Protecting Investment in Oil Shale the Next Generation of Environmental, Energy, and Resource Security Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

In the aftermath of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, a consensus was reached that 80 percent of the Clean Water Act fines and penalties that BP is required to pay because of the damage go to the gulf coast. President Obama has proposed this, a bipartisan group of lawmakers--lawmakers on both sides of the aisle--agreed to this, a national commission recommended it, another national task force recommended it, businesses, environmentalists, we've all reached consensus that 80 percent of the fines and penalties that BP will be required to pay for violating the Clean Water Act go to Gulf of Mexico recovery and research. But, see, Congress must pass a law to do this.

Everyone has urged the Congress to act on this, but the Congress has not done so, unfortunately. As the cochair of the bipartisan Gulf Coast Caucus, I asked my colleagues not to let the effort languish any longer. The House should act expeditiously to do so and devote 80 percent of the Deepwater Horizon fines and penalties to the Gulf of Mexico.

Unfortunately, the Scalise amendment could be interpreted as an endorsement of a particular piece of legislation, the RESTORE Act. And while the RESTORE Act does devote 80 percent of the fines and penalties to the gulf coast, it is flawed in its current form and does not achieve meaningful recovery for the Gulf of Mexico. So while I urge my colleagues, reluctantly, to defeat this amendment, the time is now for the Congress to pass an 80 percent bill and focus on the economic and environmental recovery of the Gulf of Mexico.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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