Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 26, 2007)

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I have heard many times from the gentleman from Pennsylvania the suggestion that drilling for natural gas is low impact compared to oil drilling. In fact, he even called it clean on the floor today. Unfortunately, this opinion runs contrary to scientific findings on the matter. There are drastic and devastating environmental and economic repercussions that come with drilling into the ocean floor, drilling into the ocean floor.

Mr. Peterson refers to the use of natural gas as a clean fuel, and that may well be true. But what we are talking about here is drilling into the ocean floor so close to our beaches, that is a problem for both my home State of Florida, as well as the rest of the Nation.

According to the Minerals Management Service, once exploratory drilling begins, the toxic impacts are similar for either oil or gas exploration or development. Drilling operations produce hundreds of thousands of gallons of
drilling muds that routinely discharge toxic metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium. None of those seem clean to me.

Water discharged from drilling and exploratory operations often contain dangerous levels of carcinogens and radioactive materials such as benzene, toluene and arsenic. None of those seem clean to me either. The impact is not just limited to the off-shore platform. Natural gas drilling requires on-shore storage and processing facilities, including miles of pipelines, roads, ports, helipads and dorms.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania seeks to minimize the perception of the impact of drilling for natural gas, when the reality is that it would generate toxic poisons seeping into our oceans, have a significant impact environmentally on our coastline, and be a significant danger to opening the door, not just to gas drilling, but oil drilling as well.

I urge my colleagues to protect the oceans and breaches of the United States and oppose the Peterson amendment, both this one and the next one that is offered.

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