Energy Action Team

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUDSON. I thank the gentleman, my neighbor from South Carolina, Mr. Duncan. I appreciate your leadership on this issue. I couldn't agree with you more.

Many of our constituents back home in North Carolina and South Carolina are entering the second half of the summer. They are preparing to take trips to the beach, maybe trips to the mountains, maybe going to visit relatives. Many of our constituents are contemplating those trips and, frankly, are experiencing a little sticker shock as they factor in the cost of gasoline and what it is going to cost their family.

Many of our constituents are struggling. They either are not in the job they want to be in or they are looking for a job, and it is tough to make ends meet. If you add the high cost of energy to that, it is a real burden on people. It affects real people back home.

Frankly, it doesn't have to be that way because we have got tremendous opportunities to have American sources of energy. It is just a shame we are not going after them.

I agree also with my colleague there are not a lot of things that President Obama and I agree on, but I do applaud his decision to allow us to do seismic mapping off the shore of the Atlantic Coast. We have tremendous opportunities in North Carolina, as well as Virginia and South Carolina, to find these large reserves. We know there is natural gas there. We know there is petroleum there. We need to find out what is exactly there.

So this is an important first step to get this seismic permitting so that we can know what kind of energy resources we have exactly. But I want to get North Carolina in the energy business. We have got the opportunity to put people to work.

As my colleague mentioned, North Dakota pays a $2,000 signing bonus at McDonald's because they can't find enough people because everybody has a job, and I look at North Carolina and my neighbors who are struggling to find work. Let's put people in energy jobs. Not only will it bring down the cost of energy for us at the pump, but it will put people to work.

There is another phenomena happening out there. We have lost a tremendous amount of manufacturing jobs in North Carolina, particularly in my part of the State, but we are seeing some of those jobs start to come back. The reason they are starting to come back is because of energy costs.

Even despite the fact that the current President won't allow any new permitting on publics lands, through fracking and other technology, we find it on private lands. We are being able to bring down some of our energy costs through exploration.

Imagine what we would do if we could unleash American energy by allowing us to go after all of our resources, whether they are on public lands or offshore. We can have a manufacturing renaissance in this country by having affordable American energy. We can start creating jobs like you wouldn't believe. There is no reason why we are not doing that.

So I am happy to be here tonight with my colleagues to talk about the importance of this. I am just ready to unleash the American energy and ready to bring those jobs back.

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