development if they didn't do this proactively.

Even without this rule, this is a commonsense look-before-you-drill provision that benefits the American people and keeps offshore workers safe.

Republicans aren't delivering for everyday Americans. If they were, they would take a stand on ridiculous tariffs that Trump is imposing on our closest allies or unconstrained exports of liquefied natural gas that are driving up energy prices or repealing energy tax credits in the IRA, all policies on their side that are going to raise energy prices.

If they were delivering for everyday Americans, they wouldn't allow working-class people to go out into the Outer Continental Shelf without the guarantee that they aren't working on top of unexploded military ammunition or radioactive waste. That is what this rule does. It protects workers and the public interest.

If they were delivering for everyday Americans, they would not allow massive firings of essential employees who protect public lands.

If they were delivering for everyday Americans, they would not vote for healthcare to be ripped away, like they just did last week.

The Republican agenda in the House today accomplishes one thing and one thing only--selling out the American people and our planet so they can continue to enrich the oil baron oligarchs and billionaire class. This resolution is just the latest favor to these elites.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source