Big Oil's `Rock Star' in Congress Runs Rig Tours for Support

At least one of Scalise’s ideas has provoked conflict: a non-binding resolution asserting that a carbon tax would be “detrimental” to American families and businesses. The measure, which could reach a floor vote later this year, is supported by nearly two dozen free-market advocacy groups but is viewed warily by Exxon Mobil Corp. and the API.

Floating Platform

Some lawmakers undertake fact-finding missions to the beaches of Cuba and Thailand, but the seven joining Scalise in April had a decidedly less glamorous destination: Chevron’s 75,000-ton Jack/St. Malo production facility. For just over a year, the platform has been sucking crude from rock 27,000 feet under the surface of the sea.

As a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter thudded over canals snaking through once-lush green marsh on the 90-minute trip to the platform, Scalise ticked off the benefits of offshore drilling. Salt water is eating away at Louisiana’s coastal wetlands and driving the disappearance of a football field worth of land every hour, he said. The state has vowed to dedicate its share of federal revenues from offshore oil and gas development to coastal restoration.

“Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico actually will help us restore these wetlands,” Scalise told his colleagues.

Once on the platform, where lawmakers donned hardhats and ear plugs, Scalise outlined the dangers of managing offshore drilling from Washington.

“When they’re drilling, things change dynamically; you want to be able to respond to it on the spot, you don’t want to be worried that you’re violating some federal regulation that’s unmanageable,” he said. “In the meantime, you get a blowout, and they’re going to blame you, and you say ‘Look, I’m trying to comply with the stupid rule.’”

Warm Crude

The issue might have been theoretical for some of the lawmakers who accompanied Scalise offshore. But cradling an 8-ounce vial of warm, freshly extracted crude oil -- and touching the top of the 24-inch pipeline that will ferry it 137 miles (220 km) away for refining -- brought it into focus.

“It’s different than just hearing about it. Actually coming to see it gives me a completely different perspective,” said Representative Marc Veasey, a second-term lawmaker from Texas and one of two Democrats on Scalise’s excursion. “To see what these guys do each and every day really makes you appreciate that we can go put gas in our tank and turn on the lights –- and the work that goes into making sure we have those things.”

Visiting oilfields and processing facilities is as valuable for freshman lawmakers from non-producing areas as it is for congressional veterans with major energy businesses in their districts, API’s Finkel said.

“When you better educate these folks who have been generally supportive, they become great ambassadors and can tell other members they’ve been there, they’ve seen it,” Finkel said. “The more members that are getting that first hand, practical life experience of seeing this stuff, that really carries a lot of weight when members are talking to one another.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer A. Dlouhy in Washington at jdlouhy1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net Elizabeth Wasserman


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