When the original Deep Water Royalty Relief legislation was on the House floor in 1995, I opposed it and said that it was "an early Christmas" for Big Oil.

Eleven years later, the holiday has never ended and royalty relief keeps on giving ever-bigger gifts.

We were assured by the champions of royalty relief that the 1995 act was a miraculous piece of legislation that would end up making money for the taxpayers by giving away publicly owned oil as an incentive for drilling.

But the concept of paying Big Oil companies to do what they would do anyway did not make any sense then and it makes even less sense now. Simply put, the taxpayers should not continue to massively subsidize an industry reaping the benefits of record prices and swimming in profits.

According to a recent estimate by the GAO, deep water royalty relief under the 1995 act will cost the taxpayers between $20 billion and $80 billion over the next twenty-five years, depending upon the outcome of an industry lawsuit.

Thankfully, today we have an opportunity to adopt the Hinchey amendment and put a halt to this fiscal rip-off.

This carefully-crafted amendment provides an incentive for the major oil and gas companies which were granted royalty-free leases under the Clinton Administration – companies such as Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and others – to renegotiate those leases to include a price cap on royalty relief. The companies may choose not to do so, but would then not be eligible for new OCS leases.

Mr. Chairman, there is a lot of false bravado and empty rhetoric in this chamber when it comes to reducing the budget deficit. But this amendment is the real deal. Let’s stand up for the taxpayers and adopt it.