Take a look at what Republicans are using as riders. YIKES

Policy Riders in H.R.1
Agriculture
Prohibits funding for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. Sec. 1285
Consumer Protection
Restricts the ability of the FDA to transfer funds. Sec. 1268
Prohibits the Federal Reserve from transferring more than $80 million to the new Bureau of
Consumer Financial Protection.
Sec. 1517
Prohibits funds for a government sponsored “consumer products complaints database.” Sec. 4046
Defense
Prohibits agencies from obligating funds in contravention of parts of the Iran Sanctions Act of
1996.
Sec. 1115
Prohibits funds to take any action to effect or implement the disestablishment, closure or
realignment of the US Joint Forces Command.
Sec. 4020
Prohibits funds made available to the Department of Defense for official representation
purposes.
Sec. 4031
Education
Bans funding for the Department of Education regulations on Gainful Employment, as-yetunpublished rules that would restrict federal student aid to for-profit colleges whose students
have high debt-to-income ratios and require the schools to report more information about
student outcomes.
Sec. 4012
Prohibits funds for implementing a provision specific to the State of Texas in the “Education Job
Fund.”
Sec. 4051
Environment
Prohibits funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program. Sec. 1281
Prohibits funding for the Conservation Stewardship Program. Sec. 1282
Prohibits funding for the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act. Sec. 1283
Prohibits funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program or the State Energy Program. Sec. 1434
Prohibits funding for various environmental projects in California. Sec. 1475
Prohibits funding for a climate change czar in the White House. Sec. 1535
Prohibits funding for EPA efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. Sec. 1746
Prohibits funding for the EPA to change a rule regulating water. Sec. 1747
Prohibits funding for enforcing an order by the Secretary of the Interior calling for protecting
public natural spaces.
Sec. 1778
Puts a moratorium, for the duration of the CR, on the payment of legal fees to citizens and
groups who sue the government.
Sec. 4007
Prohibits funds to implement, administer or enforce the rule entitled “National Emission
Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From the Portland Cement Manufacturing Industry and
Standards of Performance for Portland Cement Plants,” published by the Environmental
Protection Agency on September 9, 2010, which limits the levels of mercury in cement.
Sec. 4008


Policy Riders in H.R. 1
Prohibits funds to the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to consider, review, reject remand or
other invalidate any permit issued for Outer Continental Shelf sources located offshore of the
States along the Arctic Coast.
Sec. 4014
Defines specifically what greenhouse gases are and prohibits the EPA from imposing regulations
on those gasses emitted by a stationary source for seven months.
Sec. 4015
Prohibits funds to implement the Klamath (California) Dam Removal and Sedimentation Study,
conducted by the US Bureau of Reclamation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Sec. 4028
Prohibits funds to implement or enforce the Travel Management Rule, which would close roads
and trails on National Forest System land.
Sec. 4029
Prohibits funds for the Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and
Enforcement (OSM) from moving forward with a proposed rule that would effectively eliminate
the Stream Buffer Zone Rule, a rule that presently allows surface mining operations with
qualified permits to work within 100 feet of a stream.
Sec. 4032
Prohibit EPA funding for enforcement of total maximum daily loads in the Chesapeake Bay
watershed.
Sec. 4033
Prohibits funds for the EPA to impose and enforce federally mandated numeric Florida water
quality standards.
Sec. 4035
Prohibits funds from being used to construct ethanol blender pumps or ethanol storage facilities. Sec. 4037
Prohibits funds to implement a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Climate Service, part of the President’s fiscal year 2012 budget request.
Sec. 4038
Prohibits the EPA, Corps of Engineers and the Office of Surface Mining from implementing
coordination procedures that have served to extend and delay the review of coal mining permits.
Sec. 4039
Prohibits funds from being used to develop or approve a new limited access privilege program –
“catch-shares” – for any fishery under the jurisdiction of the South Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, New
England or Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council.
Sec. 4040
Prohibits funds for the study of the Missouri River projects. Sec. 4041
Prohibits funds for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Sec. 4042
Blocks funds for the EPA to implement a waiver to increase the ethanol content in gasoline from
10 percent to 15 percent.
Sec. 4043
Prohibits funds for the EPA to deny proposed and active mining permits under Section 404 (c) of
the Clean Water Act, specifically to revoke retroactively a permit for the Spruce Mine in West
Virginia.
Sec. 4044
Prohibits funds for the EPA to implement regulations to designate coal ash reside as hazardous
waste.
Sec. 4045
Prohibits funds for EPA to modify the national primary ambient air quality standards applicable to
coarse particulate matter (dust).
Sec. 4048

