[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 58 (Friday, April 1, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H4119-H4124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Williams of Georgia). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, there is so much going on these days, so 
much to comment on. At this time, I yield to the gentlewoman from Iowa 
(Mrs. Miller-Meeks), my friend, whenever she is ready.


                  Kevin McKee Is an Incredible Athlete

  Mrs. MILLER-MEEKS. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Gohmert for yielding to 
me.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the accomplishments of an 
incredible athlete from Iowa's Second District.
  Kevin McKee of Davenport recently finished competing in the Beijing 
2020 Paralympics, where he won a gold medal in sled hockey. Kevin has 
proudly represented the United States for over a decade, winning gold 
medals in the last three Paralympics.
  Kevin has always had a passion for sports, playing tennis in high 
school and wheelchair basketball in college. However, Kevin soon 
realized his passion for sled hockey in 2020 when he started playing on 
the sled hockey club team with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
  Beginning in 1960, the Paralympic Games are held every 4 years and 
feature a wide range of athletes with different physical abilities, 
including impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of motion, limb 
deficiency, leg length difference, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, 
vision impairment, and intellectual impairment. The

[[Page H4120]]

Paralympics are held almost immediately following the respective Summer 
and Winter Olympic Games.
  Paralympians like Kevin show all of us that with hard work, 
dedication, and the drive to succeed, anything is possible.
  Congratulations, Kevin, on an outstanding performance. I look forward 
to cheering you on in the future.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I notice the skill and adroitness of Mrs. 
Miller-Meeks making her way hurriedly around the rows, through the 
rows. She must have picked up something from such a great sled hockey 
player.
  Madam Speaker, I want to turn my attention to some recent criticisms 
of an amazing man. I agree with some who have clerked at the Supreme 
Court, that Justice Clarence Thomas may be easily the most intelligent 
Justice on the Court. That fact actually turned him from his days at 
Yale Law School--actually he started at Harvard for, I think, a day or 
so, but he felt like Harvard was too conservative, so he dropped out 
and applied to Yale and was pleased it seemed more liberal in its 
thinking.

