Offshore Energy and Jobs Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, when Juan Cabrillo first sailed up the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542, he noted a massive natural oil slick. That's how vast California's petroleum resources are.

Today, we hear much about the Bakken shale oil formation that has produced unparalleled prosperity for North Dakota. Yet California's Monterey oil deposit is nearly five times the size of the Bakken field in North Dakota. California also has 1.6 billion barrels of untapped offshore oil in unleased acreage right now that can be reached with slant drilling from onshore. But California's resources are placed off limits by the ideological extremism that is now on full display courtesy of the amendment offered by my colleagues from California. They have had their way in California for a full generation, and I've watched their folly take what once could boast of being America's Golden State and turn it into an economic basket case and a national laughingstock.

California's unemployment rate is the second highest in the Nation at 8.6 percent. North Dakota's is the lowest at 3.2 percent. Yesterday, the average price per gallon of gas in California was $4.03. In North Dakota, it was $3.69. Since 2000, California's reliance on foreign oil imports has literally doubled as a percentage and tripled as a volume. They're not helping the environment.

When I grew up in Ventura County 50 years ago, everyone on the coast kept pans of turpentine in their garages to wash off the globs of natural tar that you couldn't avoid as you walked on the beach. The offshore oil development of that era relieved the natural pressure that had polluted the waters of Santa Barbara Channel for centuries, and over several decades the tar disappeared and the beaches have never been cleaner.

Those were also the days when California literally led our Nation's economy. People had high-paying jobs, low energy bills, and families from across America seeking a better future for their children flocked to California. Now those same families flee from California.

Mr. Chairman, if I sound a little bitter, it's because I am. I have watched their policies destroy the promise and prosperity of my Golden State for my children. For God's sake, don't let them destroy our country.

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