Shreveport Times
Representative Steve Scalise
March 8, 2010

“At a time when people are asking ‘where are the jobs,’ thousands of high-paying jobs are waiting to be created in America’s energy industry…

Instead of a comprehensive national energy policy that would create jobs, this administration and the liberals running Congress are trying to ram through a ‘cap and trade’ national energy tax that would ship millions of jobs overseas and raise energy prices on American families. And these same people continue to threaten our energy security through attempts to put an end to critical technologies like fracturing…

In fact, thanks to fracturing, which has been safely used for 60 years, Louisiana’s energy industry created almost 33,000 jobs and generated $3.2 billion into our state’s economy…

Some in Washington are even working to strip energy-producing states of their ability to regulate fracturing. Turning this authority over to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would threaten energy production altogether and could severely hurt job creation and economic activity at a time when we absolutely need it.

Louisiana’s Legislature formally urged Congress to ensure that fracturing remains tightly regulated by the states, as it has for 60 years…

Turning the regulation of fracturing over to the EPA is not only unnecessary but would represent nothing more than a one-size-fits-all power grab by those who oppose responsible, 21st-century American energy production…

Because of these effective state protections … fracturing has been used in more than 1 million wells throughout the U.S. without a single case of groundwater contamination. Not one in 60 years…

The American people deserve common-sense solutions that will help redirect our weakened economy. We should promote ideas that create jobs and harness — not stifle — the American ingenuity that has helped us become the greatest nation in the world.”

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