                              {time}  1315

  But Yale was able to take a brilliant person like that, and according 
to his book, he began to notice how liberals who were White seemed to 
look down on him with an arrogant view of Clarence Thomas that, gee, if 
it weren't for us liberals, a Black man like Clarence Thomas would not 
have even gotten into this school, when actually he had the raw 
intelligence to do that regardless and had done well everywhere he had 
been, including Holy Cross when he originally went there thinking he 
might be a priest at some point. Those are my recollections from his 
autobiography, a splendid read, ``My Grandfather's Son.''
  That kind of arrogance, looking down on him like he couldn't do this 
on his own if it weren't for us liberals, turned him off. That, along 
with other issues, drove him to become quite conservative.
  The clarity with which he sees issues is a real treasure for the U.S. 
Supreme Court.
  Now, just as when he was nominated to the Supreme Court, he has come 
under grave attacks from these same liberals that used to look down on 
him when he was a liberal, thinking he couldn't possibly be as smart as 
they were when, actually, he exceeded their level of intelligence.
  That was what was called a soft form of discrimination. What he 
experienced in the hearings for his confirmation and since he has been 
on the U.S. Supreme Court, clearly, has not been soft discrimination. 
It has been overt, radical, mean-spirited, evil discrimination. Nothing 
soft about it. How dare that man come off the plantation and dare to 
have any point of view that was not provided to him by other liberals? 
The man thinks for himself, and he is brilliant.
  These same liberals that are now coming after him seek not only to 
discriminate against him because he is a Black conservative who is 
brilliant, but they also want to assert a marriage penalty against him 
because his wife also thinks for herself.
  Now, there is a great article written by Mark Paoletta, and this is 
dated March 11. I won't go through the whole article, but he says: 
``D.C. Circuit Judge Nina Pillard, for example, voted not to rehear a 
case rejecting President Trump's refusal to produce his tax returns in 
response to a congressional subpoena. That was exactly what her 
husband, the ACLU's litigation director, advocated in an article 
reviewing the lower court decision.''
  Now, Justice Thomas is being told he needs to recuse himself because 
he has a wife who thinks for herself. We can't have that, these 
liberals say. Yet, the hypocrisy rises higher and higher with every 
comment they make about Justice Thomas and/or his wife.
  ``Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a liberal icon, participated 
in a case even after his wife, the chief of an ACLU chapter, commented 
on the lower court opinion. Her ACLU chapter even submitted a brief to 
the district court. Reinhardt defended his decision not to recuse, 
writing his wife's `views are hers, not mine, and I do not in any way 
condition my opinions on the positions she takes regarding any 
issues,''' even though he took the same position that his wife took.
  The article said: ``Ethics experts defended Reinhardt's decision, 
noting that `Judge Reinhardt is not presumed to be the reservoir and 
carrier of his wife's beliefs. . . . A contrary outcome would deem a 
judge's spouse unable to hold most any position of advocacy, creating 
what amounts to a marriage penalty.' ''
  Exactly. And liberals will not apply that standard to liberals, yet 
they come after Justice Thomas with their fangs bared, viciously 
attacking him and his wife.
  What happened to the old ideas of liberals being these caring, 
compassionate people who would never judge one's spouse by the acts or 
thoughts of the other? Well, those have gone by the wayside, and we see 
exactly what is at play here.
  The article says: ``The Supreme Court has long rejected this 
`marriage penalty.' ''
  Further down, it says: ``While any lower court can substitute a 
recused judge with another judge, there is no one to replace a Supreme 
Court Justice who recuses.''
  We lost my constitutional law professor in the last year, David 
Guinn. He was a tough professor but a great teacher. He continued to be 
an incredible resource up to the end of his life. He used to say there 
is only one court that owes its existence wholly to the U.S. 
Constitution. Of course, that is the U.S. Supreme Court. All other 
courts, as he would say, rely completely on the auspices of the 
Congress for their existence, for their continued existence, and for 
their jurisdiction.
  It is interesting to look at this, and it is a great point that is 
being made by some scholars. Since the Supreme Court is set up as a 
separate branch, that is actually the one that Congress does not have 
authority to set up rules for recusal, for the Supreme Court.
  In this article, Mr. Paoletta says: ``Consistent with the Court's 
policy, even though Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's husband, Marty 
Ginsburg, practiced law at a firm that represented parties before the 
Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg never recused herself. Law professor 
Jane Ginsburg, the Justice's daughter, wrote an article about a case 
pending before the Supreme Court. The petitioner cited Jane's article 
in its brief, and Justice Ginsburg voted for the result advocated by 
her daughter.
  ``Marty Ginsburg solved a complex tax problem for his client, Ross 
Perot's company EDS, and Perot endowed a chair named after Marty 
Ginsburg at Georgetown University Law Center. When Perot and EDS 
appeared several times before the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg did 
not recuse. Nor was she required to.''
  I would add, nor did any of these people attacking the Black 
conservative, Justice Thomas, bother to advocate their new position 
back then.
  ``If reporters mean to tighten recusal standards, they should prepare 
to levy a marriage penalty on all judges' spouses, not just the 
Thomases.
  ``But the press now singles out Justice Thomas, calling on him to 
recuse because of his wife's activities. Ginni Thomas is a longtime 
conservative activist who works with groups that take public 
positions on issues and sometimes even file amicus briefs at the 
Supreme Court. But unlike the spouses and children of other judges, 
Ginni does not practice law, much less write briefs. She merely builds 
conservative coalitions to pursue shared political aims. None of her 
activities require Justice Thomas to recuse.

