[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 16, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S728-S730]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Russia

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, as I speak here today, Russian President 
Vladimir Putin has amassed 130,000 to 150,000 soldiers on Ukraine's 
doorstep in a show of force that could be a dress rehearsal for an 
invasion of Ukraine. But Putin's inventory of tanks, infantry, and 
missiles is enabled by another dangerous weapon: Russia's export of 
dirty energy, oil and gas.
  Our global addiction to fossil fuels, an addiction which Russia is 
only too happy to exploit, is kindling this potential conflict. Without 
a worldwide clean energy revolution, we will never be able to quit this 
cycle of fossil fuel corruption and conflict. We will never be able to 
experience true independence from foreign interference. And we will 
never be able to protect our friends and our allies or ourselves from 
wars spurred by dirty energy profits.
  As long as Vladimir Putin can wield natural gas and oil as a threat 
against our country and our European allies and partners, we will 
always be on the defense. As long as Putin can wield gas prices and oil 
prices as a cudgel to remake borders, these crises will become a 
repeating drumbeat on the battlefield of history. As long as Putin can 
rely on global economic systems that are dominated by dirty fossil 
fuels instead of clean renewable energy, we will all remain vulnerable.
  The most effective way to reduce the long-term security threat to 
Ukraine and to Europe and to sovereign nations everywhere is to stop 
the spigot that puts billions of Euros and dollars into the hands of 
Vladimir Putin and his oligarch cronies in return for dirty fuels.
  In 2021, more than 36 percent of Russia's Federal budget revenues 
came

[[Page S729]]

from oil and gas sales. This could fund annual Russian military 
activities more than twice over.
  The United States itself participates in these dirty profits. Seven 
percent of our oil imports come from Russia. We send billions of 
dollars a year to Putin, to those oil giants in Russia. We do it 
ourselves.
  Since 2015, Russia has used these oil and gas revenues to expand its 
currency reserves to $631 billion, the fourth largest reserve in the 
world.
  Why does this matter? Because the massive revenue chest dilutes the 
impact of nonmilitary options to respond to Russia's aggression.
  President Joe Biden is right to seek a diplomatic off-ramp to the 
current crisis over Ukraine. This crisis has no military solution, but 
a long-term solution has to include a comprehensive strategy that ends 
the globe's deadly addiction to Russian fossil fuels. That strategy 
will only happen through an American-led clean energy revolution that 
frees the West from dependence on Putin's pipelines.
  Many of my Republican colleagues think that the only way to address 
energy security is by building more pipelines or drilling for more oil 
and gas. That is just plain wrong. Instead of doubling down on 
investments that align with Russia's dirty energy business model, we 
must lean into the innovation of clean energy technologies to fight 
against Russia. That is our competitive and strategic edge. Their 
vulnerability is that we are the technological giant of the planet, but 
we have to act like that and implement policies that reflect the fact 
that we are the technological giant.
  My Republican colleagues often come to the floor and attribute their 
fealty to oil and gas as a quest for energy security and independence 
when we know their calls for more domestic drilling are nothing more 
than a ploy for profits by the Big Oil companies. While families and 
workers are getting tipped upside down at the gasoline pump every 
single day, oil companies are stuffing billions into their pockets. 
Exxon, Conoco, and Chevron made more than $45 billion in profits last 
year as gas prices increased by more than 40 percent.
  Republicans call these price increases ``supply constraints'' and 
incorrectly blame President Biden's energy policies. But here are the 
actual facts: Daily domestic oil production remained constant between 
2020 and 2021, at 12 million barrels of oil a day. We are producing as 
much today in the Biden administration as we were producing during the 
Trump administration. So I just don't want to continue to hear this 
from the Republican side. What they are saying is not true.
  Here are some more facts that the American Petroleum Institute, or 
the ``American Prevarication Institute,'' and my Republican colleagues 
seem to omit: In 2021, 3 million of those 12 million barrels were 
exported to foreign countries.
  Let me say that again. Of the 12 million barrels of oil that we 
actually drilled for here in the United States, 3 million of those 
barrels were exported around the world.
  Who wanted to export those barrels of oil? The American Petroleum 
Institute. And we are exporting them abroad because, in 2015, 
Republicans voted to end the decades-long export ban on sending oil 
overseas. It was their votes that paved the way to send American oil 
overseas. It was their votes that aligned with the American Petroleum 
Institute that results today in 3 million barrels of oil a day leaving 
the United States, as we see these crocodile tears about oil imports 
and exports from the American Petroleum Institute, from the Republican 
Party.

