Denouncing the Harmful, Anti-American Energy Policies of the Biden Administration

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from South Carolina for yielding and for his leadership on energy.

We sure are going to miss your voice. We have a few more months left before you leave Congress, but you have been a great advocate for American energy and for so many other forms of energy like nuclear power.

Today, we are talking about how we can help those families who are struggling. I rise in strong support of H. Res. 987 by Mr. Newhouse and a number of other colleagues because if the policies of the Biden administration were working so well, as some would try to claim, why are families furious that they are paying about 40 percent more when they go to the gas station to fill up their cars? Why are they furious that when they pay their household electricity bills--if they can afford to pay their household electricity bills--they are paying over 30 percent more?

It is because, from day one, when Joe Biden took the oath of office, he issued an all-out assault on American energy.

For anybody who forgot or wants to glaze over it or say it didn't happen or ask what they are talking about, the good news is we actually documented all of those specific actions in this resolution, Mr. Speaker, because it is President Biden who took these actions.

Day one, he canceled the Keystone Pipeline. Now, what does that mean? That would have been about 11,000 American jobs. You know what it also would have meant? It would have meant about 830,000 barrels of oil moving through the Keystone Pipeline.

Now, for the people that are trying to suggest that, oh, that is a good thing--because there are some people that want to just eviscerate American fossil fuels, and President Biden has led that charge, but let's be very clear, Mr. Speaker, President Biden's war on fossil fuels doesn't cover all oil and gas, it only covers American oil and gas.

Maybe that is the most perplexing part of his failed policies that angers people. People have figured this out because they have watched the President get on Air Force One, which, by the way, still runs on jet fuel. They don't have solar panels on the wings of Air Force One. It is not a green plane. He got on Air Force One, and he flew to Saudi Arabia and begged them to produce more oil when he is shutting down production in America.

Do you know what Saudi told him? They said, no, because they are a cartel. They are a monopoly. They are part of OPEC. They want higher prices. It benefits them to have higher prices. So they told President Biden, no, but President Biden should have never even had to go to Saudi.

Again, if President Biden is so against fossil fuels, if they are so immoral as some on the left will suggest, then why is he getting on Air Force One, using fossil fuels, and begging Saudi to produce more when he is shutting it down here?

Again, he canceled lease sales in America. It is documented here in the resolution we are voting on today. We didn't do that. Nobody else did it but Joe Biden. He is the one who canceled lease sales.

President Obama actually had lease sales. President Trump had lease sales. As my colleague from South Carolina pointed out, production today--if you want to brag about production, that is great, because oil production today is a result of investments made 5 and 10 years ago.

I represent parts of the Gulf of Mexico, home to some of the best oil reserves in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Some of these rigs, if you go out to a platform in the Gulf, they can produce over 100,000 barrels a day, but you don't just plop one down and start producing 100,000 barrels today.

If you get a lease today, you have to pay millions of dollars for it. You can't because Joe Biden canceled lease sales, but if you got a lease, you then have the luxury of going out and finding private investment--because there is no government money like the solar panels and the car batteries. You have to find private money. You might have to find $2 billion to go and fund the oil rig. You build the platform. It is a floating city. It is amazing American technology. And you put it out in the Gulf of Mexico 60 miles offshore maybe drilling 12,000 feet below the surface.

Then you have to go back to the Department and get more permits. You have to get permits for seismic, which you cannot get today, by the way. You have to get permits to put pipelines and subsurface infrastructure, which are almost impossible to get today because the Biden administration doesn't want production.

You do all of those things, and you invest all of those billions of dollars of private money, and if that well happens to produce, then maybe 5 to 10 years later it gets the first drop of oil that comes out of the ground and starts producing.

Well, again, that happened years ago, so I am glad people are taking credit for it today. It didn't happen today. It didn't happen when Joe Biden took the oath of office because Joe Biden took the steps to crush it, killing pipelines, killing leases on new production, killing the ability to get permits to go out and develop leases that you paid millions of dollars to the Federal Government for.

That is what Joe Biden did.

It is documented right here.

But what he did worse after he killed American production--if this was all about purity, and this was all about just protecting the world from fossil fuels, that would have been it. But that is not what it is about. It is a war on American energy because, again, he went to Saudi to beg them to produce more oil when he just did a virtual ban on LNG exports.

Do you know who that benefited? It crushed American jobs here. You already saw some decimated jobs and canceled major, major multibillion- dollar projects in America. Do you know who it emboldens, what Joe Biden did? It emboldens Vladimir Putin.

Putin is making billions of dollars a month--not a year, a month. Putin is making billions of dollars selling his oil and natural gas to world markets because of what Joe Biden has done. Because now he has crushed a lot more things like LNG exports, which we were using here in America to help our friends around the world in Europe. We can help our allies. But if Biden gets his way, which so far he has, we can't export here. They still need energy in those other countries.

So where is Europe getting it from? From Russia. So on one hand, Joe Biden is saying, oh, my God, Russia is evil, and he says we need to help Ukraine, but then he is funding Putin's war effort by giving Putin leverage and billions of dollars a month to finance the war against Ukraine.

This is insanity, and it is raising costs on families here at home. The hardworking families of America are sick and tired of Joe Biden's failed energy policies. And they get it. They know what he has done. People on this floor can sit here and deny that any of this stuff happened, but it did. It is well documented in the resolution point by point by point. I wish it was only one or two, and you can go focus on those, but it is over 60 actions he has taken to attack American energy--and, again, only American energy.

Venezuela is getting their ability to produce more.

Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, who funds Hamas--Hamas, who invaded and attacked barbarically our great friend Israel, where did they get that money? From Iran. Joe Biden reduced sanctions against Iran, so they can sell their oil on world markets.

Again, if it was about purity and getting rid of oil, then it would be for everybody. He wouldn't have lowered the sanctions against Iran, but he did. Iran can go make billions of dollars a month like Putin is making because of Joe Biden's policies, but here in America you can't get new leases. It is almost impossible to get permits.

You can't do LNG exports because Joe Biden wants to attack American energy. We are sick and tired of it. The American people are sick and tired of it. It is hurting the people that can least afford it. The lowest income families are paying the price for this failed policy. It has got to end. The bills we are bringing to the floor point it out and end it. The Senate should take these bills up. Everybody should vote for it. These should be bipartisan exercises. Everybody should stand up for American energy.

When I look at that beautiful flag right behind you, Madam Speaker, I wonder why would we want to embolden Vladimir Putin with our energy policies when we have enough energy in America to crush Putin, to crush Iran, to crush Venezuela. OPEC would be irrelevant if we just produced more American energy, and the only person standing in the way right now is Joe Biden.

Let's end this madness.

Let's pass this legislation.

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