[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 16, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S738-S739]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Energy

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today to 
specifically talk about Americans' need for more American energy.
  For the last year, the American people have been suffering from 
ongoing Joe Biden inflation. They are paying the price, they are 
feeling the pain, and it all started on day 1 of the Biden 
administration, when he took out his Executive order pen, and he killed 
a pipeline bringing energy from Canada to the United States.
  And as this war on American energy has continued, we are now at a 
point where inflation is the worst it has been in 40 years. So it is no 
surprise that the President's approval rating has dropped to a low of 
only 40 percent in America.
  Well, this incredible rise in prices for energy, as well as all of 
the other components--whether it is gas, whether it is groceries--but 
if energy gets more expensive, we know that it costs more to 
manufacture things, it costs more to grow things, it costs more to 
transport things from where they are grown or manufactured to market.
  So much of this inflation has been brought on as a result of the Joe 
Biden policies related specifically to American energy.
  When you look at the laws that he has promoted, the executive actions 
that he has taken from day 1, going all the way up to a speech he gave 
just yesterday, this is a President who is dancing to the tune of the 
climate elitists and wants to keep American energy in the ground.
  Energy prices are up overall about 30 cents on the dollar since Joe 
Biden took over. They have gone up 8 months in a row. Gasoline prices 
are up by about a dollar a gallon, if not more so, since Biden took 
office.
  I was at a high school in Greybull, WY, and started talking about 
energy prices. I asked if they know what the cost of a gallon of 
gasoline was, and the student body knew to within nine-tenths of a 
penny how much the cost of gasoline was in their hometown of Greybull, 
WY.
  You can see it right up there, and people know the price, and they 
have been watching, since Joe Biden took over, the price of energy 
going up; and we have also seen Joe Biden's approval going down.
  This isn't a coincidence. This is a direct result of the anti-
American energy policies of this President and the Democrats in this 
body and this administration.
  On his first day in office, his very first day in office, Joe Biden 
killed the Keystone Pipeline. He blocked new oil and gas leases on 
public lands. He has gone after energy exploration in Alaska.
  And for the senior Senator from Alaska to come to the floor and go to 
an Energy Committee and say: It is hard to believe, but we are using 
more energy in the United States today, she said, from Russia than we 
are from Alaska, that is a result of the actions of this 
administration.
  So what has happened with all of this? What has the impact been to 
American families?
  Well, they are struggling. They are suffering. They are having to 
change the way they drive, the way they eat, the way they live. People 
can't keep up. Wages aren't keeping up with costs. They are just not. 
People's dreams are being crushed because they have to take the savings 
that they have been saving for different items they wanted to do and 
they have to use it to just get by, where it costs about $275 a month 
now, this year, to just get by compared to last year. Just to maintain 
a standard of living, people are having to pay $275 more each and every 
month, just to maintain and not to get ahead.
  Apparently, according to the majority leader, the Democrats finally--
finally--yesterday at their lunch were going to talk about inflation. 
It is now February of 2022; Joe Biden came into office January of 2021. 
He said inflation was going to be temporary. A month, he said, after 
month after month after month, and now 10 months into a very serious 
situation, we still don't hear any practical solutions coming from the 
Democrats. We do hear gimmicks. We do hear gimmicks.

  Joe Biden, in September, had his National Security Advisor, 
unbelievably, beg OPEC and Russia--Russia--to produce more oil. We are 
using twice the amount of crude oil now from Russia than we were a year 
ago. Vladimir Putin, who may any day--even this day--invade Ukraine, is 
still exporting 5 million barrels of crude oil a day. The price of oil 
is $90 a barrel, probably going to $100. The Biden and Democratic 
policies have been a jackpot for Vladimir Putin.
  So, in November, after he tried the effort to beg Putin to produce 
more energy and sell it to the United States, the President went to 
another trick in his bag of tricks--another gimmick--and he said: Let's 
release some energy from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
  So he said how much he was going to release. The Secretary of Energy 
was asked in a press conference: Well, how much is that relative to how 
much we use in the United States? She didn't have any idea. Turned out 
it was 2\1/2\ days' worth, and the impact of the release dropped the 
price by 2 cents a gallon--2 cents.
  Oh, Democrats patted themselves on the back, and then prices went up 
again--a complete failure.
  Now prices are expected to go even higher, as I said--maybe $100 a 
barrel soon. Many experts are predicting $4 a gallon when you go to 
fill up this summer. And now we hear another gimmick coming from the 
Democrats.
  This time it is a temporary pause in the gasoline tax until after 
election day. So the New York Times had a story about it today: 
``Democrats, With Eye on Midterms, Search for Ways to Bring Down Rising 
Prices.''
  It is not because Americans are suffering, not because people at 
home, if the Democrats ever go home, are telling them how hard it is, 
not because they have an understanding of the needs of the American 
people--nope, none of those reasons. The Democrats, with an eye on the 
midterms, have introduced this legislation. When you look at the 
cosponsors, it is interesting that so many of them are people who are 
listed as ``vulnerable'' come the elections in November. This might be 
the gimmick to end all gimmicks. Suspending the gas tax--and, oh, by 
the way, bringing it back right after the election. It is all election-
driven.
  Are we going to need less energy after election day? Is there going 
to be more expensive energy after election day? That is what we get.
  I found it interesting to see one Democrat stand up and comment on 
this. It is Larry Summers. He was an economic adviser and Secretary, 
Cabinet Member, worked with both the Clinton and Obama administrations. 
What did he call it? ``Short-sighted, ineffective, goofy, and 
gimmicky.''
  Thank you, Larry Summers, for pointing out to the Democrats in this 
body what the American people already see--your efforts are ``short-
sighted, ineffective, goofy, and gimmicky.''
  Of course, the gas tax is the way that we pay in this country for 
roads and bridges. If the gas tax went away today, the American people 
and those kids in high school and grade school who can do the math, who 
know that the gas tax is 18 cents a gallon--Federal gas tax--knows that 
the increase in the cost of gasoline to what they are paying at the 
pump is still about $1 a gallon higher today than it was when Joe Biden 
became President of the United States.
  This newest proposal by the Democrats is not about affordable energy; 
it is a cheap political trick. It might sound good in a press release. 
The kids in Greybull, WY, know it is not going to help them.
  Democrats desperately want to look like they are trying to do 
something after ignoring inflation, denying it was even there in the 
first place. Yet, after months and months and months of the American 
people suffering, the American people know a gimmick when they see it. 
So Democrats have tried to spend 5 months passing their billion-dollar 
reckless tax-and-spending bill. The President calls it Build Back 
Better. That is what he called it yesterday when he gave a speech to a 
number of

