Adaptation to Changing Crude Oil Markets

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, this is ill-advised legislation.

My friends on the other side of the aisle claim 800,000 jobs, a million jobs. They don't have any real defined ability to provide such an estimate. Actually, this is a number that is made up because, as some of the speakers have acknowledged, there will be offsetting job losses as a result of what is going to happen, for example, in the refining industry or what is going to happen in terms of some of the transport.

But that is beside the point. We actually have a policy that is working. There will come a time, perhaps, when it makes sense in a strategic matter to make an adjustment.

Right now, the President has the latitude to be able to help some of our strategic partners. He has that flexibility. We are awash in oil in this country, and to expect that somehow exporting more of it is going to make a dramatic impact at the pump here is a pipe dream. It won't. It might make a modest impact.

What we could do is provide a benefit to the large oil companies as part of a larger package that would help everybody. We have expiring tax provisions, for instance, dealing with the production tax credit, dealing with wind and solar that actually create far more jobs than will be found in the refining and in the oil production. And these are good, family-wage jobs all across the country

Let's put together a package that speaks to alternative energy continuity, that speaks to conservation, that speaks to a long-term strategy that is a win-win. I am absolutely confident that Mr. Pallone and Mr. Barton could sit down and deal with a package that would have far more benefit for America.

If you are going to hand out another goodie to the oil companies, let's have a more comprehensive approach that meets our comprehensive energy needs. This bill doesn't do it.

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