Lower Energy Costs Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LATTA. Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act, legislation offered by our majority leader that will fulfill House Republicans' commitment to America and focuses on one of the most pressing issues facing communities in Ohio and across the country.

Over the past 2 years, I have heard from countless people in Ohio's Fifth District that the soaring cost of energy has negatively impacted family budgeting, business operations, and agricultural output.

One retired individual told me that his gas budget plan went from $100 a month to $160.

Farmers in my district were hit hard because of the need to fuel their farm equipment and purchase fertilizer and other materials made from petroleum products. In 2022, operating costs for ag producers went up a whopping 30 percent. This resulted in higher food and grocery costs for consumers, eating up a larger share of the family budget.

There is no way around it: Energy plays a huge role in America's economy. Plants in northern Ohio, such as glass, steel, and food processing, depend on reliable and affordable energy.

When I asked stakeholders at a recent Energy and Commerce roundtable whether we need more or less power in the future to meet demand, it was unanimous. Our economic future depends on the generation of more power, not less.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration's policy of restricting access to and production of energy resulted in higher costs.

After promising throughout 2020 that he was going to shut down American energy production, President Biden came into office and immediately canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried 830,000 barrels per day from Canada. This ill-conceived order also eliminated good-paying American jobs.

He then halted new oil and gas leases on Federal lands, slowed or halted the permitting process for new oil and gas projects, and authorized financial regulators to issue new rules to make it harder to invest in the oil and gas industry.

Instead of recognizing that his failed policies were causing prices to increase, the administration called on countries like Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC nations for relief and authorized historic releases from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to manipulate the markets.

To the surprise of no one, all of these gimmicks failed, and the American people have paid the price. That ends today.

H.R. 1 represents the culmination of our early efforts to solve the problem of lowering energy costs. It will increase domestic energy production, reform restrictive and costly permitting processes, reverse the Biden administration's anti-American energy policies, and boost the processing and production of critical minerals.

This legislation also includes my bill, the REFINER Act, to boost refining capacity in the United States. In order to meet the energy demands of the American people, we need more refining infrastructure to transform products into fuel and other petroleum products.

We also need increased capacity to keep the prices of everyday goods down, like medicine, hygiene products, clothing, home improvement products, and more.

The REFINERY Act will provide us with the much-needed blueprint to do just that, and I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

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