The Burton Blog

Rep. Burton Votes to Put the Gulf Back to Work and Expand Domestic Energy Production

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN-05) issues the following statement after passage of H.R. 1229 the "Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act" and H.R. 1231 the “Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act”.  These bills, two small pieces of the Republican Majority’s greater American Energy Initiative, would safely end the de facto moratorium on offshore energy production imposed by the Obama Administration as well as direct the Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to make drilling leases both readily available and expeditiously processed, putting America firmly on the path to energy independence.

“Americans are enduring gasoline prices near a $4 national average which in turn are hurting families, costing jobs and threatening our Nation’s fragile economic recovery.  Despite the Obama’s Administration’s irresponsible regulations inhibiting the production of domestically produced energy, Republicans have taken action to remove burdensome barriers on home grown energy cultivation that will create job growth, help to lower the costs of gasoline and lead America towards energy independence. 

“I have long been a vocal proponent for more domestic energy production and we can no longer sit on the sidelines while Hoosiers and the rest of America are hurting.  Instead of relying on and subsidizing foreign sources of energy, we should rely on our own.”

Rep. Burton Votes For Energy Independence

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN-05) released the following statement after the House of Representatives approved H.R. 1230, the Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act, part of the Republican Majority's American Energy Initiative:

“Rising gasoline prices are hurting Hoosier families and small businesses, costing jobs and threatening our Nation's economic recovery.  However, instead of pursuing policies that will lower the price of oil and gasoline as well as lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy, this Administration has sought to stall and even halt domestic production of oil and natural gas at every turn.  The Administration canceled 77 onshore drilling leases in Utah just weeks after taking office; they have consistently delayed oil shale development; they have repeatedly blocked development of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska; and they have a de facto drilling moratorium on oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. 

In 1972, we imported approximately 28% of the oil we consume from foreign countries. Today, the United States imports approximately 62 percent of its oil. The Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act helps end this insanity.  The bill expands American energy production and creates jobs by requiring the Secretary of the Interior to conduct oil and natural gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Virginia that have been delayed or cancelled by the Obama Administration.  We can no longer afford to make any available energy resource off limits.  We have the resources and we should use them.

$8 for a gallon of gas

It's a likely probability of Obama's "Cap and Trade" proposal.

Under Obama's Cap and Trade energy plan, there are efforts to raise prices of natural fossil-fuel  consumption. In theory, this practice would lower fossil-fuel usage and save energy. However, this plan solves one problem only to create another of equal importance.  The dramatic rate increases will be passed onto consumers and taxpayers.  In this economy, the American people cannot afford to pay expenses like $8 per gallon of gas.  Here is Burton's agrument in Jeff Tucker's Shelbyville News article:

Burton, who represents the remainder of Shelby County in the U.S. House, said the legislation could cost Americans $646 billion in additional taxes.

"It's going to send thousands, and probably millions, of jobs overseas to China and India, countries that don't have the same kind of environmental standards we have, and it's going to cost every single American household thousands of dollars in additional expenditures per year," Burton said. "Now they say it's not going to be a tax on individuals or households, but the fact is it will be an indirect tax because the business and industries of this country that are taxed are going to pass those costs along to the consumer, which means that every single household in this country will have to spend between $3,000 and $4,000 in additional expenses every single year. And that's money that right now during this recession the American people simply cannot afford."

Burton said cap and trade is an unnecessary tax and is "just something that should not happen." He said Obama conceded in January 2008 during an editorial board meeting with a California newspaper that electricity rates "would necessarily skyrocket" under cap and trade.
"We have to take the president at his word," Burton said.

Burton said a new natural gas discovery in Louisiana could help America become energy independent.

"In Louisiana, they just discovered the largest natural gas find, I think, in the world at this point," Burton said. "It was the equivalent of 380-some billion barrels of oil. So we have an additional resource that was not well-known just a few short weeks ago. And with that, I think the United States of America could rapidly move toward energy independence if we put our minds to it. It's just a matter of the Congress of the United States realizing that we can have less reliance on foreign oil and foreign energy and do the jobs ourselves here at home."

Energy Saving Tips

Our need for affordable energy is growing faster than ever. In the last 25 years, our energy needs have grown by the equivalent of 5 billion barrels a day in oil and there is no sign that our desire for energy is going down.