Policy Riders in H.R. 1
Federal Elections
Restricts funds from being used for the Presidential Election Campaign Fund or political party
conventions.
Sec. 4004
Health Care
Prohibits funding for the IRS to implement health care reform. Sec. 1516
Prohibits funds for a White House Director of Health Care reform. Sec. 1536
Prohibits the District of Columbia from using its own, non-federal funds to pay for abortions
beyond the very limited circumstances in which federal funds are currently available (in
circumstances of rape or incest and to save the life of a pregnant woman).
Sec. 1590
Prohibits the District of Columbia from using federal funds for syringe exchange programs. Sec. 1591
Prohibits funding for sections of the Public Health Service Act. Sec. 1820
Prohibits states from using federal funds for syringe exchange programs.  Sec. 1847
Prohibits funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., or any of its affiliates. Sec. 4013
Prohibits funds to pay any employee, officer or contractor to implement the provisions of the
health care reform law, stopping the Department of Health and Human Services from
Sec. 4016
Strips funding for any provision of the health care reform law. Sec. 4017
Prohibits the payment of salaries for any officer or employee of any federal department or
agency with respect to carrying out the health care reform law.
Sec. 4018
Bars funds to implement the individual mandate and penalties and reporting requirements of the
health care reform law.
Sec. 4019
Prohibits funds to carry out the medical loss ratio restrictions in the health care reform law.
These provisions require insurers to spend at least a certain percent of their premium revenues
on medical care.
Sec. 4027
Blocks funds for Health Insurance Exchanges, a set of state-regulated health care plans offered
under the health care reform law.
Sec. 4034
Prohibits funds for employee and officer salaries at the Center for Consumer Information and
Insurance Oversight at the Department of Health and Human Services, created by the health
care reform law.
Sec. 4047
Prohibits funds for salaries for any officer or employee of the government to issue regulations on
essential benefits under section 1302 of the health care reform law.
Sec. 4049
Prohibits funds for the independent payment advisory board. Sec. 4050
Homeland Security
Prohibits transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Sec. 1112
Prohibits transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Sec. 1113
Prohibits constructing facilities to house detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Sec. 1114
Prohibits funding for hiring new TSA employees. Sec. 1614
Prohibits funding for immigrant integration programs. Sec. 1635
Prohibits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from collecting information
on multiple sales of rifles or shotguns to the same person.
Sec. 4030
Housing
Prohibits funding for the Sustainable Communities Initiative. Sec. 2226
Prohibits funding for capital advances or rental assistance contracts for HUD Housing for the
Elderly projects.
Sec. 2237
Prohibits funding for renewing tenant-based assistance contracts. Sec. 2238
Prohibits funds for the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, State and Local Programs to provide grants under the Urban Area Security Initiative.
Sec. 4002



