[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 43 (Thursday, March 10, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1077-S1078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            ENERGY POLICIES

  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I want to talk about gas prices.
  The people in West Virginia woke up this morning, and according to 
AAA, the average gas price in West Virginia is $4.12 per gallon. Some 
parts of the country are paying--probably the part that is the 
Presiding Officer's country--more than $5 or even more than $6 per 
gallon of regular gas. Just up the street here in Washington, DC, at 
the gas station close to the Senate office buildings, it is $5.19 per 
gallon. We have surpassed the highest recorded average gas prices ever, 
and that is quite alarming. Unfortunately, this has been all too 
predictable given the Biden administration's domestic energy policy 
actions.
  On day one of his Presidency, President Biden managed to immediately 
kill thousands of union jobs and paralyze America's energy industry 
with the Executive orders that killed the Keystone XL Pipeline. At peak 
capacity, this pipeline would have delivered 830,000 barrels of oil per 
day to American refineries. It is pretty similar to what we are 
importing from Russia.
  The President put a moratorium on all new oil and gas leases on 
Federal lands, moving America from the energy superpower that we have 
been back to having an increased reliance on foreign adversaries for 
fuel feedstocks. These are countries that have much laxer environmental 
rules than we have or that we will ever have.
  The administration has also been openly anti-pipeline and anti-fossil 
fuel with its rhetoric, through its actions, and embodied by the people 
it has elevated to unaccountable leadership roles. Two by name are Gina 
McCarthy and John Kerry. This administration has instituted regulatory 
uncertainty at a time of record inflation.
  The administration wants to make a new definition of WOTUS, which is 
a rule otherwise known as the waters of the United States, to regulate 
every pond and ditch--even on private lands all across the country. 
This will devastate energy production as well as hurt sectors like 
agriculture and home building at a time when their products are already 
in high demand and under immense inflationary pressures.
  The administration is considering new, tighter methane regulations 
that will also raise our energy costs, including for home heating and, 
as we move to the next season, for home cooling and electricity bills.
  It is revising the NEPA permitting process by undoing the 
streamlining that was done during the Trump administration. NEPA 
touches almost every single infrastructure project in our country. 
Think about it. We just passed an enormous infrastructure package, but 
if you add more and more redtape onto these infrastructure projects 
that we have bipartisanly passed through here, you are going to add 
more and more costs for producers and more and more costs for everyday 
Americans. This regulatory uncertainty is increasing energy prices for 
Americans across the board and is felt most acutely at the gas pump 
because we can see it so clearly every time we fill up, and we see it 
posted at the stations.
  You also have an Energy Department that is slow-walking the build-out 
of LNG export terminals, which means we can't export much needed energy 
to our allies as efficiently as we could be.
  Endless regulatory delay and environmental lawsuits, including on 
permits already issued, delay more than pipelines and kill more than 
jobs. We have one in West Virginia, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, that 
is working hard to complete the last 5 percent of the pipeline to move 
the product. They also crush our economy with inflation and leave us 
and our allies more susceptible to bad actors like Russia, Venezuela, 
and Iran.
  We are seeing the importance of energy independence play out in 
realtime with the destruction--the horrifying destruction--in Ukraine. 
Because of the Biden administration's policies that I just outlined, we 
are not able to immediately provide an energy backstop to our European 
allies that are trying to break their Russian oil and gas habit. They 
are begging for our coal as we speak. It is the perfect storm for a 
global energy crisis. It almost sounds cliche to say, as it has been 
said so often, but energy security is our national security. 
Specifically, fossil fuel security will help keep us secure nationally.
  So what is the Biden administration doing?
  We have seen reports that the administration is discussing a possible 
trip soon to Saudi Arabia to convince the Kingdom to produce more oil. 
Well, he has tried this--and, oh, by the way, they won't even take the 
President's phone calls.
  We know the administration is considering easing sanctions on 
Venezuela so they will produce more oil.
  Once again, President Biden opened the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 
even though it didn't work the last time, costs the taxpayer, and 
depletes our own stockpile that we created from the last oil crisis to 
be used when the United States faces another crisis. But incentivizing 
oil and gas production in our own country or letting it move forward? 
No.
  So, according to the administration and its actions, Saudi and 
Venezuelan and OPEC oil is good, but American oil is bad. OK. Got it. 
Rather than encourage American oil production, this administration 
would like to line the pockets of the Saudis, Nicolas Maduro, and, yes, 
Vladimir Putin.
  You cannot hinder American oil and gas production in the name of 
reducing emissions and then nudge countries like Saudi Arabia and 
Venezuela to produce more. Emissions are emissions, no matter where it 
comes from. Emissions are emissions when it comes to global climate 
change.
  And while I know the climate czar John Kerry is disappointed that war 
in Ukraine is distracting people from climate change--as we see 2 
million people leaving that beautiful country--I don't see our European 
friends trying

[[Page S1078]]

to secure alternative sources for more solar panels. Instead, they are 
worried about access to oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear. That is 
because wind and solar aren't able to meet their energy demands.
  And, sadly, with the energy decisions the Biden administration has 
made, American fuel won't be there to meet their needs either. We just 
don't have the physical infrastructure in place to export. We are 
producing more than we ever have--even in this regulatory purgatory--
but that just underscores how much more we could be doing if the Biden 
administration's redtape and policies were not in place.
  Right now, the world is begging for American leadership; Ukraine is 
begging for American leadership; Europe is begging for American 
leadership, and that includes energy leadership.
  Putin is emboldened every day that the Biden administration flails on 
this issue.
  The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is completely heartbreaking. 
According to the United Nations, as I stated, more than 2 million 
people have been forced to leave their homeland. Tens of thousands of 
Ukrainians still in Ukraine are without food, water, or power. We have 
seen the haunting images of the bombings of schools, apartments, and 
hospitals, including, sadly and just horrifyingly, a maternity hospital 
just yesterday. Civilians are being targeted. Children are being 
orphaned. It is an absolute atrocity.
  We cannot leave Ukrainian patriots and our European allies at the 
mercy of Moscow. We must address the poor energy policy decisions of 
the Biden administration in order to unleash full American energy 
production, support our allies in Europe, and stop funding Putin's war 
against Ukrainians.
  We should be acting quickly. The security of the free world depends 
on this.
  And I thank you for that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.

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