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Washington, DC – Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-2) voted in support of H.R. 4480, the Domestic Energy Jobs Act, today in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Domestic Energy Jobs Act is a package of seven bills aimed to lower gas prices and move the United Starts towards greater energy independence.

Congressman Guthrie, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has participated in the committee-level drafting of several energy bills, included in the Domestic Energy Jobs Act.

The Domestic Energy Jobs Act makes commonsense corrections to our current energy policy. For example, it includes a provision by Kentucky Congressman Ed Whitfield (KY-1) that urges the President to cease with a barrage of new regulations on the oil and gas refining sector until we have a more complete picture of how they will impact gas prices. The bill also includes a requirement that if the president – now or in the future – believes that gas prices are high enough to warrant accessing the emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as President Obama did and continues to discuss doing again, then he or she should would also be required to execute a plan to increase domestic oil production so that we can address our long-term energy problem and dependence on foreign oil.

Additionally, the bill includes provisions that require federally-owned land with the most available energy resources to be open to leasing, forward planning for a national energy policy that will increase domestic energy production and decrease our need for foreign oil, and increase certainty in the actual permitting process for oil and gas production.

“We want to get to the heart of our energy problems by reducing permitting delays and closing loopholes that allow mineral-rich lands to be kept off the table for production,” Guthrie said. “Energy powers our economy. High gas prices mean that families and business spend more money just to keep going and less on the goods and services, and that only further stalls our economic growth. We must make commonsense changes to our nation’s energy policy to ensure we produce more affordable American energy and reduce our dependence on foreign sources.”

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