Policy Riders in H.R. 1
International
Prohibits funding for the US Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation, UN Population Fund,
or for foreign NGOs that use their own non-U.S. funds to provide abortion services.
Sec. 2122
Places various restrictions on Afghanistan funding. Sec. 2124
Prohibits U.S. military assistance to Chad, due to its continued use of child conscription,
consistent with the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2007.
Sec. 4011
Prohibits funds for the Overseas Comparability Pay Adjustment, an increase in pay for overseas
Foreign Service Officers approved by President Obama under the supplemental appropriations
Sec. 4021
Bans foreign aid to Saudi Arabia. Sec. 4023
Prohibits funds for UN construction within the US. Sec. 4036
Internet & Communications
Blocks funds for the Federal Communications Commission to institute Net Neutrality rules. Sec. 4006
Prohibits funds for the Community Connect broadband grant program administered by the Rural
Utilities Service of the Department of Agriculture.
Sec. 4022
Job Training
Prohibits funding for competitions for new Job Corps centers. Sec. 1802
Legislative Branch
Prohibits funding for  upgrading Congressional committee rooms. Sec. 1904
Nutrition
Prohibits funding for carrying out section 19 of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. Sec. 1284
Recovery Act
Prohibits Recovery Act funding for Department of Energy employees employed through the
Recovery Act.
Sec. 1474
Rescinds unobligated Recovery Act funds. Sec. 3001
Prohibits Recovery Act funds for signage. Sec. 3002
Trade
Prohibits NASA from collaborating with China. Sec.  1339
Prohibits Export-Import Bank funding for anyone subject to sanctions under the Iran Sanctions
Act of 1996.
Sec. 2123
Prohibits funds to provide nonrecourse marketing assistance loans to mohair farmers. Sec. 4026
White House
Prohibits funds to pay the salaries and expenses of the following “czars,” or special presidential
advisers who are not required to go through the Senate confirmation process: Obama Care
Czar, Climate Change Czar, Global Warming Czar, Green Jobs Czar, Car Czar, Guantanamo
Bay Closure Czar, Pay Czar and Fairness Doctrine Czar.
Sec. 4009

Obama: Budget compromise is good for the future

By Jamie Klatell - 04/09/11 06:02 AM ET

President Obama used his Saturday morning address to hammer home his message about the last-minute budget deal struck late Friday night.
"Leaders of both parties came together to avert a government shutdown, cut spending, and invest in our future," Obama said in a taped message.
The agreement, which came after days of partisan sparring and rhetorical drama, would fund the government through the end of September and cut $78.5 billion compared to Obama's proposed but never enacted fiscal 2011 budget.
Because it will take several days to translate the agreement into a legislative draft, both chambers passed a stopgap to keep the government funded until the middle of next week. The short-term measure would cut $2 billion from the budget, the first of the $78.5 billion in total cuts.
"This is an agreement to invest in our country’s future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history," Obama said, echoing remarks he made in announcing the agreement. "Like any compromise, this required everyone to give ground on issues that were important to them. I certainly did.  Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful – programs people rely on will be cut back; needed infrastructure projects will be delayed."
Democrats knocked off most of the controversial policy riders that House Republicans had included in H.R. 1, the package of spending cuts that passed in February, including one on funding Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion services.
"We also prevented this important debate from being overtaken by politics and unrelated disagreements on social issues," the president said in his morning address.
Republicans, however, won the inclusion of a rider to expand the District of Columbia’s school voucher program and to authorize a Government Accountability Office study of a financial oversight board established by the Wall Street reform bill.

Comments (47)

Stick to your guns and they'll always back down, Mr. President! Remember that in the future. Even Marsha Blackburn was crying begging them to give in in their caucus. So much for rof the bluster of McConnell, Boehner and Canter. Congratulations on another victory!BY SFC Carrier on 04/09/2011 at 06:47

What a hypocrite this guy is. He goes out there patting himself on the back, giving himself credit for these measly cuts that are less than 1% of this 2011 budget that was never voted on.

If you're so hyped up about the "largest spending cuts in history" implying it is what you want, then perhaps you can explain why the budget YOU presented has a $1,650,000,000,00 0.00 deficit for 2012 and the last three budgets you proposed all had $1,000,000,000,00 0.00 deficits.

Let's see how badly you react to the proposed budgets that should cut TRILLIONS in spending. If there was this much drama over what amount to pennies, there is no hope of any substantial movement towards deficit reductions.BY Hypocrite-in-Chief on 04/09/2011 at 07:23

One accomplishment of this administration is the desensitizing of the term "TRILLION" as it relates to dollars.

To put it in perspective, $1,000,000.00 million is a lot of money, right? Well, $1,000,000,000,00 0.00 (TRILLION) is a MILLION- MILLION.

