This is not a bill whose primary purpose is to balance the budget. This bill takes the whole notion of reconciliation and turns it on its head. Outside of opening up ANWR to drilling, a specter that has been hanging over the Congress for years, I don’t believe this bill really raises any revenues.

     Goodness knows there were plenty of reasonable opportunities open to this Committee to raise the monies required by our budget instructions, but they were largely ignored.

     The Committee could have chosen, for example, to reign in some of the eye-popping giveaways that line the designer pockets of the oil and gas executives. But, instead, this bill hands out even more.

     This monster comes along and permanently forbids the Administration from creating any new fees or raising existing fees on huge oil conglomerates.

     Last year, the 10 largest oil companies earned revenues of over $1 trillion and had net profits of over $100 billion. Throughout this year, they have repeatedly broken profit records and are steaming toward ever higher numbers in the months ahead. Someone stop us before we legislate again.

     When it comes to rewarding the oil and gas industry, this Committee’s legislative agenda for the whole year reads like a series of bad horror movies. It is stunning to me that we are even entertaining handing out more goodies to an industry that is scoring record-breaking profits on the backs of hardworking American families who are struggling to fill their tanks and heat their homes.

     Further we find in the text of this bill tasty tidbits for the hardrock industry.

     A good example is the existing $125 a year hardrock claim maintenance fee. It is being reduced to $35 a year for the next five years. This is not a partisan issue. The hardrock industry has been paying this claim fee for a decade. I cannot imagine that paying $125 a claim is going to kill the gold industry. But they are being relieved of this trifling fee.

     And finally, Mr. Chairman, I cannot comprehend the brilliance behind opening up our Federal coastal resources to the whims of cash-strapped States. Now, I am no scientist or meteorologist, but I was under the impression that destructive forces threatening our coastal resources and communities originated in the Atlantic Ocean, not Washington, D.C. This proposal confuses acts of God with acts of greed.

     Mr. Chairman, legislating is not ever a pretty process. It has often been likened to sausage making – an apt description. This legislation, however, conjures up images of a recipe that was tossed into a cauldron and simmered until Midnight.