[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 199 (Tuesday, November 16, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8217-S8218]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, President Biden and his 
team flew to Glasgow for a glitzy conference. World leaders traveled 
there to attend one another's speeches on carbon emissions and climate.
  The world's largest emitter was not there. China pumps out more than 
one-quarter of the entire world's emissions, but President Xi didn't 
bother to attend this conference. Putin didn't show up either. He and 
his cronies in Moscow are too busy using Russia's natural gas to 
stranglehold the energy and make energy hostages out of our European 
friends who rushed too naively toward renewables.
  This goes to the core problems with the anti-energy agenda that 
liberal elites want to thrust on our country--maximum self-inflected 
pain for American families in exchange for no meaningful global gains.
  They would have America tie one hand behind our back while our 
competitors and adversaries keep right on going. This hurts families 
and helps China.
  Across the country, working families are already worrying about the 
big, potentially historic spikes in energy costs and heating bills that 
are headed their way. Here is the New York Times headline from last 
week: ``Winter Heating Bills Loom as the Next Inflation Threat.''
  Futures contracts for home heating fuels have skyrocketed in price. 
Natural gas users have just about doubled from last year. For heating 
oil and propane, it is actually even worse. Our colleagues on the 
Energy and Natural Resources Committee are holding a hearing this 
morning on rising heating costs.
  In Kentucky, where about 4 in 10 households are heated by natural 
gas, families are about to get slammed. Even more Kentucky families 
rely on straight electricity for their heat, and, in our State, more 
than two-thirds of our electrical power comes from coal. Coal literally 
keeps the lights on, and it keeps the cold out.
  That is why the original Obama-Biden War on Coal hits States like 
Kentucky so very hard and why the even more radical sequel the 
Democrats are planning next would fall on the heartland like a ton of 
bricks.
  The President's special envoy for climate issues John Kerry says:

       [Y]ou have to phase down coal before you can end coal.

  One of the President's nominees to the Treasury Department has 
admitted that small producers of affordable American energy ``are going 
to probably go bankrupt in short order.''
  American families are staring down the barrel of skyrocketing heating 
bills, and the Democrats' response is to go to war against affordable 
American energy. The reckless taxing-and-spending spree they are 
writing behind closed doors and want to pass in a matter of weeks would 
spend hundreds of billions of dollars on Green New Deal-type policies 
that would saddle families with even higher prices and make our Nation 
even more dependent on Russia and the Mideast.
  Of course, energy inflation is just one part of the huge inflation 
crisis that Democrats have unleashed. According to reports in one new 
survey, 90 percent of Americans are either somewhat concerned or very 
concerned about inflation and rising costs. Nine out of ten households 
are hurting. Sixty-seven percent of the country, two-thirds, say 
Washington needs to stop printing and spending so much and driving 
prices even higher.
  Energy bills and gas prices are just one corner of this inflation 
crisis, but Democrats seem to want to ignore the people, plow ahead, 
and spend trillions more.
  Even liberal economists who like the Democrats' reckless taxing-and-
spending spree because they agree with the far-left transformation 
admit it would make inflation even worse next year.
  There is no part of our economy that can afford another massive dose 
of socialism, but Democrats are specifically targeting American energy 
to get hit especially hard. They are planning direct new taxes, new 
fees, and new regulatory mandates for energy producers. They want to 
make affordable, reliable energy artificially expensive to force 
Americans toward the less affordable, less reliable forms of energy 
that elite liberals would rather they use. It would hurt families 
badly; it would help China in a big way. That is because the Biden 
administration doesn't have any strategic plan to snap its fingers and 
turn our massive country into some green utopia overnight. They just 
want to throw boatloads of government money at things like solar panels 
and electric vehicles and hope it all works out. But China absolutely 
dominates the supply chains for lithium batteries, for solar panels, 
and for practically all the fashionable purchases into which Democrats 
want to dump all this money. In all likelihood, Democrats' supposedly 
green agenda would just provide a massive one-way gift to our 
adversary, the world's No. 1 emitter, the Chinese Communist Party.
  This isn't Build Back Better; it is Build Back Beijing. Here is just 
one example: There is a raw material called polysilicon that is crucial 
for solar panels. According to the New York Times, more than 80 percent 
of the entire world's supply comes from China. About half of the 
world's supply comes from the Xinjiang Province, where China is 
brutalizing the Uighur minority with tactics that include forced labor.
  There are other key resources, including critical minerals, where 
China has similar strangleholds. Here are some recent headlines:
  ``Lithium Shortage May Stall Electric Car Revolution and Embed 
China's Lead.''
  ``China's lithium companies are in an investment frenzy.''
  Just like liberal policies are hostile to the American energy we 
produce here at home, they are also hostile to exploring for these 
critical minerals here at home. Their massive proposal is backed with 
anti-hard rock mining provisions that would make it even harder to 
stand up American supply chains for critical minerals.

[[Page S8218]]

  So here is the bottom line: American families don't want Washington 
politicians waging a holy war on fossil fuels in the first place. They 
can't afford that nonsense. But it is even more absurd that Democrats' 
top-down schemes would just increase China's wealth and dominance all 
along the way. They don't have some smart master plan to invest in 
America's future. They have a plan to build back Beijing and raise 
American families' gas prices and heating bills even higher so that we 
could massively stimulate Chinese export markets. Hurt families; help 
China--every piece of their reckless policies fits this mold.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.