[[Page S739]]

county commissioners. The bill includes electric vehicles so that they 
get subsidized. Of course, electric vehicles pay no gas tax because 
they don't use gas; they use electricity. So they don't subsidize in 
any way or pay to use the roads for the wear and tear on the roads that 
they drive. Yet the Democrats are calling for billions and billions of 
dollars of subsidies for those drivers. Nearly every Democrat in this 
body still supports this taxpayer giveaway.
  Nearly every Democrat in the Senate still supports Joe Biden's war on 
American energy. Well, the war on American energy is raising the cost 
to American consumers.
  As I said, if we are going to take 18 cents off the cost of a gallon 
of gas when it is already up a dollar a gallon or more, and by summer 
will be a lot higher than that, it is like putting a bandaid on a 
bullet hole. And Joe Biden, once again, yesterday, talked to these 
county commissioners, promoting his so-called Build Back Better plan, 
which includes the Green New Deal, which is increased taxes on American 
energy, increased regulations on American energy, increased penalties 
on producing American energy. The American people get the fact that 
will raise the costs for them to drive their car, to heat their home, 
to grow crops, to get items to market--where shelves are still bare, 
and they were this past weekend at the grocery store in Casper, WY.
  Democrats still are delighted that we ended the Keystone XL Pipeline. 
The Secretary of Energy was supposed to come out with a report about 
how many jobs were lost by that. Well, still waiting for the report. 
Homework is past due.
  Will we ever see the report from the Secretary of Energy who doesn't 
want to point out this specific impact that Joe Biden has had on this 
country in terms of killing jobs and raising energy prices?
  The American people see through all of this. That is why only 3 in 10 
Americans today support the President of the United States on what he 
is doing about inflation. That means that just about every Republican 
and every Independent and a whole lot of Democrats don't like the fact 
that Joe Biden is ignoring them, refusing to focus on the issues that 
are important to them and their lives and their families and their 
future; that their dreams are being stolen and ripped from them; that 
they have been using savings that they wanted to use for things they 
had been planning for years. And what we see is another gimmick coming 
from the Democrats only because their eyes are on the midterms. Their 
eyes ought to be on the people at home who sent them here in the first 
place.
  There is a solution to the high cost of American energy, and that is 
to produce more American energy. Let us make it here. We have it. Oh, 
we have it in abundance. We have it in Wyoming. We have it all across 
the country. Produce American energy. Use American energy.
  Vladimir Putin knows how to use energy. He uses it as a weapon, and 
he is using it as a weapon right now, holding Europe hostage. Germany 
has fallen into his trap with Nord Stream 2. He knows how to use 
energy. We have been in the United States an energy superpower. We are. 
We have the capacity to do it. We have gone from energy dependence to 
energy independence, to energy dominance. We need to return to the day 
when we are using American energy.
  We are much better as a country and safer as a country and stronger 
as a country if we sell energy from the United States to our friends 
rather than follow the Joe Biden route of begging Vladimir Putin to 
sell some of his energy to us. That weakens America. It weakens us. It 
weakens our future.
  We have the resources here in America. We have the know-how. We have 
the individuals wanting to work producing American energy. We need an 
administration which will allow us to do so, and we don't have one with 
the leadership in the White House and with the majority party in the 
House and the Senate right now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.