Ludicrous is an understatement. What is next? a quadrillion ($1,000,000,000,00 0,000.00)—a thousand trillion or a million-billion?

And Obozo pats himself on the back over a little over $30 billion is cuts. Puleeze. He must really think we are stupid.BY no longer confused on 04/09/2011 at 07:30

The debt ceiling is more important then any budget. Once that is denied Obama will have to start making cuts and immediately. He won't have the money and can't borrow any more. Let's see what he does then. PP would be the first to go. BY Baloney Guy on 04/09/2011 at 07:41

WOW, No longer Confused, just think, if we took the equivalent of the $14 trillion debt, we could give 14 million families a million dollars each, or 28 million families $500,000.00 each or 56 million families $250,000.00 each or 112 million families $125,000.00 each. That would boost the economy.

What I want to know is where did all this money go? How many billions were embezzled by unscrupulous bureaucrats? Issa, look into the finances of all upper management in our federal bureaucracies and I bet you find a web of massive corruption, fraud and outright theft of American taxpayer dollars.. 

BY fl cracker on 04/09/2011 at 07:48

BALONEY GUY that crashing sound you hear is the Republicans caving on increasing the debt limit.BY disgusted with dc on 04/09/2011 at 07:53

It's important to know just where these budget cuts are coming from - not just how much will be cut. A more aggressively progressive tax reform is in order with a further burden placed on the highest income earners.

The Republicans blow my mind. They ran the country into the ground for 8 years and now they're dying to try to do it again. Why can't they give an 8 year moment of silence for trying to kill their country?

Republicans are cutting social service spending but increasing military spending for bull like Iraq. F-that and F-them.BY Camacho on 04/09/2011 at 07:54

Obo has an "Us against them" mentality, as if this country isn't facing absolute calamity if drastic cuts such as those proposed in Rep. Ryan's 2012 budget aren't inacted…
The MSM has totally forgotten that this budget was the duty of the Democratically controlled 111th Congress…Now I know how Geobbels did it…they should all be lined up and …
From article:
Obama said, echoing remarks he made in announcing the agreement. "Like any compromise, this required everyone to give ground on issues that were important to them. I certainly did.  

BY StPete on 04/09/2011 at 08:00

Time for Congress to do what credit card companies do when their card holders keep their credit cards maxed out—reduce the spending limit. If the Republicans agree to increasing the debt limit, they will see a three fold increase in the spending by this administration—probably through executive orders.

Warning to the GOP—do NOT increase the debt limit or you'll be looking for new jobs in 2012. 

BY SC Belle on 04/09/2011 at 08:16

Only Obama could make $38 billion in cuts from his $1.7 trillion deficit seem like a monumental triumph. What a sad day for America.BY BC on 04/09/2011 at 08:28

House Budget Committee mark-up: Part 4 (Wednesday)

House Budget Committee mark-up: Part 3 (Wednesday)

House Budget Committee Mark-up: Part 2 (Wednesday)

2012 Republican Budget Proposal Passes Committee

Washington, DC
Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Full House vote likely next week

The House Budget Committee passed the Republican's fiscal year 2012 budget Wednesday evening.
After a day long committee session that lasted into the evening, Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) budget was voted out of committee (22 – 16) along party lines without any major changes.
Democrats offered nearly two dozen amendments in an attempt to restore money for government programs ranging from food safety inspectors to Medicare. Their efforts fell short as Republicans, who outnumber Democrats, successfully blocked attempted changes.
Rep. Paul Ryan's budget cuts $5 trillion dollars - a figure tabulated by the Associated Press - over the next decade by bringing non-security discretionary spending to 2008 levels, reforming Medicare by offering government-subsidized private insurance options and reforming Medicaid through state block grants.
Specifically, Rep. Ryan obtains most savings through four major programs. Over the next decade, his plan would cut Medicaid by $735 billion, Medicare by $389 billion, non-security discretionary spending by $923 billion and health care spending by $1.4 trillion by repealing health care reform.
He says his plan brings government spending to 20% GDP by 2015.  (Last year, spending was 23.8% GDP.)  Rep. Ryan's proposal also reduces revenue by $1.8 trillion over the next ten years by reforming the tax code and capping tax rates at 25%.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, ranking member of the committee, said a Democratic alternative would be available by the time the House votes on the Republican proposal, which is expected to be next week.