  ``Even so, the press criticized Ginni Thomas for honoring 
conservative leaders at an awards luncheon because those individuals 
subsequently filed amicus briefs at the Supreme Court. Historically, 
this has not required recusal. Ginsburg once donated an autographed 
copy of her VMI opinion to the pro-abortion NOW Political Action 
Committee, which auctioned off the opinion at a fundraiser in 1997. 
Moreover, in 2004, she spoke at a lecture named after herself for the 
NOW Legal Defense Fund''--that is, the National Organization for 
Women--``on whose board she served in the 1970s. Two weeks before that 
lecture, Justice Ginsburg voted in favor of a position advocated by the 
NOW Legal Defense Fund in an amicus brief.
  ``None of those activities required Ginsburg to recuse, but the press 
has

[[Page H4121]]

attacked Thomas for stoking concerns of a hyperpartisan court by 
attending conservative events. Thomas' critics conveniently ignore the 
numerous instances of liberal Justices attending similar events, such 
as Justice Sotomayor giving speeches to the liberal American 
Constitution Society.
  ``These recent stories have also ignored Justice Ginsburg's partisan 
attack on Donald Trump during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The 
Justice called him `a faker' and criticized him for not disclosing his 
tax returns. She even voiced concerns about Trump being President. The 
day after he was elected, Ginsburg again objected by wearing a collar 
that traditionally signaled she would be dissenting in a case, though 
there were no cases handed down that day. Yet, she sat on a case 
challenging a congressional subpoena for President Trump's tax returns, 
and she decided plenty of other cases involving President Trump and his 
administration. No one talked of impeaching Justice Ginsburg for her 
conduct.
  ``The media are weaponizing baseless ethics charges to smear a 
conservative Black Justice. Thomas infuriates them because he expresses 
views they consider unacceptable for a Black man to hold, and because 
an increasing number of Justices are aligned with those views and may 
be ready to issue rulings that undercut longstanding liberal 
precedents. But going after his wife is despicable. And it won't 
work.''
  It is also interesting that the majority in H.R. 1 attempts to go 
after--without naming Justice Thomas, it requires the Judicial 
Conference of the United States, which is chaired by the Chief Justice, 
to establish a mandatory code of conduct for the Justices of the U.S. 
Supreme Court. This is potentially unconstitutional. This is according 
to testimony before Congress by Hans von Spakovsky.
  He makes a good point: ``Article III states that the `judicial power 
of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court and in such 
inferior courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. 
. . . The Constitution, not Congress, created the Supreme Court. It is 
an independent, coequal branch. In the same way that the Justices 
cannot dictate what ethics rules apply to Members of Congress or the 
President, it is highly questionable whether Congress can dictate the 
ethics rules that apply to the Supreme Court.''