  So you can't say, out of one side of your mouth, ``energy 
independence'' but, out of the other side, ``export, baby, export.'' 
That is what the Republican Party has stood for; that is what the 
American Petroleum Institute advocated for and got as a new American 
policy after four decades, in 2015. And the more oil we drill for here 
at home, the more likely Big Oil will sell American consumers out to 
the highest bidder abroad for our oil.
  Republicans owe Americans at the pump an apology for putting us in 
this situation. We cannot support a business model where Big Oil drills 
for energy in the United States, only to sell that product to China at 
the expense of the American consumer.
  In November of 2020, I requested a Federal report that revealed that 
the repeal of the 2015 crude oil export ban increased U.S. crude 
exports--while imports remained largely unchanged--and resulted in 
higher oil costs.
  The first step to true energy independence is to reinstate the ban on 
exporting American crude oil and natural gas abroad. The other step 
must be equally aggressive: aggressive investments in clean energy, in 
wind, in solar, in all-electric vehicles, in battery storage 
technologies, in new metals, new inventions, so that we don't have to 
import that oil from Russia or from any other place in the world, so 
that we can break our addiction to the Russian oil that comes into our 
country right now, even as we speak on the floor of the U.S. Senate, 
because that hurts American working families. It hurts vulnerable 
communities in our country.
  Our fossil fuel addiction is a catalyst for conflict. A clean energy 
Green New Deal would be a pathway for peace. The position of my 
Republican colleagues represents the kind of short-term thinking that 
will harm our long-term national security, the security of our European 
partners and allies, and the health of our planet.
  If we export more American natural gas to our allies in Europe, fuel 
prices would increase for American consumers and the Russian Government 
would continue to profit by simply redirecting its fossil fuel supply 
to Asia. Putin would still be able to use his oil and natural gas 
revenue to threaten the sovereignty of free and democratic countries. 
And as a top three oil and natural gas producer, Russia will continue 
to have significant influence on energy supply and pricing as long as 
there continues to be global demand for its oil and gas exports, 
whether that demand is Eastern Asia or Eastern Europe.
  This is not theoretical. Just last week, Russia and China inked a 30-
year deal through which Russia will send natural gas worth $80 billion 
a year to China. In addition to whom Russia sells its oil and gas, we 
must start focusing on why Russia has a market for its oil and gas in 
the first place.
  This is a demand-side problem. Let's demand some answers. If we are 
serious about addressing fossil fuel demand, let's switch to clean 
energy and make smart investments in electric transportation. We don't 
need more gas pumps; we need more heat pumps for heating and cooling. 
We don't need more pipelines; we need more transmission lines to 
deliver safe, secure, and reliable clean energy. And we don't need more 
mass destruction; we need mass construction of clean, industrial 
facilities, clean manufacturing, clean cars here in the United States 
and worldwide.
  If we are serious about ending Russia's oil and natural gas 
blackmail, we should invest in energy-efficient technologies that get 
us off the fossil fuel that threatens our planet and threatens the 
security of Europe. We need to build electric cars and trucks so 
Americans and Europeans will never again be at the mercy of global 
energy markets led by Russia and OPEC.
  We need to build electric heat pumps so our European allies no longer 
have to rely on Putin's natural gas to heat their homes in the winter.
  And we need to build clean energy manufacturing facilities here in 
the United States so that we can export clean energy technologies to 
Europe and create jobs here at home. We need to make the wind turbines 
here in the United States. We need to make the solar panels here in the 
United States. We need to make the battery technologies here in the 
United States. We need to make the all-electric vehicles here in the 
United States. That has to be our plan.
  That will frighten Putin. That will frighten all of the rest of his 
petrol buddies right now having a little confab in Sochi. That will 
frighten him. But we cannot preach temperance from a barstool. So the 
United States must lead our European allies in the clean energy 
revolution to protect us all from Russia, yes, but also from the 
existential threat of climate change caused by dirty fuels.
  If the United States leads with government investment in clean 
energy, we will drive down the cost curve for these clean energy 
technologies and spread this widespread adoption in the United States 
and Europe and across the planet.

