The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tuesday called for U.S. policymakers to increase producer access to the offshore, block the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) efforts to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act and to rein in the regulatory tsunami.

Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue cited a recent Wood Mackenzie study, which concluded that increasing access to domestic oil and natural gas resources would create an additional 530,000 jobs, $150 billion more in government revenue and boost domestic production by four million boe/d by 2025 (see Daily GPI, Jan. 5).

“Yet instead of moving forward, we are slipping backwards. Government delays in issuing permits for energy development in the Gulf of Mexico have prompted companies to move drilling rigs — and jobs — to other…producing countries. Excluding the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts from the upcoming five-year offshore plan will seriously undercut jobs and America’s energy security,” he said in his “State of American Business” address in Washington, DC.

“We will also continue our legal and legislative efforts to stop the EPA from misapplying environmental laws in order to unilaterally regulate greenhouse gases. The chamber will support appropriate bipartisan legislation to delay or stop the EPA and return the important climate change issue to the purview of the Congress,” Donohue said.

He further said regulation needs to be brought under control. “In recent years, we have seen an unprecedented explosion of new regulatory activity…The administration is likely to turn increasingly to the regulatory agencies now that getting legislation out of Congress could be more difficult,” he noted.

A regulatory tsunami is “about to wash over our capital markets” as a result of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, which President Obama signed into law in July, Donohue said. The new law calls for 259 mandated rulemakings, another 188 suggested rulemakings , 63 reports and 59 studies. “My grandchildren will be old and retired before it is all implemented,” he noted.

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