WASHINGTON, D.C. – {Today Congresswoman Lois Capps voted for common sense legislation that would help address our nation’s energy needs, without resorting to the radical and inappropriate step of more offshore drilling. 
 
This week, President Bush repealed the 18 year old Executive Moratorium against new coastal drilling, first implemented by his father and long embraced by leaders of both parties.  Many Congressional Republicans have embraced this campaign to begin new drilling off California and other coastal states, under the guise of addressing the record high gas prices brought on by the Bush Administration’s failed energy policies.  But according to the Bush Administration’s own Energy Information Administration, new offshore drilling would not yield any new oil for at least 10 years and would not result in lower gas prices now or in the future. 
 
Democrats have put forth a much more comprehensive and realistic plan to address the nation’s energy needs today and tomorrow.  Democrats already forced the President to stop filling the nearly full Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) with oil purchased at record high prices.  To lower prices immediately, Democrats have called on the President to release oil from the SPR, a strategy that has worked several times in the last 20 years to lower the price of a barrel of oil by as much as 35% in a matter of weeks.  Democrats have also called for increased oil and gas production, through measures like today’s DRILL Act, as a strategy to allow the nation to transition to an economy that relies primarily on renewable and alternative energy sources.  As the first steps in that transition, the Congress earlier passed into law the first increase in auto efficiency standards in 32 years and has passed legislation to increase and extend tax incentives for alternative energy production, and to require utility companies to get more of their energy from renewable sources, like wind and solar.
 
The Drill Responsibly in Leased Lands Act (H.R. 6515) will increase domestic oil supply in several ways.  First it will speed up the development of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A).  Second, the bill will reinstate a ban on the foreign export of Alaskan oil.  Third, the measure will force oil producers to ‘Use It or Lose It’ on the leases they already have or relinquish them so that another company can produce oil.  Fourth, it calls on the President to use the powers of his office to facilitate the completion of oil pipelines into the NPR-A and to facilitate the construction of a Alaska natural gas pipeline to the continental United States to move the product to market.  In addition to supplying natural gas to the lower 48 states, the Alaska natural gas pipeline could create up to 100,000 jobs.  The final vote on the Drill Act was 244 to 174.  Due to Republican opposition, the measure failed to garner the necessary 2/3 vote required to pass.

Please click here to watch Congresswoman Capps’ speech on the DRILL Act.

Congresswoman Capps’ floor speech on the DRILL Act follows:

“Mr. Speaker I rise in strong support of this legislation.

“The oil and gas companies, awash in profits, would have us believe they have no where to drill.

“That’s just plain wrong.

According to the Bush Administration, 80% of our oil and gas resources are available for drilling.

The industry is sitting on 68 million acres of public lands where it could be drilling – but isn’t.

And with this legislation we are speeding up the effort to drill in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve.

“We don’t need to open more lands to drilling when industry is dragging its feet on producing where it already could.  This recent push by President Bush to open up the rest of our coasts to offshore drilling is just a political stunt. 

“It’s not about lowering gas prices today or even in the future.  It’s just a cynical attempt to change the subject from this Administration’s abject failure on energy.

“The great oilmen rode into the White House 7½ years ago boasting about their new energy policy.  Their great plan - 95% implemented - has resulted in $4 a gallon gasoline, $500 billion in oil company profits, and an economy in crisis.  Those of us who opposed the Bush-Cheney energy plan did so because we knew this was the likely result.

“Mr. Speaker, Democrats have a better idea – one that meets today’s crisis and transitions us to a new energy future.  First, the President should release a small amount oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  We’ve done it before and it works – it would likely bring down prices more in 10 days than the Bush-McCain offshore drilling plan would in 10 years.

“Second, oil companies should drill in the vast stretches of this country where they are allowed.  And the Bush Administration should open up more drilling in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, build the pipelines and sell that oil and gas to Americans.  And third, we have to seriously ramp up our transition to alternative and renewable energy sources.

“If in 10 or 20 years, oil and gas are still the focus of our energy debates, than we will have failed.

“We will have followed the path that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have charted and we’ve seen where that leads.

“I urge my colleagues to support this bill.”

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Pictured above: (center) Congresswoman Capps meets with Central Coast firefighters to discuss emergency preparedness.