'Death By A Thousand Cuts': Bill Cassidy Grills DoI Official On Off-Shore Drilling Regulations

4 months ago

During a Senate Energy Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) spoke about off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Transcript

00:00Good morning ma'am. Good morning Senator. I was pleased to hear that you

00:03understand the economic impact of the ability of a family to work offshore in

00:07order to create an opportunity for their daughter to have the future such as you

00:11have had. So because some people are just insensitive to that or don't care. Now

00:18you had mentioned earlier I'm told a question from Senator Manchin that we

00:22will continue leasing but I'm gonna press you on that. We will continue

00:26leasing means sometime in the distant future ten years from now we may not we

00:29may have another lease. But as you know there has to be kind of certainty as to

00:33the flow next year we're gonna have a lease in the year after in the year

00:37after. Because if you work for a company which serves those rigs you can't have a

00:44two-year interruption everybody's laid off and you can no longer do it. So will

00:49there be a lease sale in 2024? Senator I so thank you very much. I what I would

00:58say to you is that I there we've got a five-year plan and if I'm confirmed as

01:04the Deputy Secretary my top priority I've said a piece of this throughout the

01:09hearing it would be to immediately at a deeper level understand the policy

01:16implications and our policy decisions in the energy space. And this is one of them

01:20that's very important and I would want to work with you to understand for

01:26example our five-year plan the approach to offshore leasing that we. Let me stop

01:29for a second. Yes sir. Thank you. In a previous hearing a deputies acting

01:33Deputy Secretary suggested that it would take 18 months to process this. Well that

01:37would put us into late 2025 and 2026. You're thinking you've been in office

01:42for three and a half years. If you'd started right off the bat we would have

01:46like something happening now and then something happening in 25 and 26. So it

01:51seems as if there's foot dragging. I'm just an outside looking in. Oh how long

01:56can we stretch it out so that yeah we're technically doing it but in reality

02:02those families that depend upon this income as your family once did they will

02:06be left hanging out to dry but we don't care because we don't want it to happen.

02:09So I guess my frustration is why is it always tomorrow that this is going to

02:15happen? Why didn't it happen when the dadgum administration took office? So

02:20Senator I know I know this is you know this is a this is a frustrating response

02:25to you but I'm just speaking the truth which is that I haven't been part in the

02:29policy you know conversation on energy since I've been in the administration so

02:34it's so if I were confirmed as Deputy Secretary I would be and and I would

02:40seek to to understand the details and the implications at a deeper level at

02:45that. Let me just mention another observation. It does seem like there's a

02:48strategy of death by a thousand cuts. So there's been this latest ruling

02:54regarding the rice whale in which they found critical habitat maybe because

02:58there was a single possible maybe kind of we think could have been sighting

03:03off of Texas and they know they're off of Florida and so they're putting a

03:07corridor in between. So far not too bad except where they've actually seen the

03:11rice whale the corridor is about five miles wide and off the coast of

03:15Louisiana it's anywhere from 20 to 30 miles wide. That is significant because

03:19there's a 10 mile per hour limitation on speed only for offshore service

03:25vehicles for the rigs not for a powerboat. So it's like a targeted we're

03:31gonna make it economically inefficient for you to actually drill offshore. Now

03:36you have not been there while they're doing this but that is the sort of thing

03:39that from the outside looking in it's just hard to convince me that this is

03:44not a strategy of death of a thousand cuts to the people who depend upon this

03:49industry for their economic livelihood. Again you're gonna say and rightfully so

03:56you've not been part of that decision-making but that will be

03:59something that I will be kind of looking at. It doesn't seem to see as the science

04:04seems quite convenient. We're relying on the science but you can't help but

04:09notice it's five miles wide here but where there's outer continental shelf

04:12drilling is 20 to 30 miles wide. Hmm that science makes a lot of sense to me.

04:17No it doesn't. So now that I've been kind of bursting at the head let me go here.

04:31Revenue sharing let me just ask you about this revenue sharing land water

04:37conservation fund which I know that the chairman has used very nicely for West

04:42Virginia and that Danes was speaking very highly of is funded almost entirely

04:45out of oil and gas revenues. There's a cap that limits the amount coming to the

04:52Gulf States which will use this for coastal restoration. By the time

04:57this conference is over this committee hearings over my state would have lost

05:00about a hundred square yards of land to relative sea level rise. We use that

05:04money to buy our state's Constitution to rebuild our coastline. Last year Louisiana

05:09Texas Mississippi Alabama missed out on about on about 216 million dollars that

05:14would have gone to local resiliency in these four states because there was this

05:18cap that we're trying to raise with the RISE Act. So I'm just asking you with

05:24your experience in the Everglades is there a nice ROI on investment in

05:30resiliency which is to say that if we invest now we have to spend less later? I

05:35promise I didn't plant that question with you Senator Cassidy. Yes there is a

05:40tremendous ROI you know the the numbers we've used in the Everglades for wetland

05:44and coastal restoration is something like four to one ROI and that's that's

05:50an old number it's probably higher now. I traveled to Louisiana last August and

05:57spent some time out there looking at some of that coastal restoration and and

06:03I think you know I know you've got the RISE Act the RISE Act is moving through

06:07and you know if I'm if I'm confirmed as deputy secretary or even in my my

06:12current role my current portfolio you know I would welcome the opportunity to

06:16to work with you under understand you know that you've given me some some some

06:22good numbers I'd like to understand those better about the impact in the

06:25when it comes to revenue sharing cap as well. This coastal restoration is

06:29obviously essential for our coastal states. Thank you. I yield. Thank you. Thank

06:34you Senator.

'Death By A Thousand Cuts': Bill Cassidy Grills DoI Official On Off-Shore Drilling Regulations

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