                              {time}  1330

  Since the Judicial Conference was established by Congress, ``for the 
benefit of the courts it had created,'' and ``is an instrument for the 
management of the lower Federal courts, its committees have no mandate 
to prescribe rules or standards for any other body.''
  According to the Chief Justice, Justices use the current code of 
conduct for the lower courts as guidance as well as ``a wide variety of 
other authorities to resolve specific ethics' issues.''
  The Supreme Court has ``never addressed whether Congress may impose 
those requirements on the Supreme Court.'' But a serious constitutional 
problem under Article III with Congress trying to impose such mandates 
on the Justices, although they comply with the current provisions 
voluntarily.
  So very good points, but just interesting how selective things have 
gotten.
  Now, most judges and most judicial standards will indicate that if a 
Justice has spoken out and taken a position on a case that has come or 
is before the Court, it indicates an opinion before the case has 
concluded that that Justice should be recused. But we know two of the 
Supreme Court Justices actually appeared, performed same-sex weddings 
before they came out with their opinion. So that certainly seems to 
raise questions that people attacking Justice Thomas never actually 
raised back during those days.
  It was interesting to be in here and hear the colloquy between the 
majority leader and the minority whip and hear the majority leader go 
back to the allegations raised by President Biden about all these 
leases that are not being utilized for drilling. Quite interesting, 
because there are some very legitimate reasons about why they are not 
utilized. And one of the things that has done tremendous damage to 
investment in additional wells, one thing, there has been encouragement 
for banks to look the other way. Do not get involved in fossil fuel 
development, which is rather interesting; could lead to our own demise 
as a Republic when we have been the most blessed country when it comes 
to natural resources of any country of which I am aware.
  Our world is jealous. And yet, we routinely put off-limits those very 
resources we desperately need, even though we produce them more cleanly 
for the environment than any other country that we are buying them 
from, particularly China, Russia, others that have gotten control--some 
in Africa.
  But one article here by Peter Hasson about ``Biden's Misleading Spin 
About Oil Production Under Him vs. Trump.'' ``But the White House's 
framing omits a key fact: while domestic oil production in 2021 was 
higher than it was in 2017, it was lower than it was in 2018, 2019, and 
2020, Federal statistics show.''
  And the significant reason for that is that drilling doesn't occur 
overnight. Production doesn't occur overnight. It is a work in 
progress. So that one President, when he comes into office, actually 
inherits the preparation to drill or the killing of drilling by the 
prior President.
  So when President Trump took office, his first year, the drilling and 
production numbers were a result of what had happened before he took 
office. And thus, when President Biden takes credit for production 
numbers in his first year, of course, he doesn't want to acknowledge 
it, but those were the results of actions taken during the Trump 
administration. But after that, he does deserve to get credit for the 
damage or the good that is done.
  An article by Thomas Barrabi and Ariel Zilber points that, ``If 
President Joe Biden came out forcefully on the side of increasing U.S. 
oil production, the price of a barrel could fall quickly, experts told 
The Post--even if it takes a while to bring that new energy online. 
Just looked at what happened Wednesday''--this article is from March 
9--``in the wake of the United Arab Emirates and Iraq saying they'd up 
production by an estimated 800,000 barrels a day: The global price of 
oil dropped by $22 a barrel within minutes.
  ``If Biden signaled full-throated support for U.S. drillers to get to 
work--and perhaps allowed the restarting of the Keystone XL pipeline 
from Canada--global oil prices could similarly fall sharply, the 
industry experts told The Post.''
  And I have noticed that when there is good news about the production 
of oil or natural gas, that the price doesn't fall quite as quickly as 
it goes up after bad news, but it should be noted that after years of 
not replacing oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve of oil, the SPR, 
President Trump not only saw to it that America became energy 
independent for the first time in decades, but they started putting oil 
in that Strategic Petroleum Reserve, so that in the event of an 
emergency, we would have oil to keep going.
  It was not put there for a President that has done damage to our 
ability to produce what we need, to try to get out from under the 
criticisms from people that can't afford where he has driven the price 
of energy. And in fact, I would humbly submit that by President Biden's 
starting to take a million barrels of oil per day from that Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve, he is setting America up for a catastrophe. Because 
there are interruptions in the production of oil and natural gas. They 
come time to time, and especially when there is war activity.
  Now, President Biden used a claim that there is a wartime emergency. 
Yet, under our Constitution, only the U.S. Congress has the authority 
to declare war, and no such war has been declared. And in fact, 
President Biden has made very clear, we are not putting troops in 
Ukraine.
  And I was hearing on the news today that actually things that were 
announced by this administration that would be helping Ukraine fight 
off Russia have not arrived. There were announcements, but the help 
that was supposed to be coming from the United States has not come that 
will help them fight off Russia.
  So we can hear all the grand pronouncements about how evil Putin is. 
But at times, they are just that. They are pronouncements.
  Because we are not giving the help to Ukraine that is being promised. 
Is this some kind of show without putting actions behind it? A lot of 
Ukrainians

[[Page H4122]]

think so when they look at the Biden administration. Because they are 
desperate. They are fighting with all they have.

