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Charlie Melancon on Energy & Oil

Democratic Representative (LA-3)


Voted YES on criminalizing oil cartels like OPEC.

Amends the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to declare it to be illegal for any foreign states to act collectively to limit the US price or distribution of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product. Denies a foreign state engaged in such conduct sovereign immunity from the jurisdiction of US courts

Proponents support voting YES because:

Gas prices have now reached an all-time record high, $3.27 a gallon, topping even the 1981 spike. This won't be the end of these skyrocketing price hikes either.

OPEC oil exports represent 70% of all the oil traded internationally. For years now, OPEC's price-fixing conspiracy has unfairly driven up the price and cost of imported crude oil to satisfy the greed of oil exporters. We have long decried OPEC, but have done little or nothing to stop this.

Reference: No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act (NOPEC); Bill H R 2264 ; vote number 2007-398 on May 22, 2007

Voted YES on removing oil & gas exploration subsidies.

Creating Long-term Energy Alternatives for the Nation (CLEAN) Act

Proponents support voting YES because:

This legislation seeks to end the unwarranted tax breaks & subsidies which have been lavished on Big Oil over the last several years, at a time of record prices at the gas pump and record oil industry profits. Big Oil is hitting the American taxpayer not once, not twice, but three times. They are hitting them at the pump, they are hitting them through the

Reference: Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation(CLEAN); Bill HR 6 ("First 100 hours") ; vote number 2007-040 on Jan 18, 2007

Voted NO on keeping moratorium on drilling for oil offshore.

Vote to amend a bill providing for exploration & production of mineral resources on the outer Continental Shelf. The underlying bill revises the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act's guidelines for natural gas lease administration. Voting YES on the amendment would maintain the 25-year moratorium on oil and gas drilling in environmentally sensitive areas offshore. Voting NO on the amendment would lift the 25-year moratorium, and establish incentives to renegotiate existing leases that fail to include market-based price caps.

Proponents support voting YES because:

This amendment would preserve the longstanding moratorium so important to coastal States. The amendment would also preserve the underlying bill's one redeeming feature, the renegotiating of the cash-cow leases now pouring billions of dollars into already stuffed oil industry coffers.

We have only 5% of the world's population, but 30% of the world's automobiles, and we produce 45% of the world's automotive carbon

Reference: Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act; Bill H R 4761 ; vote number 2006-354 on Jun 29, 2006

Voted YES on scheduling permitting for new oil refinieries.