Updated: 5 hr., 8 min. ago

HOUSE BUDGET COMMITTEE TAKES FIRST STEP ON THE PATH TO PROSPERITY

Committee votes to advance bold budget resolution
April 6, 2011

Washington – Earlier this evening, the House Budget Committee voted to advance a budget resolution that helps spur job creation, stops spending money that the government doesn’t have, and lifts the crushing burden of debt from the backs of the next generation. The House Budget Committee’s Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Resolution was approved by a vote of 22 to 16, with all members of the Majority voting in support of the resolution.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan made the following statement after the Committee’s vote:

“Today the House Budget Committee offered leadership for America. In sharp contrast to the empty promises and diminished future offered by the President’s budget, the budget advanced by the Committee charts a path to prosperity and a secure future for our exceptional nation.

“Instead of locking in the spending spree of the last two years, this budget cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the President’s budget over the next ten years. Instead of letting deficits spiral out of control, it reduces this year’s $1.6 trillion deficit by one-third and puts an end to the era of trillion-dollar deficits. Instead of adding $13 trillion to the debt over the next decade and trillions more in years to come, as the President’s budget does, this Path to Prosperity budget takes the steps necessary to avert a debt crisis and provides job creators with the confidence they need to start hiring today.

“Elected leaders owe it to future generations to preserve this nation’s exceptional promise, because that is exactly what previous generations of Americans worked so hard to do for us. We have a legacy to fulfill. It is time for all of us to get to work, put an end to the empty promises, and advance a path to prosperity.”

 House Budget Committee mark-up: Part 1 (Wednesday)

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand pushes plan to bolster small businesses, decrease unemployment

BY PHYLLIS FURMAN
DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER

Wednesday, April 6th 2011, 4:00 AM

Handschuh/News

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is promoting the Small Business Savings Account Act.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is throwing her weight behind local small businesses.

Noting that small businesses create half of all new jobs across the state, New York's junior senator laid out an agenda for boosting entrepreneurship that includes federal grants for small business incubators, tax-free savings accounts for business owners and tax credits to promote small business investment.

"Government doesn't create jobs, businesses do," Gillibrand said. "We need to be doing much more."

Gillibrand's proposed legislation comes against the backdrop of continued high unemployment in both the state and New York City.

Even as the economy has improved, some 800,000 New York State residents are still out of work, with 370,000 of them living in New York City. As of February, the unemployment rate in the state was 8.7%. In the city, it was 9.4%.

A key focus for Gillibrand are incubators - programs that foster early-stage small businesses. Under her agenda, incubators that provide a lift to businesses in high-growth sectors, such as technology, would be eligible for federal grants of up to $5 million.

"Every $10,000 invested in business incubators has the potential to create up to nearly 70 new local jobs," she said.

The proposed incubator program would cost an estimated $250 million in the first year.

Under the Small Business Savings Account Act, which Gillibrand is co-sponsoring, entrepreneurs could save up to $10,000 a year tax-free for their businesses.

She's also proposing legislation that would provide a 25% tax credit to spur private investors to fund emerging small businesses in promising areas that include advanced manufacturing, aerospace, biotechnology, clean energy and transportation.

Qualified small businesses could receive $2 million per year in a tax credit-eligible cash equity investment, of which no more than $1 million may come from one single investor.

Mark Jaffe, CEO of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, said Gillibrand's proposals match the needs of local small business owners.

"Listening to the almost 18,000 business and civic leaders in the Greater New York Chamber's database, we believe that federal grants and incentives will help small local businesses and not-for-profits take the chances that will let them create jobs," he said.

"At a time when corporate America is laying off people, government incentives to create jobs is just what is needed."

Where Should the US Store Its Nuclear Waste?

Good news everyone! I just devised a system that will launch our waste into space!

