The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources on the House Natural Resources Committee released the following statement regarding the final report and recommendations from the President’s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. 

The House Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing, with testimony from Commission Co-Chairs William Reilly and Bob Graham, on Wednesday, January 26^th at 2:00 PM.

“Several of the recommendations in this report are worthy of consideration and I look forward to examining them more closely in the hearing later this month.

“However, I am concerned about at least one recommendation in the report. At a time when the issuance of both deepwater and shallow water drilling permits have nearly stopped, the Commission’s recommendation that permitting timelines be delayed further is misguided.  The current 30-day statutory requirement for approval or rejection of Exploration Plans prevents bureaucratic foot-dragging, recognizing that several layers of environmental review have already taken place during formulation of a Five Year Plan and subsequent lease sale.  Furthermore, Congress has already rejected increasing the current 30-day requirement.”

“At a time when more than 14 million Americans are out of work, and nearly every state in the country is struggling under severe budget restrictions, there has perhaps never been a more important time to leverage America’s abundant natural resources to create jobs, revenues, and security for the country.”

“It is essential that any steps we take to improve safety for workers and the environment not sacrifice the need to responsibly develop more of our domestic energy resources. We cannot risk further suppressing job creation during this historic economic downturn, and deepening our nation’s energy dependence on unstable regions of the world.”– Doug Lamborn (CO-05)

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