Keystone Pipeline and Energy Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. LATTA. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the gentleman yielding. I rise today to discuss our country's energy future, and specifically the role of the Keystone XL pipeline.

I am going to reiterate a little bit what the leader of this Special Order has already stated.

Due to recently technological innovations, the United States is the number one producer of natural gas in the world today. That is hard to believe when you think about 20 years ago and what the naysayers were saying where we were going to be.

In oil production, we are set to pass Saudi Arabia by the year 2020. This is a long way from the gas lines of the 1970s, when there were restrictions at gas stations on how many gallons you could buy or on what days you could buy gas. I can remember going to gas stations and you had a number on the end, and they said this is the number we are taking today. If you didn't have it, you weren't buying gas. But today, that has changed. It has changed.

Today, we are on the cusp of a bright promising energy future where millions of jobs will be created because of it. We must ensure that the right policies are in place in order to realize our great energy potential. Again, that potential is there.

The Energy and Commerce Committee has heard testimony and passed numerous pieces of legislation aimed at ensuring that America is on the right path to energy prosperity. One of the quickest solutions is to build the Keystone XL pipeline. Thanks to Mr. Terry's leadership on the Keystone XL pipeline, we passed a bill to approve it. The expansion of the pipeline will bring additional jobs, income, and investment into the United States. The project will produce up to 42,000 manufacturing, construction, and indirect jobs.

In my home State of Ohio, the project is projected to bring 2,419 jobs by 2015. These jobs will offer high wages, strong benefits, and a resurgence of America's hardworking taxpayers. The project will also produce approximately $20 billion in economic activity from food, lodging, construction equipment, supplies, and investments during the project development.

In my home district, the Fifth District, I have visited companies that are going to be making equipment for drilling and parts for large machinery that will bring oil from the pipeline. Not too long ago, I was at one company that was very proud to tell me that they are going to be adding on to their company today because they are going to be making equipment that will be used in the pipeline in its construction.

There is also a company that makes parts for the large machinery that will be operating up in Canada. Those are jobs in northwest Ohio, and those are the jobs that we want to keep. These are permanent jobs for people looking for good employment.

In our committee hearings, we had one panel that was very interesting. At one end of the table we had a representative from TransCanada, and at the other end of the table we had an individual who was representing the trades, whose men and women will be actually building this pipeline. It was very hard for them to understand why we weren't going forward with this project today to put these people to work because these people are going to be working. They will make sure that they have roofs over their families' heads, food on the table, and will be saving money for their kids' education and putting money away for their own retirement.

This pipeline is going to bring about 830,000 barrels of oil into the United States every day. We have a great friend and neighbor to the north, Canada. For every $1 we send to Canada, we will get about 90 cents back. We send billions of dollars every year overseas for oil to some countries who aren't our greatest friends.

As we speak, due to the President's foot dragging, Canada is studying an eastern route across her southern border that would bypass the United States and send her oil to her eastern ports to ship that oil some place else. What is wrong with this picture? They want to send it south, not east. Talk to them.

Another point about the Keystone pipeline is that it is a $7 billion privately funded project. Once that oil would reach its destination in the United States, as Mr. Terry has already said, it will be refined into many products, putting Americans again to work.

The pipeline is expected to generate more than $585 million in State and local taxes in the States the pipeline passes. I was a county commissioner for 6 years, and I know what that means to be putting back into local government.

Approval of this energy project should not be controversial, but President Obama and his administration have made this commonsense, shovel-ready project a cornerstone of partisanship and needless delays. Two thousand days have passed since the Keystone XL pipeline application was filed. This pipeline has undergone more State and Federal assessment than any previous pipeline, and every assessment has come back to the same conclusion: that the pipeline will have minimal environmental impact. Further, the Keystone XL pipeline will be the most advanced pipeline in operation, using the most reliable materials and innovative technology. In fact, the pipeline will include 57 extra safety measures, which led the U.S. State Department to declare that the project would have a degree of safety over any other.

Another benefit: the Keystone XL will provide additional capacity to our current pipeline infrastructure.

Finally, again to point out what Mr. Terry has already said, that this is about our security, not just energy security, but our national security, because as Americans pick up their paper and look at the news in the evening and they see what is happening in Ukraine, people in Europe are fearful of what is going on because energy is being used as a weapon against them. We want to make sure that we are independent in this country. We want to make sure that Americans can go to bed every night and say we can take care of ourselves, and we can take care of ourselves with oil from a country north of us who is one of our greatest friends and neighbors.

This project has the support of the American people, the United States House and Senate, and it is time for the President to put jobs, community investment, and energy security before politics and approve this pipeline.

I thank Mr. Terry for leading this very important energy Special Order tonight.

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