By New Scientist

Apr 6, 2011 09:00 AM

A commission appointed by the US Department of Energy is studying different options for dealing with spent fuel from nuclear power plants. New Scientist weighs the pros and cons of each.

Salt

Beds of salt up to 1 kilometre thick lie within 1 or 2 kilometres of the surface across much of the US. They were deposited hundreds of millions of years ago by evaporating seas.

Room-temperature radioactive waste from the production of nuclear weapons has already been stored in one salt deposit – in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico, since 1999. Now the US and Germany are considering salt for future waste repositories.

Pros: Salt can flow like slow-moving Silly Putty - so any fissures seal themselves. Buried waste would relatively quickly become encapsulated by the salt, which would close in around it due to pressure from surrounding rock.

Cons: The still-hot waste could cause small amounts of water trapped in the salt around it to move, carrying with it radioactive materials.

(Image: New Scientist)

Shale

'Shale' refers to a wide range of clay-based sedimentary rocks, ranging from soft mudstones to harder, more compact rock types such as argillite. Different types of shale were deposited in different eras over the last 550 million years (pictured), when fine particles suspended in the waters of river deltas or off the continental shelf settled and cemented into rock.

France plans to open the first underground nuclear waste repository in shale in 2025.

Pros: Shale's properties mean it could trap radioactive material that passes through the rock. Soft shale is unlikely to fracture and is self-sealing, like salt. Shale deposits are found throughout much of the US, including areas of low seismic activity.

Cons: Hard, compacted shale is prone to fracturing and doesn't self-seal. Shale deposits in the US have not been studied in enough detail to determine their suitability for storing nuclear waste.

(Image: S Gonzales and KS Johnson, 1984, Shale and other argillaceous strata in the United States/Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Granite

Granite is known as bedrock for reason. It's a hard, solid rock that is incredibly resistant to wear. Near-surface deposits of the rock formed hundreds of millions of years ago from cooling magma.

In the 1980s, the US temporarily stored spent nuclear fuel in an underground research laboratory surrounded by granite in Nevada. Finland and Sweden are pursuing nuclear waste repositories in granite, the first of which is scheduled to open in Finland in 2020. China, Japan, Switzerland, and the UK are also giving the hard rock a closer look.

Pros: Strong, stable rock that has a long history of being mined.

Cons: Granite is brittle and fractures easily, creating fissures through which nuclear waste could migrate into surrounding environments and possibly freshwater aquifers. Safe storage would require man-made barriers made of metals such as copper or stainless steel, but these could potentially fail while the waste was still radioactive.

(Image: JB Bush, 1976, Economic and Technical Feasibility Study of Compressed Air Storage, ERDA 76-76 report prepared by General Electric Company)

Deep borehole disposal

This concept calls for burying the waste deeper than the other proposals, in granite or other hard rocks. The approach relies on new drilling technology that makes it possible to bore a 0.5-metre-wide hole as far as 5 kilometres below the surface. Canisters of spent nuclear fuel would be lowered into the bottom 2 kilometres of each borehole and then covered with a 3-kilometre-thick seal of clay, asphalt and concrete.

Pros: Deep boreholes offer all the strengths of granite, plus they are far below any freshwater aquifers. If any radioactive material seeped into the surrounding environment, it would remain trapped in dense, highly saline water.

Cons: The concept is untested.

(Image: New Scientist)

Reprocessing

Another option is to reprocess or recycle as much of the spent fuel as possible for further use. France, the UK, Russia, India and Japan currently do this. The US does not, but is considering the possibility as part of the current Department of Energy review.

Pros: Reprocessing recovers unused uranium and plutonium from spent fuel for reuse, thereby increasing the energy output from the original fuel by approximately 25 per cent. The process also reduces the volume of material to be disposed of as high-level waste to about 20 per cent of what it would otherwise be, according to the World Nuclear Association.

Cons:Plutonium that has been separated from used fuel can be used to make nuclear weapons, raising fears that it could be stolen.

