[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 203 (Wednesday, December 2, 2020)]
[House]
[Page H6040]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1930
                   UNITED STATES FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY

  (Mr. CASTEN of Illinois asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. CASTEN of Illinois. Madam Speaker, imagine that you are a banker 
reviewing a corporate loan application. Over the last decade, 
competition has eroded this company's market share. They slashed prices 
in response; they burned through their cash. 250 similar companies have 
gone bankrupt since 2014.
  Would you make that loan?
  This is today's U.S. fossil fuel industry. Since 2010, coal demand is 
down 45 percent. Natural gas prices are down 40 percent. Oil prices are 
down 45 percent. Shale producers have chewed through $342 billion of 
free cash flow. Exxon just wrote off $20 billion in value. Wells Fargo 
booked $121 million in sector losses.
  And yet, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has recently 
proposed a rule to mandate that banks provide ``fair access to 
capital'' to this sector. They would force you to use your balance 
sheet to take on excessive risk without commensurate return. They would 
reduce our financial stability and raise our energy costs.
  I look forward to a full-throated and bipartisan condemnation of the 
OCC's attempt to use, dare I say, socialist tools to prop up an 
industry that is unable to succeed in the rough-and-tumble world of 
free-market capitalism.

                          ____________________