American Energy Needed to Lower Gas Prices

The increase in gas prices has become a significant hardship for American families and was one of the top concerns Oklahomans expressed to me during recent town hall meetings. House Republicans share these concerns and have passed three bills in the past several days to provide relief at the gas pump and create greatly needed jobs by expanding access to American energy.

President Obama's energy policies are detrimental to both gas prices and employment. Through a combination of postponing or canceling previously approved drilling leases and issuing outright bans on drilling, the Obama administration has imposed a de facto moratorium on domestic exploration. Analysts say the number of deepwater permits approved monthly under the Obama administration has dropped by 78 percent from the historical average. Production on the Gulf Coast has decreased by 240,000 barrels of oil a day in 2011, according to the Department of Energy, and 13 drilling rigs have left the Gulf of Mexico. The moratorium has cost the struggling region 12,000 jobs already, and an additional 24,000 Gulf jobs and 36,000 jobs nationwide are at risk if drilling remains stalled.

On May 5, the House passed the Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act to require Obama's Interior Department to act on the oil and natural gas lease sales that have been languishing since Obama took office. Originally approved in 2007, plans for drilling in four locations in the Gulf and off the coast of Virginia have been stalled, costing billions in revenue and millions of barrels of oil production per day. The bill we passed would kick start these neglected energy opportunities on the way to increasing Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) production by 3 million barrels of oil per day and 10 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day by 2027.

Days later, we passed two more pieces of legislation, the Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act and the Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act. These bills would lift the drilling ban by requiring the Obama administration to move forward with existing lease plans for the most promising parts of the OCS and by setting deadlines for the Department of the Interior to approve stalled permits to drill for oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico. Even President Clinton has criticized the "ridiculous delays in permitting when our economy doesn't need it." Louisiana Senator and fellow Democrat Mary Landrieu agrees, stating that "this administration doesn't understand that the best way to combat rising gasoline prices is to encourage new domestic development and production of oil."

With unemployment at 9 percent and gas prices near $4, developing our own energy resources is more important than ever. The Obama administration's policies have made a bad situation worse, costing thousands of jobs and driving up gas prices at a time when American families are still struggling to recover from the economic downturn. In passing these three commonsense bills, House Republicans are working to break our dependence on foreign oil, lower gas prices and bring jobs back.