(Image: Steve Allen/Brand X/Getty)

Energy solutions are all around us

By ERIC CANTOR 
Published: April 06, 2011

WASHINGTON --

In the fight to provide a national energy policy that secures America's future, we need to maximize development of our resources to win. Yet many in Washington remain intent on a policy that closes off vast sources of domestic energy while increasing costs for families and businesses that are already tightening their belts.

By enforcing a regulatory blockade on domestic drilling for oil and gas, the Obama administration is imposing what amounts to an enormous tax on all Americans. But that higher sum of money we pay for gasoline, instead of staying at home, is sent to other countries in one of the greatest transfers of wealth in history. It amounts to playing roulette with our economic and national security, while sacrificing hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The timing couldn't be worse. Crawling out of the worst recession in generations, the U.S. economy is just beginning to show long-overdue signs of recovery. But any momentum that has been generated is suddenly endangered by the abrupt spike in gasoline costs. Over the past month, gasoline has surged to about $3.65 per gallon, contributing to a roughly 33 percent rise over the past year. The pain isn't just confined to the gas pumps. Higher transportation costs cripple small businesses and lead to higher costs for families and consumers on everything from groceries to consumer goods to airline tickets.

Several economists predict that our economy could slip back into recession should oil — now around $108 per barrel — come close to retracing its 2008 highs of $147. As millions of Americans remain out of work, the stakes couldn't be higher.

The most frustrating part about watching the violent price swings at gas stations is the fact that we have the power to stop the bleeding. Much of the recent run-up in oil prices is driven by political instability in the Middle East and the fear it has stoked of supply shortages. Meanwhile, a sea of oil reserves sits untapped in America and off our coasts, including off the coast of Virginia.

The prospect of millions of barrels of secure American oil coming online in the future would help to ease concerns about supply and lead to lower energy prices today. Yet the Obama administration has stifled new energy development throughout the country. In the Gulf of Mexico, it has slowed the flow of permits on shallow and deep-water drilling to a trickle. And it eliminated plans to tap Virginia's offshore energy reserves, which the Southeast Energy Alliance estimated could create nearly 2,000 jobs and produce enough oil and natural gas to fuel our cars and heat our homes in Virginia for years to come.

In the increasingly crowded global marketplace, America cannot compete without an affordable, secure and reliable supply of energy. The administration must answer why it is better for us to remain beholden to the whims of unstable dictatorships than it is for us to maximize our own domestic energy resources. Why is it better for us to export jobs and economic growth abroad rather than put people to work in America?

Safety and environmental concerns are legitimate and must be addressed. That much we can all agree on. We also must take advantage of every natural resource at our disposal, including cleaner alternatives such as natural gas, nuclear, solar and wind. Continued innovation will increase the amount of renewable energy we incorporate into our daily lives.

But any serious and candid conversation about our energy future must allow that oil will remain a critical component.

In America, we have some of the cleanest and most innovative drilling technology in the world. From a global environmental standpoint, it makes no sense to outsource oil production to often-corrupt countries with poor environmental track records. Who is likely to produce a barrel of oil in a more eco-friendly fashion, America or Nigeria?

Also detrimental to the goal of energy independence is the administration's regulatory assault on oil refineries. Hammering refiners with a barrage of new overreaching regulations under the Clean Air Act will serve as a burdensome new tax that will be passed on to consumers. If the goal is to chase American refining capacity and droves of jobs abroad, then the president's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) might succeed. Either way, the result will be higher gasoline prices for families and businesses.

It's time for America to get serious about our energy future. House Republicans are taking the lead by proposing to reopen Virginia for offshore energy development and exploration, while setting firm timelines for the Interior Department to take up applications to drill in a safe, responsible and transparent manner using American technology, innovation and workers.

Overzealous regulatory policy is starving America of the affordable energy necessary for the economy to grow. By sending a clear signal that we are prepared to harness all of our natural resources, we can help break the back of rising gasoline prices and become more secure in our energy needs.

Eric Cantor, who represents Virginia's 7th District in the U.S. House of Representatives, is the House majority leader. Contact his office at or call (804) 747-4073.