Offshore Production and Safety Act of 2011 - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, last night the Senate defeated a misguided attempt to raise taxes on the five largest energy companies that are operating in our country. That bill, as we discussed, would have done nothing to reduce our gas prices, nothing to create jobs in America, and nothing to increase domestic energy production.

Furthermore, it would have hardly made a dent in our spiraling debt. Put another way, last night's effort would have done nothing to address the problems that most Americans care about, that most Americans are talking about, as they discuss things around the dinner table.

This morning we are here to debate a very different bill, called the Offshore Production and Safety Act. It was recently introduced by the minority leader, myself, and 16 other Senators. There is a very clear contrast, without a doubt, between this and what was brought up yesterday.

Instead of punishing a handful of companies within the oil and gas industry, we provide new opportunities to put Americans back to work. Instead of merely attempting to assign blame for our Nation's energy challenges, we develop a policy that we are proposing that will start to work right now and yield real benefits in the years ahead. And instead of raising taxes regardless of the consequences, we ensure that a far larger source of revenues, those that are derived from new offshore production, will be generated in the years ahead.

The bottom line is that our legislation is both common sense and long overdue. It will move our energy policy forward, not backward, and it would do so by addressing three pressing needs: We provide a boost to offshore energy production; we improve the safety of those operations; and we streamline our notoriously slow Federal bureaucracy.

Before I describe these sections in greater detail, I think it is important to explain why we focus on offshore production while at the same time we are focusing on offshore safety. The answer to the first part of that question is that our Outer Continental Shelf contains huge quantities, vast quantities of undiscovered oil and gas, some 86 billion barrels of oil, and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The answer then to the second part is we all remember--we all remember and we should not forget--what happened last summer. We are committed to improving the safety of offshore production activities so it does not happen again.

As I mentioned, we call our bill the Offshore Production and Safety Act, because we understand that those terms--both production and safety--should be part and parcel of the same policy. We want our offshore industry to be working. But we need it to be working safely.

Those were words I used yesterday in the committee hearing on energy when we focused on the OCS reform bill. We want our offshore industry to be working, but we want to have that safety component. We know our Nation will need oil for decades to come, even under the most optimistic scenario we have out there.

We know offshore production will create thousands of badly needed jobs, not just on the offshore rigs themselves, but all across America, and that it will simultaneously generate tremendous revenue for our government at a time when we are looking for those revenues. We know that for every barrel of oil we produce here, that is one less barrel we have to purchase from someone else, typically from somebody else that could care less about our situation here in this country.

It is not just me, not Lisa Murkowski from a producing State. It is not just Republicans who understand these benefits. Clearly President Obama and his team acknowledge these benefits as well. I do want to take an aside and recognize and commend the President for announcing that he will hold annual leases in Alaska's Natural Petroleum Reserve, the NPRA, establishing a permitting office in Alaska, and pursuing developmental opportunities in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic.

I have routinely criticized this administration on certain aspects of their energy policy. But the President deserves credit for taking these steps and I acknowledge them. I will look forward to seeing those actually carried out, to see that followed through.

The Offshore Production and Safety Act offers us a chance to make even greater profits. To boost offshore production, the first part of the bill would require lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, and Virginia to be put back on the schedule. Those are areas that are projected to contain billions of barrels of oil. But if we refuse to even offer up the leases, then that energy is never going to be brought to market. We would also extend for 1 year all of the leases that were held back from production because of the administration's moratorium.

The second part of the bill relates to the safety, the safety of offshore production. Again it is pretty straightforward. It is pretty simple. We require that each leaseholder develop a spill response and containment plan to make sure if an accident does occur, immediate action can be taken to contain it and to protect the environment. This is critical. This is what we are all hoping for and waiting for after the Deepwater Horizon last year.

To further increase our Nation's response capacity, we would establish a public-private task force on spill response and mitigation measures. We would also require the Comptroller General to identify any gap in the legal authority or spill response capability that would need to be resolved.

This bill we have before us and that we will move to today, with the vote this afternoon, will actually mark the first time any safety legislation has been voted on in the Senate since the Deepwater Horizon incident. So this Republican proposal is the first time. We did not see that happen last Congress. I know Chairman Bingaman and I certainly hoped we would see it. But it was not moved through last year. It was not part of the proposal we took up yesterday.

The third and final part of our bill addresses our notoriously slow Federal bureaucracy. Oil and gas projects are routinely delayed, not because of the technological limits, or even the regulatory requirements, but because the Federal Government is simply too slow in making decisions. To remedy the situation, we would limit the amount of time that Interior can take to decide on drilling permits. We do allow for some flexibility here, but when delays do occur, we require an explanation as to why. What happened? What is holding it up? Because litigation is increasingly used to halt new development, we provide expedited consideration of those cases in a specific court.

We know this bill does not contain every pro-production piece every Member may wish. I wish to see an ANWR provision in here, but it is not in here. There are additional items I clearly wish to advance, most notably, revenue sharing, critically important for a coastal State such as Alaska, and for my friend and colleague from Louisiana.

I am going to be working to advance this bill and, if it advances, offer amendments. If the bill does not advance, I am going to be working within the committee to continue to push revenue sharing and other issues that speak to the pro-production piece. But for purposes of this bill before us, I realize that with the revenue-sharing issue, this does present a scoring issue which we need to resolve. So clearly more discussion needs to come for that to happen. But, regardless, I urge every Member who realizes the critical need for increased domestic production to join together to advance this modest and very responsible start.

The purpose of this bill, the reason why we are ready to take it up, move it today, is it really is so simple. We are not asking for that much: a handful of lease sales to be put back on the schedule, basic safety measures be implemented, and permitting decisions be made on time. Our goal--pretty simply--is to put offshore production back on track closer to where it should be and closer to where we need it to be.

If there is one word that should be used to describe this bill, it would be modest. Everything within it is straightforward. Nothing is outlandish. Nothing goes too far. There are no poison pills in it. Since its introduction, the President has very explicitly endorsed several of the provisions that are contained within it. Our proposal is fair, it is sensible, and I believe it is time for the Senate to send it on to the House of Representatives.

I yield the floor.

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