  I heard the majority leader casting aspersions at Republicans 
thinking Putin is some great guy. He is a thug.
  And yet, who was it that put back in Putin's head that the United 
States has no problem with him attacking innocent countries and 
invading innocent countries? Well, we can go back in the second half of 
the Bush administration, George W. Bush administration, when President 
Bush and Secretary Condoleezza Rice got upset, as many of us did, when 
Putin's Russia invaded the country of Georgia. And he slapped some very 
serious sanctions on Russia to try to send a message: Don't go invading 
other countries.
  So when Biden became Vice President, Obama became President, one of 
the first things they did, they sent a Secretary of State named Clinton 
with a red plastic button that they misnamed in Russian. They meant to 
call it a reset button. But the people working for the Obama/Biden 
administration and for Secretary Clinton were not smart enough to 
properly translate the word, so it didn't mean reset.
  But they went over there with the intention of sending a message that 
President Bush, he overreacted when you attacked Georgia. And the 
message from Obama, Biden, Clinton was, We won't overreact like that 
when you invade countries you shouldn't. We won't. We don't have a 
problem with it. That was Bush. That was Condoleezza Rice. They had a 
problem with your invading Georgia, but we don't have a problem like 
that.
  What was Putin supposed to think? Exactly what he thought.
  Number one, this Biden, Obama, Clinton, they are weak people. And 
they are giving me a green light to invade Crimea, which he did. And 
what happened? Nothing. The Obama/Biden administration sent blankets 
over there. It is hard to stop a tank with a blanket; that is what was 
sent.
  But Putin got that message. And then Trump comes in. And he can say 
flattering things about Putin, but he knew that Putin is not stupid, 
and he knew that he could be vicious, and he made very clear, you don't 
invade under my administration, or you will pay a big price. But once 
President Trump was gone, and we got back to the old policies of the 
Obama/Biden administration, Putin knew he had a President that he could 
push around. And that was accented when President Biden telegraphed 
that we could be okay with a minor incursion. If it is just a small 
invasion, we probably wouldn't even react. That was the message that 
was heard in Russia.
  And at times, it is almost as if there are people in this 
administration that have been paid off by Russia.

