Biden Admin. Continues To Weaponize EPA Against American Workers

Floor Speech

"It's now been three years since President Biden put radical activists in charge of American energy policy.

And three years in, the American people continue to bear the burden of its devastating effects.

The Biden Administration's policies have contributed to sky high gas prices. Energy regulations are driving up the cost of natural gas and home heating. The cost of gasoline has increased a cumulative 43.5% since Biden took office. Fuel oil prices have increased 71%, and electricity prices have increased 24.3%.

So here's one example -- the Biden Administration has worked overtime to strangle domestic oil and gas drilling to a trickle. And they've bragged about their plan to offer "the smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in history'. This year, in fact, will see zero new offshore oil and gas lease sales.

From Day One, Americans have been suffering under the weight of a climate agenda tailored to the preferences of coastal elites. From electric vehicles to solar panels, the Biden Administration seems to take its cues from the greenest follies of the bluest states.

And three years in, they're showing no sign of stopping. This week, the Senate is expected to vote on the President's choice to elevate one of the masterminds of his war on affordable American energy to a senior role at the EPA.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone whose record more closely reflects liberal climate orthodoxy than Joseph Goffman. That's because he wrote much of it, himself!

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly given the EPA a slap on the wrist for acting outside its authority. Cases such as West Virginia v. EPA and Sackett v. EPA have repeatedly ruled that the agency is acting outside its Congressional mandate.

In fact, just before Christmas, the Court agreed to hear yet another case involving EPA emissions plans -- this one brought by Ohio.

Mr. Goffman has defied these warnings from the highest court of the land. He's engineered a more active and aggressive EPA. And in the face of bipartisan criticism of the Clean Power Plan's illegal excesses, he's crusaded without shame in the Biden Administration's war on affordable American energy.

By one estimate, Mr. Goffman's tenure at the EPA has coincided with the elimination of over half of the nation's coal jobs!

And he's continued to indulge the left's obsessive push for electric vehicles, despite the fact that this push is killing American jobs and enriching our top strategic adversary.

By every measure, this nominee is the exact wrong person to deserve a promotion at the EPA.

So I'd like to thank my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Capito for sounding the alarm on Mr. Goffman's nomination. And I would urge each of my colleagues to join me in voting "no' this afternoon."

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