Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act--

Floor Speech

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Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Madam President, the Biden administration continues to fail the American people with its consistent attacks on our Nation's energy supply and production. These attacks are happening as Americans continue to suffer through the burden of record inflation caused by this administration.

Energy is the lifeblood of civilization: lighting our homes; fueling our transportation; powering innovation; and for those of us in rural America, heating our poultry houses--much like the area where you and I come from, Madam President.

Energy of all forms--from oil and gas to nuclear, to wind, to solar-- not only powers our world, but it protects our world. To threaten any energy source is to threaten the vitality of our Nation and its communities. But from day one, President Biden did just that. It started with a barrage of excessive Executive orders aimed at American energy production, including the cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and only got worse from there.

Agencies under this administration have been emboldened to ram through harmful policies and rules that are driving us straight toward a cliff. The Department of the Interior continues to hold domestic energy production back by releasing a 5-year leasing plan for oil and gas production that contains the lowest amount of lease sales in history, with the option for the Secretary to cancel any one of them as she deems necessary.

The Bureau of Land Management has issued rules that weaken our domestic energy production and create additional more redtape. The Environmental Protection Agency has issued rules that weaken our domestic energy production and limit consumer choice for vehicles. The Department of Energy has issued rules that weaken our domestic energy production, limit consumer choice for natural gas appliances in our houses, and place a pause on liquefied natural gas export. It makes no sense.

Even the Securities and Exchange Commission has now decided it wants to get involved with climate policy, releasing a greenhouse gas disclosure rule that would lead to mountains of burdensome paperwork for companies and higher costs for consumers. The SCC is meant to protect investors, facilitate capital formation, and maintain markets. It has absolutely no authority to address political or social issues, much less serve as a climate change taskmaster.

If you threw a dart at a dartboard labeled with all the Biden Agencies that have a hand in targeting energy production, chances are that you will hit an Agency that has committed an overreach of its statutory authority.

The administration continues to slow-walk permitting, most recently attacking LNG facilities for climate considerations, whatever that is.

Well, is the administration aware that by continuing to ignore the law and not holding lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, it hamstrings future GOMESA funds that would come back to the Gulf States to support critical coastal protection activities, including conservation, coastal restoration, and hurricane protection? That is right. The administration's Interior Department is jeopardizing actual climate and conservation goals for my State, and we aren't the only State sounding the alarm on these terrible policies. These policies are driving up energy costs and emboldening our enemies.

President Biden and his allies continue to paint the fossil fuel industry as the enemy, but both the Secretaries of Energy and Interior have stated that fossil fuels will be around for a long time because they are needed. Yet they continue to try and diminish its production without the necessary technology and grid capacity replacements.

Not only could we see higher energy costs under these policies, but we could see more blackouts during extreme weather events, something that has Mississippians very concerned.

The American people deserve better than failing energy policies from a tone-deaf administration and Agencies that are doing everything they can to circumvent Congress and force their radical energy agendas on this entire Nation.

Still, the hard-working people in our energy industry are not letting President Biden crush their spirits. My colleagues and I are battling back with everything we can to challenge these rulings on behalf of the American people.

With CRA resolutions of disapproval, appropriations, and committee hearings, we have the opportunities to try to hold these Agencies accountable for their continued overreach.

I will keep fighting alongside my colleagues until this ship is back on the correct course of independent energy production for the betterment of the United States.

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