                              {time}  1345

  Well, I guess some people in the Biden family have been paid off, but 
that is another matter. At times, though, it does seem like with the 
change in policy of standing firmly against China's devastating 
activity when it comes to stealing our secrets, patents, and 
copyrights, and the lack of action by this administration, it does seem 
like, gee, it makes you wonder if somebody is getting paid off in this 
administration. Then you realize, oh, yeah, the Biden family has made a 
lot of money from China.
  People want to talk about maybe Clarence Thomas should recuse 
himself, I wish they would apply those standards to people who benefit 
in this administration from the failure to stop China.
  In any event, just mark my words, this administration, President 
Biden, releasing a million barrels of oil a day from our strategic 
petroleum reserve is really going to come back to hurt us. When we are 
in an emergency situation and we need that oil, it is not going to be 
there because President Biden was hoping he could ameliorate some of 
the anger of voters by the prices that we are seeing at the gas pump 
and the prices we are seeing in inflation.
  That is the thing, when energy prices go up, it affects every price; 
because food, the things we use to stay warm or to house ourselves, 
even electric cars cannot be produced without the use of fossil fuel--
can't--they will some day, but they can't right now. You got to have 
fossil fuel or you cannot make a car; not for production, not cheap 
enough to be bought by the American public.
  Since I have been here in Congress, I filed a bill to have a huge 
cash prize to anyone who could develop the type of battery, capacitor, 
some way to hold megawattage of electricity for at least 30 days 
without significant loss. One of these days somebody is going to come 
up with that, an ability to hold electric. When that happens, we won't 
need fossil fuel at all. Whoever comes up with a way to do that is 
going to be mega wealthy.
  Once we have that ability, we should be able to capture lightening. 
There are all kinds of ways we can have energy. I have been told, oh, 
no, we already can capture energy because some place they have water in 
a lower reservoir and during off-peak time they pump the water up to a 
higher reservoir so that during peak times they have the water flow 
down and that turns turbines and that produces electricity. That is 
storing energy, but it is not storing electricity.
  That energy has to then be converted back into electricity by turning 
the turbines. Some day we are going to have the ability to have energy 
held in massive quantities, but right now we don't have that ability.
  The batteries that are being used in vehicles, we are heading for all 
kinds of headaches when enough people buy electric vehicles and we have 
to do something with all of those toxic batteries. It is going to be 
bad. It is going to be horrendous for the environment if too many 
people start buying electric vehicles.
  There is a great article by Kevin O'Scannlain in March of this year 
titled ``The Red-Herring of Unused Leases,'' which is what the majority 
leader brought up. It says: ``The fact is, natural gas and oil 
companies hold numbers of `nonproducing' leases--which is far different 
from the claim of `unused' leases mentioned by the White House,'' and 
by our majority leader.
  Here are some key numbers: 1,548, that is the number of nonproducing 
offshore leases, according to the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy 
Management; 13,000, that is the approximate number of nonproducing 
onshore leases, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management:
  ``Context: `Nonproducing' means exactly that. These are leases that 
have not yet been developed to the point of actual production--the 
average time from onshore lease sale to production is 3 to 4 years; 7 
to 10 years for offshore leases--and those that have not produced 
commercial volumes of oil and gas.''
  ``Polling released last week shows that Americans know the stakes 
involved overseas and at home. They overwhelmingly support--by a 90 
percent margin--increased U.S. production over reliance on foreign 
energy. That means lawmakers and regulators need to address that.''
  ``The first, by some members of the Biden administration, including 
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday, is that American oil 
and natural gas producers are sitting on hundreds of unused Federal 
leases and do not need access to more. The second, by some industry 
opponents, is that ramping up U.S. production will not help the 
Ukrainian people today.
  ``Psaki has made the claim about `unused' Federal leases before. It 
has become a line at the White House pivots to when pressed to explain 
why it isn't doing more to support American oil and gas production--
with soaring demand putting upward pressure on prices and with much of 
Europe at the mercy of its top energy provider, Russia.''
  Here are key facts about Federal leases:
  ``The law already requires companies to either produce oil and/or gas 
on leases or return the leases to the government--the so-called `use it 
or lose it' provision. . . . `' It is already in there. Generally, it 
is required in the first 10 years.
  ``When a company acquires a lease, it makes a significant financial 
investment at the beginning of the lease in the form of a nonrefundable 
bonus bid and pays additional rent until and unless it begins 
producing.
  ``For Federal onshore, the Mineral Leasing Act prevents any one 
company from locking up unproductive excessive Federal acreage.

[[Page H4123]]

  ``Developing a lease takes years and substantial effort to determine 
whether the underlying geology holds commercial quantities of oil and 
gas. The lengthy process to develop them from a lease is often extended 
by administrative and legal challenges at every step along the way.''
  Every company is familiar with lawfare, going to court, being drug 
repeatedly into court to stop the use of a lease.
  ``The argument about `unused' leases is a red-herring, a smokescreen 
for energy policies that have had a hamstringing effect on the world's 
leading producer of natural gas and oil. It suggests American producers 
have been motivated by desire to manipulate the market during the 
current crisis in Europe. This is false. American oil and gas producers 
are able and willing to do their part to support American energy 
leadership, including providing energy that can help allies abroad.

