Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Rahall, Chairman Miller, and Chairman GREEN for all their hard work and their continuous efforts to try to ensure that we deal with America's energy crisis today.

I rise in support of the passage of H.R. 6899, but I view this bill as a work in progress. Obviously it's not in its final form. The Senate needs to vet its efforts, and the President needs to weigh in, and therefore it needs more work, in my opinion.

I do appreciate, though, the Speaker's efforts on this bill. And I do hope to continue to support her efforts as we look at the compromise, the bipartisan compromise, that will continue to improve this measure.

In its current form, however, it doesn't provide some of the comprehensive efforts and solutions that existed in the measure that Congressmen ABERCROMBIE, PETERSON, and others worked on in a bipartisan effort; and I want to thank them, Representatives ABERCROMBIE and PETERSON, for their hard work. Six weeks we worked in June and in July to form the bipartisan compromise effort otherwise known as the National Conservation Environment and Energy Independence Act, H.R. 6709.

The differences between that effort and this are the following:

First, the bill prohibits drilling within 50 miles of the coast, which, in my opinion, puts a lot of our most promising areas off-limits in terms of the Outer Continental Shelf.

Second, by not allowing revenue sharing with States, as we do with Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, I think it makes it less likely that States will opt in to leasing, even between the 50 and 100 miles.

Third, the bill doesn't directly tie the new royalties generated to funding for renewables and energy efficiency. So it doesn't provide the same benefits that we have in H.R. 6709, although there are some PAYGO issues there. I think they are workable. I think we can get this measure out. I think we can work with them in the Senate.

The bottom line is that we need to use all the energy tools in our energy toolbox. That includes both coal sequestration, as well as new advances in nuclear power that doesn't put it in Nevada.

We talk a lot about the urge to put an Apollo-like program together. We do. We do need to do that in a bipartisan effort. But sometimes people forget that in the Apollo program, we had the Mercury program so that men could go into space. We had the Gemini project that showed that you could dock and you could spacewalk before we got to Apollo.

The goal is to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, reduce our dependency on foreign sources of energy. We can't get there overnight. We need to have this Apollo-like program that uses our current energy resources here in America to finance the renewables that will bridge the gap. That's what we need to do.

It's my hope that the provisions of our previous measure can be incorporated into this bill as we work through the legislative process, as we should do. But I think it's a step in the right direction, this measure. We need to move forward to take a closer look at how we come together in a bipartisan effort in that comprehensive energy package. The American public demands that we do this. Our economy requires that we do this.

We are going to have a transfer of $750 million in wealth this year just to pay for our energy price tag. For all those reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote for this measure, even though you don't like some of the elements in this measure, as I don't believe some of the elements in this measure are pointed toward that comprehensive effort.

But I want to commend my colleagues, Chairman Rahall, Chairman Miller and Chairman Green, for their willingness to compromise. I want to continue my efforts across the aisle with Congressman Peterson and others who are part of that bipartisan effort. That's what we need to do, that's what the American public expects, and that's why I'm voting for this measure.

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