Mr. MARKEY. If this amendment passes, Mardi Gras will come on the Wednesday before Fat Tuesday this year. That's because the Landry amendment delivers up to $6 billion in a financial King Cake to Louisiana and to the other Gulf States at the expense of the other 46 States in the Union.

In 2006, the Republican Congress passed legislation that will divert $150 billion over the next 60 years from offshore drilling on public lands to the four Gulf Coast States--Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. That bill set up what amounts to a new entitlement program for these four States, which will result in a massive transfer of wealth from the Federal Government. This amendment would send $6 billion to these four States on top of that $150 billion they will already be getting.

These oil and gas resources on public lands belong to all of the American people, not just to those of the adjacent States. They are public resources that belong as much to someone living in Kansas, Massachusetts, or Hawaii as they do to someone living in Louisiana or Texas. These are resources that should help every American, not just a select few. The revenue generated from these public resources goes to the Federal Treasury to help pay for Medicare and Medicaid. It helps to pay for our national defense. We can no longer afford to continue this diversion of taxpayer funds to these four States. We need this revenue to reduce our deficit and to get our fiscal house in order.

I had offered an amendment that would have recovered the $150 billion we are going to be sending to these four States, which the majority did not make in order, and now this amendment would take us in the complete opposite direction.

So I commend the gentleman from Louisiana. I can't blame him for trying to get even more Federal money directed to his home State under this program. Yet, if you come from one of the 46 States that is not--and let me enumerate them again--Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or Texas, you would have to be crazy to vote for this amendment, because they're going to take money away from your States, away from your Medicare beneficiaries, away from your contributions to the defense budget. It will be higher in all of those other States because this money is going to be sucked out of the Federal Treasury, as though through a straw, right into the States of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. If you vote for this amendment, you are voting to send that money--$6 billion--directly from your State to the gentleman from Louisiana's State.

I urge all members of the Louisiana delegation to vote against the Markey amendment, and I would give a similar recommendation to the other Members from the other three States. But if you don't come from one of those four States, why would you send $6 billion to those States, money which should be in the Federal Treasury, when it should be used for all of the citizens of our country? At this point, I yield back the balance of my time.