House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings (WA-04) delivered the following one-minute speech on the House floor regarding today’s announcement by the Obama Administration to lock-up more areas of the Outer Continental Shelf to American energy development and job creation:

Click here to watch the floor speech

“There has been bipartisan agreement across this country, and in Congress, that blanket moratoriums on offshore drilling hurts America when it comes to jobs and energy.

Yet, the Obama Administration has suddenly imposed a moratorium that closes the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and the entire Atlantic Coast.

This is the wrong way to respond to the BP oil spill. It hurts our economy and job creation.

The answer is not to say, ‘America can’t figure it out, we’ll rely on other countries to produce our energy.’

The right answer is to find out what went wrong…and make the effective, timely reforms that ensure that U.S. offshore drilling is the safest in the world.

The Deepwater Horizon spill was a terrible tragedy…but this is a great country, and we shouldn’t allow this single event to disrupt our long-term need to develop an all-of-the-above energy plan that includes the responsible development of our nation’s offshore oil and gas reserves.

The Administration is taking us in the wrong direction. Instead, we need to be working to keep and create energy jobs here in America.

I yield back the balance of my time.”

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