Well Servicing - March/April 2008

As a regular department in Well Servicing magazine, Congressional Spotlight profiles an elected official at the state or national level of government. Interviewed by Kristin Van Veen-Hincke of Vikki Cooper & Associates

The passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was opposed by many supporters of the oil and gas industry. Although the legislation was touted by some as a positive step for the industry, further scrutiny of the bill proved that notion to be wrong.

 Republican Congressman Steve Pearce of New Mexico believes Congress actually passed what he calls “The No Energy Act.” “We didn’t do one thing to enhance energy,” he said. “In fact, what we did is limit and regulate energy. The initial bill was very destructive before we raised such objections in committee, and between the committee and the floor, the Speaker of the House chose to pull out the sections that were very damaging to the oil and gas industry, However, even the titles that remained are destructive.”

One of those remaining titles is the increased CAFE standards by which automakers are required to increase gas mileage to 35 mpg by the year 2020. Pearce is opposed to this provision because it imposes unrealistic standards on industry. “In regard to the CAFE standards, we do not have the technical capability to produce those kinds of cars now. Basically, 380 cars are in our showrooms today. Only eight comply with those new standards, so what we’re going to do is drive the production down on high powered vehicles, such as pick-up trucks and trucks for the oilfield, and we’re going to make those more expensive and make them less available. We are going to then subsidize the low cost vehicles, the high mileage vehicles, meaning people in the oilfield are basically going to subsidize people in San Francisco, New York City and Los Angeles. That’s not what we should be about in this country. We should be about freedom of choices. Unfortunately, this decision by Congress will probably kill one of our three auto manufac­turers because their profits come from our pick-ups and SUVs.”

Another provision that survived in the bill is the renewable fuel standards. Congressman Pearce believes this requirement is counterproductive to the financial stability of our economy. “Thirty- six billion gallons of ethanol are prescribed in this bill,” he explained, “and half of those have to come from cellulose ethanol, where the technology does not exist to create that. Because the refiners can’t produce that amount, we are going to levy a fine that will be passed on to the consumers. So in essence, we are again regulating things that can be produced and insisting on legislating things that cannot be produced. This type of thinking is very damaging long-term to our economy.”

“One final slap at the Western states is that we are restricted from taking one tree out of our national forests in order to produce biomass,” Pearce commented. “That thinking is completely upside down. Why would we do that?” The bill actually prohibits the use of overgrown and unhealthy forests on federal lands, a potentially dangerous source of wildfires, from being used to develop biomass plants.

 “The energy bill did not create any new energy for the United States,” Pearce said. “I was opposed to it and I voted against it. This is an energy bill that should not have been passed, should not have been signed, and I disagreed with the President on the signing of it.”