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  Just look at the power that clean energy already has in our country. 
The clean energy sector was one of the Nation's fastest growing job 
sectors.
  Solar jobs: In 2010, we had 93,000 workers. By now, we have 345,000.
  Wind jobs: In 2010, 75,000 employees. By 2020, up to 114,000.
  Energy efficiency jobs: 830,000 in 2010. Now, it is up to 2.1 million 
people working in energy efficiency in our country.
  That worker power is matched by actual power. Just listen to these 
generation achievements. We have gone from 1,200 megawatts of solar in 
2008 to 120,000 megawatts today.
  For wind, it has gone from 25,000 to 143,000 megawatts. All-electric 
vehicles--there were only 2,500 all-electric vehicles in the United 
States in 2008. That was a crime, that we had fallen so far behind, 
that the auto industry in the United States just sat down on the job, 
but by 2030, we are now expecting 18 million new jobs--18 million new 
electric vehicles on the streets of our country.
  This is America's strength. This is where we can dominate the world--
the clean energy economy. We will not free ourselves from Putin's 
energy clutches by staring down the dark barrel of a gun but by 
harnessing the clean energy of the Sun.
  If Vladimir Putin's market for fossil fuel shrinks, so does his 
ability to finance threats and sow division around the world. In order 
to defuse tensions around Europe, we need a revolution--a clean energy 
revolution.
  Our wind turbines are weapons against Russia's pipelines. Our solar 
panels are shields against Siberian oil. Together with the EU's 
European Green Deal, that is how we will fight and win the clean energy 
revolution that will finally disarm Putin's dirty regime.
  Our first step is to pass the climate justice and clean energy 
provisions from the Build Back Better bill. That $555 billion 
investment includes tax credits and rebates in clean energy, heat 
pumps, all-electric vehicles, advanced domestic manufacturing, wind and 
solar, which will be made in America. A clean economy will be created.
  Those credits are coupled with a technology-neutral climate and clean 
energy bank that will help finance the clean economy and a Civilian 
Climate Corps, which will train the next generation of young people and 
workers to bring jobs and justice to our local communities.
  We need to deploy one of our greatest assets against Putin: American 
ingenuity and the American workers, a well-trained, well-paid battalion 
of American workers who will build our clean energy revolution with 
jobs that cannot be outsourced. This clean energy revolution is worth 
fighting for, and I know we can do it.
  Now we need to build on the past 12 years of domestic clean energy 
success and help build European economies that no longer have to rely 
on Vladimir Putin to heat their homes and power their cars.
  The United States imports Russian oil. Europe imports Russian gas. 
What if, instead, we exported climate innovation and leadership to the 
world? That is the clean energy revolution that could stem the 
possibility of war and climate catastrophe.
  We don't need Russia's oil any more than we need Russia's caviar if 
we are serious in our country. We need a new NATO that comes together 
and forges an alliance to deploy all-electric vehicles, to deploy wind 
and solar, so we back out the oil and gas--not only in Europe, not only 
in the United States, but all around the world--that we use.
  This is our moment. We have a chance here in the U.S. Senate to 
respond. But I don't want to hear anything more from the American 
Petroleum Institute--the ``American Prevarication Institute.'' Their 
policies are the ones that we are living with today. Those are the 
policies that must change. That is the only way in which we can meet 
this healthcare, environmental, national security, and moral issue of 
all time. If we do it, generations in the future will look back and say 
that we responded to that challenge.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). The Senator from Nebraska.