The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSAL” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H811-H813 on Feb. 12, 2016.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSAL
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, the President submitted a budget request to the Congress. That budget request increases spending by approximately $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years. It raises taxes by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years. And I will say that again. It increases spending by $2.5 trillion and raises taxes by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years.
This budget, like every other budget that has been submitted by this White House, does not ever come into balance. It never comes into balance. It stays in the red. In fact, under this budget, we will see a 13 percent structural shortfall in funding. The deficit would increase this fiscal year to $616 billion. That is up from approximately $438 billion last year. Either number is unacceptable.
Mr. Speaker, with the trajectory that we are on, by 2022, just the interest on the debt--let me be clear: just the interest, not the principal--is going to result in us spending more money on paying that interest payment than we will spend on all of our defense spending in a year.
I will say that again. We will spend more money just paying the interest payment on the debt--not dropping the principal--than we will spend on our entire defense budget in the year by 2022, with the trajectory that we are on, increasing this Nation's debt.
The debt is going to be more than double what it was at the time this President took office. It is going to more than double by the time he leaves office. It currently exceeds $18 trillion. Yes, $18 trillion is our debt today. To break that down, that is approximately $155,000 per taxpayer. This isn't Monopoly money. These are real repercussions.
Earlier this week, in this Chamber, I was able to host a seventh-
grade class from LSU University Lab School. These are the folks that are going to pay for it. It is that generation of these seventh-graders and their children and grandchildren and great children.
Mr. Speaker, at some point, this debt is going to be due. The bill is going to have to be paid. You can see that we are going off this cliff of spending to where our interest payments in a short 6 years are projected to exceed all that we are spending in our defense budget in a single year. This budget adds $6 trillion in debt over the next 10 years.
I would like to break it down a little bit in terms of what some of these tax increases are and what the implications are.
The President has taken a lot of credit over the past few years over job growth. He has talked a lot about these increases in jobs that have occurred under his administration.
When you actually look at the numbers, where we have actually had job growth is in the energy sector. It is the one place where we have seen this extraordinary job growth over the last several years.
However, just over the last year, we have lost approximately 10,000 jobs in the energy industry in Louisiana. By some estimates, that is 20 percent of our oil and gas workforce. That is 10,000 jobs in the last year tied back to our energy sector.
There was a study that just came out that said, at current prices, oil and gas producers in the United States and Canada are losing approximately $350 million every single day.
So, I am going to put this in perspective. We have lost 10,000 jobs in Louisiana alone. We are seeing a bleeding of energy jobs across this Nation. You have energy producers that are losing, according to one study, $350 million every single day.
The White House's solution in their budget is to impose more taxes. It makes zero sense. For those of you that are listening, it is not going to make sense. People are bleeding jobs, they are losing money, and let's go ahead and put that last nail in the coffin and increase taxes.
We just don't subtly increase taxes. This budget proposes to increase taxes by $10 a barrel. At the barrel prices that ended yesterday, that is in excess of 30 percent; in fact, it is approaching a 40 percent tax in an industry that is bleeding jobs. It is completely nonsensical. Obviously, it is not well thought out.
The study I referenced earlier projects that, by 2017, approximately one-third of the companies involved in oil and gas exploration and production activities will go bankrupt. It is killing American jobs.
I want to be clear that it is not going to decrease our demand for oil and gas, as we have seen prices as low as they are. You are seeing more people buying oil and gas because of the low prices. But what it means is that we are going to kill our domestic industry and become more reliant on foreign sources. I will say it again: It is nonsensical.
Further, adding insult to injury is the fact that this administration is continuing to move forward on this well control rule, which they have hidden from industry, hidden from Congress, and refused to meet with committees and delegations about what they are trying to do. Yet, they thought it was appropriate to leak it to The Wall Street Journal this week.
So, they can't talk to the people that exercise oversight, but they can talk to the newspapers. Even their comments to the newspapers continue to demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of how our offshore industry works.
A study that was just released indicates that we can see a 35 percent reduction in domestic energy production in the offshore as a result of this well control rule.
Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear: Like everyone, I support safe energy production in the United States. What happened in 2010, with the Macondo disaster and the loss of those lives was an absolute travesty--
and it was avoidable--but, as the judge said in that case, it was gross negligence and willful misconduct.
