[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 206 (Tuesday, November 30, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8831-S8832]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

      By Mr. BARRASSO (for himself, Mr. Daines, Mr. Risch, Mr. Cramer, 
        Mr. Hoeven, Mr. Lankford, Mr. Cassidy, Mr. Marshall, Mrs. Hyde-
        Smith, Mr. Lee, and Ms. Murkowski):
  S. 3287. A bill to provide for the development and issuance of a plan 
to increase oil and gas production on Federal land in conjunction with 
a drawdown of petroleum reserves from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; 
to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
the need for more American energy, not energy that the President is 
begging to OPEC or Russia to produce for America but American energy.
  Last week, President Biden ordered the release of oil from the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The President, by doing that, in my 
opinion, is just pretending to show concern about the high cost of 
energy in this country. I will get into why I think he is only 
pretending to show it because the amount he released is so very little. 
In reality, this President's call to release energy oil from the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve was an admission of failure of this 
President and this administration.
  Releasing oil from the Reserve is something that Presidents did in 
the past during times of war, the Iraq war, after Hurricane Katrina, 
and during the Arab Spring. In other words, it is something Presidents 
do in times of crisis.
  Well, President Biden doesn't want to admit that he has created an 
emergency crisis in our country, but his actions of calling on the 
release from the Strategic Reserve--the actions speak louder than his 
words. By releasing oil from the Reserve now, the President is 
admitting what every American knows, that America has an energy crisis 
and it is not for lack of the fact that we have plenty of energy 
reserves here in the United States.
  Last week, an estimated 50 million people over Thanksgiving weekend 
took to the roads. Those who drove paid the most for gasoline that they 
have in 7 years. Gasoline and diesel fuel prices are sky-high, and they 
have increased more than a dollar a gallon since Joe Biden took office 
just in January.
  Why is it happening? Well, it is economics 101, really. You have 
demand; you have supply. Demand is up; supply is down. With the end of 
the lockdown, demand for gasoline has increased as people took to the 
roads. Yet domestic supply is still below the peak that we reached 
under President Trump.
  The Biden administration wants us to believe that releasing oil will 
solve the problem when he taps the Strategic Reserve, but I don't even 
think President Biden believes it. I am not sure they actually know 
what they are doing. If you watched that press conference with the 
Secretary of Energy last week, she was asked how much oil the American 
people use. She admitted she didn't know. She said: I don't have a 
number in front of me. She didn't

[[Page S8832]]

know how much oil, how much energy Americans use. The Nation's top 
energy official doesn't know how much oil the American people use so 
how can she then know that the amount to call for the release is the 
right amount or not? She is President Biden's top lieutenant in the war 
on American energy. She doesn't know how much we use.
  Well, the media has broadly reported that the total amount that Joe 
Biden is releasing from the Petroleum Reserve is what the American 
people use every 2\1/2\ days--every 2\1/2\ days. That is the total 
amount that is being released. It is the amount that we in the United 
States use every 2\1/2\ days. This is a drop in the bucket when it 
comes to oil prices and energy prices and what people are paying at the 
pump.
  It is not a long-term solution. It is not even a short-term solution. 
It is just a carefully created sound bite. Oil production is down by 
nearly 2 million barrels a day compared to the peak under President 
Trump. It is not a surprise when you take a look at the attack on 
American energy that President Biden and this administration have 
continued to do since day 1, when he killed the Keystone XL Pipeline.
  The administration also announced last week, without any fanfare, 
without the President making a statement at the White House--the 
Department of the Interior said: Oh, by the way, American people, we 
are going to do this the day after Thanksgiving, when you are busy 
doing other things, maybe going shopping, doing other things and not 
paying attention to the news of the day. This administration called for 
additional fees, more taxes, more expenses on oil and gas leases on 
Federal land. That impacts my State dramatically. This is in addition 
to the fees that the President is also including in this massive tax-
and-spending bill that the Senate is going to be considering.
  This is also economics 101. Higher fees on the cost of producing oil 
means higher prices for people at the pump--astonishing--making it 
harder to produce and more expensive to produce American energy. 
Begging OPEC and Russia to produce more to sell to us is a jackpot for 
Vladimir Putin. So if President Biden and his Department of the 
Interior get their way, the prices will go up even higher. Inflation is 
here to stay under the Democrats.
  The American people deserve better. They deserve real solutions in 
this energy crisis that this administration has created. Higher fees 
are only going to get passed on to consumers. Instead of spending our 
savings, we should be producing more American energy. Why are we 
sending this money to Vladimir Putin and begging him to produce more so 
we can send him even more money? That is the policy of this 
administration.
  Today, I am introducing legislation that says an administration needs 
to develop a plan to increase oil and gas production anytime an 
administration taps the Reserve unless there is an energy supply 
emergency like Katrina, like a war. Those are the things that are 
legitimate reasons to release energy from the Strategic Reserve. The 
Reserve is for emergencies, not for sound bites. It is not supposed to 
be a bandaid for bad policies.
  If the President is tapping the Reserve, he also ought to increase 
American energy production. So I urge my colleagues to return to the 
policies that gave us the best economic times in my lifetime, return to 
the policies that made us energy-independent as a nation for the first 
time in 70 years, return to the policies that made us the No. 1 
producer of petroleum in the world. We are much stronger and better as 
a nation if we are selling American energy to our friends than if we 
have to buy it from our enemies. Apparently, the President does not 
fully grasp that or believe in that or he would not be begging Vladimir 
Putin to produce more energy; he would be encouraging America to 
produce more energy, which we have here.
  It is time to stop the restrictions on energy production, time to 
stop the rush to raise billions in taxes, time to stop the President 
and the Democrats' declared war on American energy.

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