Recently we have seen the highest home heating costs ever, the highest diesel costs ever, the highest gasoline costs ever, and the highest natural gas costs ever. The poor and middle class of this country are struggling to heat their homes and put gas in their cars.

My colleagues and I have made great strides in comprehensive energy reform during this session of Congress and I will continue to address those issues throughout my service to you. With this in mind, I wanted to also pass along the following energy saving tips:

• Set your programmable thermostat to save energy while you are away or asleep. Using it properly can save up to $180 per year in energy costs.
• Run ceiling fans in a clockwise direction to create a wind-chill effect that will make you “feel” cooler. Remember that ceiling fans cool people, not rooms -- so turn them off when you leave the room.
• Inspect your duct system for obvious signs of leaks and disconnections (most houses leak 20 percent or more). Seal any leaks with foil tape or a special sealant called “duct mastic.” Also, consider insulating ducts in unconditioned areas (like the attic, basement or crawlspace).
• Seal air leaks around your home to keep the heat out and the cool air in. The biggest air leaks are usually found in the attic or basement, but also come in around doors, windows, vents, pipes and electrical outlets. Use caulk, spray foam or weather stripping to seal the leaks. And add more insulation to keep your home cooler this summer.
• Maintain your cooling system. Check your system’s air filter every month at a minimum and change the filter every three months. Remove leaves, dirt and other debris from around the outdoor components to improve air flow and efficiency. Have a qualified professional tune-up your system with a pre-season maintenance checkup and, if it’s time to replace your old system, look for models that have earned EPA’s Energy Star.
• Turn off office lights and equipment when not in use so they don’t generate unnecessary heat.
• Replace incandescent light bulbs in your desk lamp with Energy Star qualified compact fluorescent light bulbs which use two-thirds less energy and generate less heat than conventional bulbs.

New Campaign Commercial

Burton Floor Speech on Drilling for Oil

Mr. Speaker, a number of the speakers tonight have been talking about the bailout on Wall Street. And we've been told by the head of the Treasury and the FDIC that, unless we do this, there could be real dire consequences for the entire economy of the United States.

The amount that we've been talking about, which will be brought to the floor, is somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 billion, which is directly going to go to our national debt, in all probability. Hopefully, some of those assets that are going to be bought will be able to be sold down the road and the money repaid to the Treasury.

But the thing that bothers me the most is we haven't done anything that will really create new jobs. The speaker that just spoke talked about the creation of new jobs. And we passed an energy bill last week that really isn't going to do anything. And we have the ability to drill off the Continental Shelf and Alaska and elsewhere. And we can get billions and billions of dollars in money coming into the United States Treasury from these assets that we have already, and that is, oil, gas, shale, and other commodities that will help us with our energy crisis.

We have an energy crisis right now, and we have not passed an energy bill that will do anything. Boone Pickens has been on television talking about the transfer of wealth, $700 billion a year. It's an odd consequence that we're going to be asking for $700 billion for the "Wall Street bailout" and at the same time we're denying the drilling for oil and other energy products here in the United States which could save $700 billion of our money that's going overseas to Saudi Arabia, to Nigeria, down south to Venezuela. And so the United States is actually turning over our money that we could keep here at home and create hundreds and thousands of jobs and really help this economy if we could just go after the energy sources that we already have here in the United States.

I just don't understand it. We're sending $700 billion to Saudi Arabia, and they're going to be buying these assets here in the United States. It's going to be our money that's purchasing the oil that gives them the money to buy the products here in the United States. It makes no sense, especially when we have the energy products right here in this country, offshore and up in ANWR, and elsewhere, trillions of square feet of gas, millions of barrels of oil, and we can't drill for them because of the environmental concerns that people are talking about. And we could do it in an environmentally safe way.

It makes no sense to me whatsoever to send $700 billion out of this country that we can keep here at home creating jobs. And at the same time that we're sending that $700 billion out of this country to buy oil from other parts of the world, we're asked to give $700 billion to bail out bad investments that have been made, bad loans that have been made. It just doesn't make sense to me.

