Scalise leads other House members on energy tour

The local congressman who now serves as the GOP’s House whip brought a delegation of fellow representatives for a visit to his home turf earlier this month, utilizing the field trip to educate them on the importance of the Gulf coast – and Louisiana in particular – to the overall U.S. energy mosaic.

Rep. Steve Scalise R-Metairie also reiterated his message that unfettered regulations promulgated by the EPA and other federal agencies stand in the way of progress and profits, bolstering legislation he has sponsored geared to restrict executive agencies from locking in rules that are forecast to have major economic impacts on affected industries.

Scalise’s 2015 Offshore Energy Tour, he said, would provide a diverse, bipartisan group of representatives “with a better understanding of offshore energy production, which involves cutting-edge technologies, unparalleled safety standards, and world-renowned ingenuity in implementing these large-scale projects.”

Republicans Larry Bucshon of Indiana, Buddy Carter of Georgia, California’s Paul Cook and Mimi Waters, Virginia’s Barbara Comstock, Michigan’s Tim Walberg, and Montana’s Ryan Zinke joined Texas Democrat Gene Green to tour a Hess offshore production field about 65 miles off Louisiana’s coast, in an area known as the Mississippi Canyon. That section of the Gulf is not far from the 2010 Macondo well explosion.

The delegation also met with local business owners at Port Fourchon, where a roundtable discussion included elements of pending legislation, and the frustration some in the oil extraction businesses have experienced with regulatory processes.

They took an aerial tour of the coast and also toured Port Fourchon itself.

“Experiencing offshore energy production is an incredible opportunity, and I am honored to lead these members on our seventh annual Offshore Energy Tour,” Scalise said. “American offshore energy production is a crucial part of an all-of-the-above national energy strategy that I fight for daily in Congress, despite President Obama’s anti-fossil fuel agenda.”