The judge didn't say that the Department of Interior was at fault from flawed rules. He said that the operators were at fault and that it was the result of multiple, multiple mistakes that, in aggregate, was grossly negligent and showed willful misconduct.
Since the Macondo spill, industry has taken their own steps to ensure safety. The Department of Interior has taken steps to ensure safety. Yet, this well control rule is going to result in a 35 percent reduction, and I believe it will actually result in decreased safety because of the fundamental misunderstanding of these regulators of the industry they are attempting to regulate. They are in an ivory tower--
and it is inappropriate--further attempting to kill the oil and gas industry.
Now, here is where the irony comes in even further.
Mr. Speaker, the President indicated that the effort to assign this
$10 a barrel tax is tied back to his environmental agenda, tied back to his efforts to ensure that we are good environmental stewards, which, to be clear, Mr. Speaker, I am a strong advocate of the environment and ensuring that we balance environmental protection, environmental sustainability, and ecosystem production with our economic development efforts.
But in this case, by taking these steps and reducing our domestic production of energy, particularly offshore, you are reducing the funds that are available for environmental restoration and environmental initiatives. Because it is going to result in a 35 percent reduction in offshore energy production, according to the McKinsey study. So, if that is accurate, it is going to result in billions of dollars of less revenue for the U.S. Government.
Now, what makes that even worse is that the far, majority of the offshore energy production in the United States happens off the shores of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
{time} 1315
Mr. Speaker, I believe that is your home State, one of those.
So, under Federal law, from 2006, those energy revenues are shared back with the States so they can carry out efforts to help ensure the sustainability of their coasts and resilience of their communities.
In the case of Louisiana, my home State, we actually passed a constitutional amendment to dedicate those dollars back to restoring the coast, to preventing floods.
So this budget, as submitted, does not include funds through the Corps of Engineers for projects like the Morganza to the Gulf project. It doesn't include funds for important projects to prevent repetitive flooding, like the Comite project. It doesn't fulfill the President's commitment that he made to Louisiana in 2012, when he walked on the streets in St. John Parish and said he was going to advance the West Shore project to ensure that we don't continue to see flooding from hurricanes and storms in St. John Parish and St. Charles Parish and some of the adjacent areas.
He fails to fulfill his own commitment by zeroing out funding for that important project, and again adding insult to injury to insult to injury to insult, by taking away funds in his budget request, attempting to repeal these offshore energy revenue-sharing dollars that in the State of Louisiana are committed to ecosystem restoration and to community resilience efforts to prevent floodwaters, to save FEMA money, to prevent disasters, to prevent economic disruption, to prevent disrupting our families and our businesses in south Louisiana.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to close by saying that this budget is entirely nonsensical. It talks about reducing spending and saving money, yet it does completely the opposite.
It talks about environmental initiatives, yet all it proposes to do is reduce funds available for environmental purposes, and then, in one case, swaps the Louisiana money, or attempts to take the Louisiana money--excuse me--take the money from the Gulf States and send it up to Alaska for a climate initiative on coastal resiliency.
And one last note on that, Mr. Speaker. I have been up to the communities in coastal Alaska. I have been up to Shishmaref and Kivalina and Kotzebue and Nome and Barrow and Deadhorse. I have been to these communities, and they deserve help. But, Mr. Speaker, to simply trade, or to rob Peter to pay Paul, to rob the Gulf to set up a program in Alaska, it is mind-boggling.
Mr. Speaker, they all deserve help. They all deserve help. To simply take money from one area and to send it to another one, that doesn't fix the problem.
This budget, from a fiscal perspective, is fatally flawed policy. It is going to put extraordinary financial burden on future generations. From an environmental perspective, it is completely nonsensical in that it takes money away from environmental restoration and environmental initiatives and community resilience. It is going to result in increasing FEMA disaster spending by leaving these communities vulnerable by failing to address these hazards.
I urge, Mr. Speaker, that, as we move forward, we move forward with commonsense reforms to reduce spending, to bring the debt under control, to begin reducing our national debt, and to make sure that we are spending money in places where it makes sense, to fulfill commitments to the people in St. John and St. Charles Parishes, to ensure that our communities and our economy are more resilient, and not to continue mortgaging our future and continue allowing our environment to degrade, as it is in coastal Louisiana.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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