[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 150 (Wednesday, September 18, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S5548]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on another matter, we are closely 
monitoring events in the Middle East following that provocative and 
dangerous Iranian attack on Saudi energy facilities, which included the 
largest oil processing facility in the entire world.
  As I said on Monday, Iran's reckless behavior is not just a threat to 
the region but to the entire global economy, and it must be met with 
swift consequences from the international community.
  As the United States and our allies continue to learn more and weigh 
our options, there has already been one positive lesson that should not 
go unnoticed. While the attack has shaken global energy markets, to be 
sure, the United States is in a much better position to weather the 
storm than we might have been in past decades.
  For years and years, an international attack of this magnitude would 
have been virtually guaranteed to roil the U.S. economy and send gas 
prices soaring for Americans at the pumps, but so far, this time 
around, analysts don't expect this event to yield the significant 
impacts we would have seen back in the seventies or even in the 
nineties. Why is that? The answer is three words: American domestic 
energy.
  Over the last decade and often over the strenuous, strenuous 
objections of Democrats, our Nation has made incredible strides toward 
energy independence. We have explored new technologies, new methods, 
and new ways to fuel America's prosperity right here at home, and it is 
paying off big time. By 2015, our production had become so robust that 
I led the charge to lift the outdated ban on crude oil exports. Late 
last year, thanks in part to Republican policies, the United States 
became a net exporter of oil for the first time in decades.
  Get this: Across all forms of energy, the Department of Energy 
projects that next year our Nation will export more energy than we 
import for the first time since 1953. Let me say that again. Thanks 
largely to Republican policies, our Nation is poised to become a net 
energy exporter for the first time since the Eisenhower administration.
  That is huge progress, not just for our economy but, as we have just 
been reminded, for our national security as well. You would think the 
country would be united in celebration, but not everyone is happy. Oh, 
no. Last week, just days before this massive disruption in the Middle 
East, House Democrats sent us several bills designed to limit domestic 
energy development and literally tie America's hands. One of those 
bills would have shut off exploration in a small portion of ANWR in 
remote Alaska. They want to reverse something that had been sought for 
40 years until Republicans secured it in 2017.
  So, as far as I can tell from the bills the House keeps sending us, 
the socialists who are calling the shots over there have never seen a 
pipeline they didn't want to cancel. They have never seen a pipeline 
they didn't want to cancel, a responsible development they didn't want 
to kill, or a step toward American energy independence they didn't want 
to reverse.
  Along with the Democratic House, this also seems to describe their 
party's Presidential candidates. Almost all of them have endorsed the 
radical idea of ending oil and gas exploration on Federal lands not 
only offshore but onshore, too. Let me say that again. Almost all of 
them have endorsed the radical idea of ending oil and gas exploration 
on Federal lands, not only offshore but onshore, too. That is today's 
Democratic Party. This ideology has consequences for American 
prosperity, but it also weakens our Nation's footing in the world.
  Just days after these Democratic votes, we were offered a sobering 
reminder of just how important American energy really is.
  So here is the good news: This Republican Senate is on the job, and 
we won't let Democrats take us backward. We won't let them reduce our 
prosperity or make us more vulnerable to overseas chaos. Republicans 
will keep working to help our Nation thrive.

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