Senator David Vitter (R-La.) is putting the White House on notice. Looking to scale back inhibitive federal regulations, the Louisiana Republican is introducing new legislation to bolster American energy production and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. By amending Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior abused policies, the Energy Production and Delivery Act of 2013 could create millions of jobs through the development of oil and natural gas reserves, save hundreds of thousands of jobs by turning off EPA’s job-killing regulations, and add trillions of dollars to our GDP through increased economic activity.
Sen. Vitter’s legislation is as ambitious as it is expansive, so ATR highlighted some of our favorite parts of the bill below.
Opening up the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)
Obama Policy: Upon being sworn in, Obama promptly killed the 5-year lease plan to auction oil and natural gas leases off the Pacific and Atlantic OCS. When Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar finally released DOI’s 5 year OCS proposal, energy development was totally prohibited off America’s Eastern and Western coasts.
Vitter Proposal: Allow oil and natural gas producers to develop natural resources off our Outer Continental Shelf. Doing so could create 1.2 million well-paying jobs and increase America’s GDP by $8.2 trillion over the next 30 years.
Open up Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
Obama Policy: Unnecessarily postponing hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity, it is currently illegal to extract oil and natural gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Despite bipartisan calls to open ANWR, the President refuses to allow development of this desolate area.
Vitter Proposal: Create over 700,000 jobs and generate billions in new government revenue by allowing for safe and responsible development of this region.
Regulatory Burden
Obama Policy: President Obama has unleashed job-killing regulations that have severely hamstrung American energy production and endanger traditional sources of power generation. Through the EPA, this administration has used the Clean Air Act to enact policies they would never have passed both Congressional chambers, namely severe carbon constriction.
Vitter Proposal: Eliminate EPA’s newfound calling to regulate greenhouse gases (GHG). Preempting EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 and pulling back a handful of other regulations could save over 500,000 jobs and over $7 trillion in GDP over the next 20 years. This legislation would prohibit the regulation of CO2 until other large emitters, like China, India, and Russia, implement similar economically destructive policies.
The Energy Production and Delivery Act of 2013 does lots of other lots of other great stuff, like approve the Keystone XL Pipeline (+ 20,000 jobs) and expedites the judicial review process for energy projects. Click here to learn more about this pivotal piece of legislation.