Markey Statement at Interior Department Budget Hearing Featuring Secretary Ken Salazar

WASHINGTON (February 15, 2012) - Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar is appearing this morning before the Natural Resources Committee to discuss his agency's budget and other issues.

Below please find the prepared remarks of Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the Ranking Democratic Member on the committee:

"Earlier this week, the Obama administration released a budget proposal for the Department of the Interior that lays out a balanced approach to energy production on public lands. Despite the claims of critics, the Obama administration has been fostering both traditional oil and gas development while moving us forward to a clean energy future.

"Across the United States, oil production is at its highest level in nearly a decade. Natural gas production has reached levels we have never seen before. Oil production on public lands offshore is higher than it was during each of the last three years of the Bush administration. According to industry analysts, by this summer there will be nearly 30 percent more floating rigs operating in the Gulf than there were prior to the BP spill.

"And despite claims from the oil industry that companies need access to more areas offshore, the Interior Department's five year plan makes more than 75 percent of the offshore oil and gas resources available for development. It's not the Obama administration holding back more domestic production, it's the oil companies that are currently warehousing roughly 26 million acres offshore that hold billions of barrels of oil.

"Onshore, the Department of the Interior has approved more permits to drill and industry has begun drilling more wells in the first three years of the Obama Administration than in the first three years of the Bush Administration. And the oil and gas industry still has more than 7,000 approved permits to drill onshore that they are not using.

"But the Obama administration is also developing renewable energy on public lands, with the goal of permitting 11,000 megawatts by the end of 2013. This would be more than 5 times the amount of renewable energy permitted by all previous administrations combined. Yet the Republican Majority is threatening to raise taxes on the wind industry, which would jeopardize those projects and could kill 37,000 permanent and existing clean energy jobs.

"Meanwhile, today the Majority is bringing a bill to the House floor that amounts to nothing more than a giveaway to Big Oil under the guise of funding our nation's transportation projects. The Majority said their drilling bills were necessary to pay for transportation funding. Yet the three bills reported out of this committee would generate less than 10 percent of the revenue shortfall for our transportation projects over the next 5 years. It turns out simply creating more drill holes won't eliminate our nation's pot holes.

"In contrast to the ‘all of the above' energy plan laid out by Secretary Salazar and the Obama administration, the Majority's plan is nothing more than ‘oil above all'. These drilling bills may be good for the members of the American Petroleum Institute, but they are not good for the American people.

"The Majority's drilling bills wouldn't even ensure that American resources stay here in America to help our consumers. The Majority rejected my amendments in this committee to ensure that natural gas produced from public lands cannot be exported.

"Low U.S. natural gas prices provide a competitive advantage for American businesses and a relief for American families, and exporting our natural gas would eliminate our economic edge. The Majority should not be imposing a de facto natural gas tax on American agriculture, manufacturing, chemicals, steel and plastics by allowing our gas to be exported as these Republican bills would do.

"If the Republicans vote to allow the exportation of America's natural gas in their transportation bill, all they will be constructing is an expressway to higher prices for American families and businesses.

"For years, the Majority has said we need to ‘drill here, drill now, pay less'. But it appears the real Republican energy plan is to ‘drill here, sell there, and pay more'.

"I look forward to hearing Secretary Salazar's testimony and thank him for coming to this committee."