Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1229, Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1230, Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule and the underlying bills, H.R. 1229 and H.R. 1230.

Mr. Speaker, these bills aren't serious solutions to bring down high gas prices.

Instead, these are nothing more than a political exercise meant to keep the big oil companies happy.

Big oil companies have every reason to be happy these days.

Last week, ExxonMobil announced first-quarter profits of nearly $10.7 billion.

Let me repeat that--$10.7 billion. That's a 69% increase over the same three month period last year.

American taxpayers are paying nearly $4 dollars a gallon for gasoline and we're still giving $4 billion in subsidies to Big Oil?

Give me a break.

Yesterday, in the Rules Committee, I offered an amendment--as a standalone bill--that would eliminate subsidies for big oil. My amendment would have done nothing to prevent these drilling bills from moving forward.

Ending subsidies for corporations that are making money hand over fist while gouging Americans shouldn't be controversial.

Apparently, my Republican colleagues on the Rules Committee didn't see it the same way. My amendment wasn't made in order.

Instead, here we are today debating legislation that would boost Big Oil's profits even more without doing anything to lower gas prices for American families.

More drilling won't lower gas prices. It's that simple.

Even with an expedited permitting approval process--that ignores any environmental impact assessment--we wouldn't see any of this additional supply in the market for years.

And the notion that we've run out of areas to drill because we've exhausted all current offshore drilling sites is ludicrous.

Oil companies currently have access to nearly 80 million acres to drill for oil, including 38 million acres offshore. But they produce oil on only 4 percent of those acres.

Mr. Speaker, my Republican colleagues are so fond of saying these days that people should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

I wish they would apply that same ``tough love'' to the record profit-making oil companies at a time when American families are being gouged at the pump.

I oppose this Rule and the underlying bills and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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