The Western Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank my good friend from Utah (Mr. Bishop) for coordinating this event tonight. I'm very proud to represent Pennsylvania's Fifth District and am very proud be a part of the Western Caucus. We have a lot of wonderful natural resources that, frankly, help to make, Mr. Speaker, make this country strong, and I believe as a part of our promising future if we use them and use them wisely.

Federal policies that lead to job losses is a very personal one for me and many of my constituents in Pennsylvania's Fifth Congressional District. My district is home to Pennsylvania's only national forest, the Allegheny, or the ANF as we often refer to it--513,000 acres.

The ANF is as special as the district that I represent and has a long history as an economic and a tourism center for the region. Nearby, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, Colonel Edwin Drake founded the world's very first commercial oil well in 1859. The energy industry has been the economic engine in that region in my district ever since. Now this includes the ANF.

For 86 years, the forest has successfully operated for multiuse purposes. These uses include recreation tourism as well as timber harvesting, oil, and natural gas production. Frankly, before this forest was formed 86 years ago, it was an oil and gas field.

Since oil and gas has been the economic engine in the region for over 60 years, when the ANF was created, the Federal Government only purchased the surface rights. This was done intentionally by the Federal Government in order to leave the mineral rights, meaning the rights to oil and gas and minerals, in private hands. And for some 85-plus years there's been a positive working relationship between the Federal Government, who owns the surface rights, and the private and oil gas developers, who own the mineral rights.

However, this longstanding and beneficial relationship recently has been ruptured. Last fall, the Forest Service was sued by three environmental groups: Sierra Club, the Allegheny Defense Project, and the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. The Sierra Club is based in the Speaker's home district in San Francisco, California. The Allegheny Defense Fund is based somewhere in Oregon. And the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics--well, they won't identify themselves. We don't know.

These groups are attempting to apply the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, to the permitting processes, which effectively will shut down energy production in the forests.

Let me be clear, oil and gas production is the major economic force in the region, and has been since that first oil well was drilled 150 years ago.

Penn State University performed a study and concluded that for every 100 direct oil and gas sector jobs in northwestern Pennsylvania, 23 industry support jobs are created, with an additional 40 ancillary jobs in the retail and residential sectors. Want a true economic stimulus that leads us to energy independence? Let's support that industry. Again, I can't emphasize enough how important these jobs are to our region and the local economy.

As a direct result of the lawsuit, the forest service indefinitely suspended the permitting process for all new oil and gas leases in January of this year. To make matters worse, the Forest Service released a settlement this past April that sides entirely with the environmental groups.

This settlement was reached behind closed doors and was reached with no industry input. There was no judge, no court that told them to do this. Applying NEPA was a decision made by the Forest Service and did not even take into account the people that it would hurt directly and the most. No court told them to do this, which means that it was a policy change that occurred within the National Forest Service.

Now, while these environmental groups would like everyone to think that oil and gas production in the ANF goes unregulated, it's rigorously regulated by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. And they do a great job. They always have.

Today, I, along with Mr. Bishop and 18 other members of the Congressional Western Caucus, sent a letter on this topic to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The Secretary, unlike some Members of Congress and environmental groups, knows that the Forest Service is a part of the Agriculture Department, not the Interior Department.

The bottom line is that Congress and the President have this year alone spent about a trillion dollars in the name of job creation. Yet, some within the administration are also actively trying to make policy changes like this that kill good-paying jobs which have existed for 86 years.

Not too long ago, I was in Bradford, Pennsylvania, on a Sunday morning, and I picked out a small church to worship in. And at the end of the service I had a young mom come up to me. She had three little kids in tow.

They weren't very big. The oldest maybe was four years old.

And she came up to me and she said, You're Mr. Thompson. She said, I want to thank you for what you're trying to do to stand up for the right things of making sure that we have the rights to access to subsurface rights. You see, her husband makes his living working on oil wells. At that point, he was struggling to find a job and struggling to be able to support his family because of a policy change by this administration which attacks the subsurface private property rights. And that's not right.

I've talked with businesses that have been in the business, have lived their entire life for generations in the Allegheny National Forest, that own subsurface rights and have every right for 86 years to access oil, natural gas, and minerals that they own. And, because of that arbitrary policy change by this administration, that's been shut down. And these folks who have been in business for just generations are no longer able to support themselves.

This type of attack, this type of policy by this administration on private property owners, it impacts timber workers, it impacts drillers, excavation companies, businesses, schools, townships, and families. Frankly, they're all suffering. And they're suffering because of the arbitrary and devastating policies of this administration on private-property-right owners.

I thank the gentleman from Utah and I yield back.

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