  ``Ultimately, energy policies affect the energy investment climate. 
Specifically, they impact the ability of producers--typically 
accountable to shareholders--to take the risks involved in spending 
billions of dollars to find and develop oil and gas. Mischaracterizing 
the way Federal leases work does not help foster new investment and 
risk-taking.''
  ``The time for helping Ukraine with American energy was months ago. 
Then, the Biden administration support for robust U.S. production might 
have helped deter Moscow from thinking that European nations were so 
dependent on Russian energy might do less to oppose Russia the 
aggressor.
  ``Instead, the administration discouraged American energy. For more 
than a year it has halted new Federal leasing--key to future energy 
investment and production. It canceled energy infrastructure, blocked 
development in parts of Alaska, entertained new taxes to punish the 
U.S. energy industry and chilled future investment by signaling that 
oil and gas would not be part of America's future energy mix. All last 
summer, the administration called on OPEC+, the oil cartel, to increase 
its production more rapidly in the face of rising energy costs, 
bypassing the American producers.''
  Let me go back and readdress ANWR. We lost Don Young. We had a 
wonderful service and tribute to him. It was a great funeral, a great 
service for a great man. I got to sit beside Don Young for years in the 
Natural Resources Committee because I became the second most senior 
person on Natural Resources. Since I made Republican leaders mad, they 
were not going to allow me to be chairman, and we sit by seniority, so 
I sat by Don Young for years.
  Don would get so upset when people would pretend to speak for Tribal 
groups in Alaska or for the Alaskan people, and say, they don't want 
ANWR--well, there was one little Tribe that didn't, but the rest sure 
did. He would take Members of Congress on trips to ANWR. So much of the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that area that was designated by the 
Carter administration, it is beautiful, it is pristine, there is 
wildlife in abundance.
  Don always wanted to make sure that anybody that would listen and 
cared to know the truth could see for themselves in Alaska--here is 
this massive wildlife area that has been set apart by Congress. Well, 
here is this little bitty area comparatively where the Carter 
administration said: You know what, there is nothing there. Nothing can 
live there. This is a great spot, and we will allow drilling here. For 
decades, drilling was not allowed in the one place that it would have 
been okay to have drilling.
  When the Trump administration says, hey, there was a designated 
place. And despite commercials where you see all this wonderful 
wildlife, that is not in the part designated for drilling. All the 
beautiful mountains and all, that is not the part designated by 
President Carter for drilling. It would bless the heck out of Alaska 
and their people because of the revenue it would bring.
  It would be a blessing for America to further be independent and to 
further have the ability to encourage countries like Ukraine, and to 
discourage countries like Russia from picking on them because we have 
enough of the energy needs, we can fill enough energy needs. They don't 
have to worry about begging a ruthless dictator, like Putin has become.
  Yet, year after year we have had people trying to stop it, and then 
once Biden was sworn in as President he did the same thing. No, we are 
going to put that back off limit. It is really a shame.
  This article says: ``The current situation is a reminder that 
American energy abundance requires foresight and planning, investment 
and policy support. This is the path to sound energy policy that keeps 
America safe and strong and allows American energy to support allies.''
  I am hoping--since I am not going to be in the next Congress--I am 
hoping that the bill I filed years ago that would provide a big cash 
prize to whoever comes up with the method of storing massive amounts of 
electricity for long periods of time efficiently, I am hoping that that 
won't be so futuristic that we couldn't have a majority actually pass 
that.

                              {time}  1400

  Because once we do that, there is no need for fossil fuels. We will 
have all the energy we need, and you could even produce cars. Let's 
face it, natural gas is such an important feedstock for so many of the 
products we use every day that we have come to rely on as necessities, 
as essential, including things in vehicles themselves.
  In fact, in Texas, our air and water have been getting cleaner year 
by year. A lot of that is due to moving from oil and coal into natural 
gas; much cleaner.
  In fact, here are some oil and gas facts:
  In March of 2020, before the lockdowns began, the United States 
reached its highest level of energy production by January 2021. For the 
first time in nearly 50 years, U.S. was producing more oil than we were 
consuming. In just over a year, we have seen a 4 percent surplus of 
domestic oil and gas production fall to a 4 percent oil and gas 
deficit.
  President Biden directed the Secretary of the Interior to halt new 
oil and gas leases on public lands and waters. President Biden canceled 
the Keystone XL pipeline which would have transported 830,000 barrels 
of oil per day from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
  The Biden administration has created significant regulatory 
uncertainty by threatening new and excessive burdensome regulations on 
the oil and gas industry, including the EPA methane rule and the DOI 
waste prevention rule.
  The Biden administration has rescinded Trump administration 
permitting improvements, including the NEPA reforms, the WOTUS reforms, 
and the ESA reforms.
  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has failed to approve 
natural gas pipeline applications leading to a backlog of pending 
applications that discourage economic growth and new energy 
development.
  The U.S. Department of the Interior scrapped the Trump administration 
decision that authorized expanded leasing and development in the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
  The price of gasoline has risen from an average of $2.38 under 
President Trump to approximately $3.53 today. It is a lot higher than 
that. Today I noticed around $5 around here.
  This is the largest year-over-year price rise in 30 years and leaves 
little room to absorb the impact of potential massive oil and gas 
sanctions on Russia.
  So those are some facts.
  I want to touch on one other matter here. The name of this article is 
``Republicans expose `uncommon' CDC, teachers' unions ties on COVID 
school reopening guidance in report.''
  This is from Jessica Chasmar, March 30.
  ``Republicans accuse Walensky of downplaying the degree to which the 
CDC departed from past practice to allow AFT to affect the policymaking 
process.''
  ``Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, official's 
testimony claiming that the agency coordinated with teachers' unions at 
an extraordinary level in crafting its school reopening guidance, 
despite the agency's earlier claims that such coordination was routine 
and nonpolitical.''
  ``Republicans wrote that emails between the American Federation of

