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Our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels and the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value encourages drilling without taking into account the costs to the ocean, even without major spills.

In addition, the oil royalties the Federal Government does not collect from big oil will starve the Land and Water Conservation Fund of critical financial resources.

About half of all potential future global warming emissions from United States fossil fuels lie in oil, gas and coal buried beneath our public lands, controlled by the federal government and owned by the American people - and not yet leased to private industry for fuel extraction.

In my almost ten years in the House of Representatives, I have voted consistently to allow companies to drill for oil and natural gas in environmentally friendly ways.

Fracking is doable if there's full disclosure of all chemicals used. Secondly, science dictates the policy rather than politics. Third, there's collaboration between environmental groups and the natural gas industry.

The fossil fuel industry commands outsize sway over U.S. politics, markets, and democracy. I knew these companies were formidable, but when I served on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, I got a close up view of how the industry disregards government safeguards.

Coal and oil lobbyists added fossil fuels to a bill aimed at helping American manufacturers, so they too could claim 'manufacturing' tax deductions.

Fish and Wildlife has a significant amount of federal funds for land acquisition, yet it is skimping on management of the lands it already possesses and shortchanging local tax bases.

Pond scum stinks. And so do the Obama administration's enormous, taxpayer-funded 'investments' in politically connected biofuel companies.

Corporations that are formed for the purpose of earning profits do not have the constitutionally protected rights that natural citizens have. They should not spend their corporate dollars, Treasury dollars, to influence outcome of elections.