Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise to urge my colleagues to support my amendment to H.R. 1231. As our constituents see soaring gas prices, oil companies have revealed record profits. The top five multinational oil companies earned over $1 trillion in the past decade. These firms are eating up more and more of our constituents' paychecks.
And where is it going? Only a small portion of the profits are reinvested back into the company to pave the way for efficiencies and research into alternatives to oil. Rather, oil companies are providing bumps to stockholders and high bonuses to their company executives, a pat on the back for high prices at the pump.
My amendment would provide transparency to the U.S. taxpayer. The amendment requires the Secretary to disclose the executive bonuses for any company that is given a drilling lease.
The time is now to hold the largest oil companies accountable, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment in order to provide transparency back to the American taxpayer.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chairman, in terms of the relevancy to this debate, I would take this time, in the spirit of bipartisanship, to thank the Rules Committee for allowing this amendment and, thus, I agree with them that this is relevant to this debate.
I would like to comment on one more thing. My friend from Alaska brought up the point of a burden. The burden that exists right now is the burden that's being borne right on the gas pumps of the people in my district, in his district, and the people in the United States of America. That is the burden that working families are undergoing, the suffering that they are undertaking as they pay over $4 a gallon for gasoline in my district. Transparency and accountability are necessary, though the people who are beholden to the price spikes know where their money is going.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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