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Teachers, the White House, and the CDC showed that the AFT's `cozy 
relationship with the Biden administration's political leadership at 
the CDC positioned the union to impose line-by-line edits' to the 
reopening guidance, despite the CDC's `past practice to keep draft 
guidance confidential.'''
  So we find out the mental and physical suffering of children due to 2 
years of closed schools in some places, we can, again, go back to some 
of the teachers' unions that helped bring that about.
  An article from the Daily Caller by Nicole Silverio, apparently NBC 
actually edited photos of Lia Thomas to look more like a woman.
  That is what Erica Denhoff alleged in the NBC's ``Today'' show, they 
photoshopped her work to make transgender swimmer Lia Thomas look more 
feminine.
  And then this has application to January 6, work by the FBI, we still 
need to get to the bottom, those who committed crimes and harmed the 
Capitol need to be punished. But those who didn't, so many appear to be 
sought and persecuted, not just prosecuted.
  It has gotten kind of strange.
  But Julie Kelly has a March 10 article about the Governor, Gretchen 
Whitmer, an alleged kidnapping plot, and the trial that was going on 
about that.
  ``After it became clear during opening statements that the defense 
could not argue their case without explaining the deep involvement of 
the FBI's confidential human sources,'' so the judge reversed his 
ruling, ``telling the jury that `it won't be possible to draw a line 
between the government proving their case and entrapment.'''
  ``One FBI official told his supervisor he planned to conduct a 
`terrorism enterprise investigation' into the loose band of misfits 
with no solid plans, much less the ability, to do anything nefarious at 
the time. The alleged ringleader, Adam Fox, lived in the ramshackle 
basement of a vacuum repair shop with his two dogs; if he needed to go 
to the bathroom or brush his teeth, Fox had to use the facilities at 
the Mexican restaurant next door.''
  ``Secret gatherings and out-of-town excursions, courtesy of the FBI 
and U.S. taxpayers, animated the scheme.''
  Then she goes on to explain the extent to which the FBI and U.S. 
taxpayers paid to have meetings to try to bring the conspiracy to 
kidnap Governor Whitmer into actually going forward.
  It really is shocking and does raise a serious question: When you 
have a dozen or so FBI informants or employed people, many getting paid 
in cash and benefits of tens of thousands of dollars, is it a plot then 
by the FBI or is it really a plot by the people who hadn't had the 
ability without the FBI to do anything about it?
  So it is a sad time when the FBI seems to be using taxpayer resources 
to create events that would not happen without their involvement.

  So there is a lot of oversight that needs to be done and a lot of 
housecleaning that needs to be done. It doesn't look like that will be 
happening any time soon.
  I am grateful that we are again beginning to see some of our friends 
across the aisle getting back to basics and concern about civil rights 
that have been abused by government entities.
  We have got a lot of work to do, and I hope that we will at least 
come together in stopping the Federal Government from being the source 
from which criminal plots are made available and potentially real.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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