If we're really concerned about the economy of the United States, we need to drill here, we need to drill now. Use alternative sources of energy as well--wind and solar and everything else--but we need to drill here in the United States. The American people are suffering. They're still playing $4 plus for a gallon of gas, $80 to fill up a 20-gallon tank on a car or a truck. The American people can't afford it. And we could be saving that money, reducing the price of oil and gasoline dramatically, if we drilled here and drilled now, keeping $700 billion of our money here instead of sending it overseas, and especially at a time when we're going to be bailing out financial institutions to the tune of $700 billion.

It's really odd. We're sending $700 billion of our money overseas--we don't need to--at a time when we could sure use it here at home to deal with our financial crisis.

We need to drill here, we need to drill now. We need to lower the price of gasoline and oil and other energy products and we're not doing it. And I simply don't understand it, Mr. Speaker.

And I want to say it one more time; the energy bill we passed last week isn't going to doing anything. It's not going to provide one barrel of new oil from the United States. And we're going to continue to send to Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and elsewhere, $700 billion of America's money, which could be used to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. It makes no sense. We should drill here, we should drill now. We should move toward energy independence and immediately start lowering the price of gasoline and other fuel products.

93.1 covers Energy Bill Options

As many of you may have noticed, the Democrats finally took up the issue of Energy after their 5-week vacation by proposing a bill with a fake drilling provision.

WIBC 93.1 covers the issue:

After weeks of resistance from Democratic leaders, the House has approved a bill to allow more offshore oil drilling. But Republicans are blasting the bill as a "sham."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had vowed to block any attempt to open up more area for drilling. But the bill passed on a near-party-line vote does exactly that, in waters more than 50 miles off the U-S coast.

"You're supposed to listen to your constituents, and more than 60% of my constituents say they want more drilling," says Ninth District Democrat Baron Hill.

Hill says the vote puts the U-S on the road to oil independence. Republicans say it does nothing but try to give cover to Democratic incumbents. They say it'll never pass the Senate before adjournment, and say the 50-mile limit is too far out to do any good.

Fifth District Republican Dan Burton co-sponsored a bill which would have allowed drilling beyond 25 miles. Burton says the dropoff of the ocean floor is so steep that the extra 25 miles makes a dramatic difference in oil companies' ability to reach any oil. Sixth District Republican Mike Pence says it's estimated only one-eighth of offshore oil is outside the 50-mile line.

Republicans also complain the bill does not give states any revenue from new drilling. States currently receive up to 39% of the revenue from drilling in their waters.

Pence faults the bill for omitting incentives for nuclear power as part of a package of incentives for alternative fuels. Hill says there was no political consensus on nuclear energy.

The bill passed the House 236-189, with 15 Republicans crossing over to vote for it, and 13 Democrats going the other way to vote no. Indiana's delegation voted along party lines, although Second District Democrat Joe Donnelly supported an unsuccessful attempt to substitute a GOP-backed bill before voting for the final package.

North Carolina Congressman on Burton Energy Compromise

Congressman Burton was a key part of an Energy Compromise bill that earned over 150 supporters.  North Carolina Congressman Robin Hayes talked about the bill in a recent story from the Stanly News and Press.

Here's a key part of the article about the bill Dan supported:

In an effort to amend this bill, the Minority called for a vote on the Comprehensive, Environmentally Responsi-ble Energy Plan for America, which Hayes was an original sponsor, and he voted to support this evening.

This bipartisan bill, led by U.S. Representatives Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), John Peterson (R-Pa.), Jim Costa (D- Calif.) and Dan Burton (R-Ind.), is a true comprehensive energy solution for America.

This legislation provides the first stable, designated funding source for the development of alternative fuels, renewable energy and environmental restoration by allocating the estimated $2.6 trillion in oil royalties from oil and gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf.

In addition, this bill seeks to combine responsible, targeted increases in domestic oil and gas production with an intensified effort to move vehicles to nonpetroleum alternatives and a strong federal conservation and energy efficiency commitment.

Even though the Compre-hensive, Environmentally Responsible Energy Plan for America had more than 150 cosponsors — Democrats and Republicans alike — it failed by a recorded vote of 191-226.

Dan Burton on GOP Drilling Protest #dontgo

Dan Burton on Heading Right Radio

Listen to Dan Burton on Media Lizzy's show on Heading Right Radio!

Check it out HERE.  Dan's part starts at about the 6:15 mark.