[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 82 (Friday, May 13, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H4956-H4959]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1230
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring to the 
majority leader the schedule for next week.
  Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer), the House majority leader.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the Republican whip for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning 
hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 
6:30 p.m.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. and will recess shortly 
thereafter. At approximately 11 a.m., the House will meet in joint 
session with His Excellency Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Prime Minister of 
the Hellenic Republic, Greece. Votes are expected in the House on 
Tuesday thereafter.
  On Wednesday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for legislative 
business.
  On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.
  The House will consider Chairman Scott's H.R. 7309, the Workforce 
Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2022, which is an important part of 
the Make It In America agenda. Now more than ever, businesses need 
skilled workers, and it is essential that we reauthorize WIOA to expand 
access to skills training for high-demand, high-wage jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, the House will also consider H.R. 7688, the Consumer 
Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act, introduced by Representatives Kim 
Schrier and Katie Porter. This critical legislation seeks to give the 
Federal Trade Commission greater authority to rein in excessive gas 
prices. This bill would protect consumers against irresponsible actors 
in oil and gas who would artificially inflate prices for extra profit, 
and it will help Americans struggling with higher energy costs.
  Mr. Speaker, the House will also consider two bills under suspension 
of the rules in recognition of National Police Week.
  Mr. Speaker, 23,229 of our fellow citizens have lost their lives, 
over the course of the existence of our country, in law enforcement, in 
doing their duties and protecting us and protecting our property.
  The first of those bills is H.R. 6943, the Public Safety Officer 
Support Act, bipartisan legislation that would expand eligibility for 
the Public Safety Officers' Benefit program to include stress and 
trauma-related injuries and death by suicide for law enforcement 
officers and their families.
  Tragically, Mr. Speaker, that happens too often as a result of the 
trauma and stress which our police officers around the country 
confront.
  The second bill is H.R. 2992, the TBI and PTSD Law Enforcement 
Training Act, again bipartisan legislation, Mr. Speaker, that would 
require the Department of Justice to develop crisis intervention 
training tools for law enforcement agencies so they can better equip 
officers to respond to individuals with traumatic brain injuries and 
post-traumatic stress disorder, some of the most dangerous 
confrontations that our officers have.
  The House will also consider, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6531, the Targeting 
Resources to Communities in Need Act of 2022, sponsored by  Jim Clyburn 
and Hal Rogers, the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee. 
Unfortunately, that failed on suspension, so it is coming back under a 
rule.
  We will also consider S. 2938, legislation to designate the United 
States Courthouse and Federal Building located at 111 North Adams 
Street in Tallahassee, Florida, as the Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United 
States Courthouse and Federal Building, which was sponsored by Senator 
Marco Rubio, Republican Member of the United States Senate.

[[Page H4957]]

  The House will consider other bills under suspension of the rules. 
The complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of 
business today.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, we obviously will be ready at any time that 
the Senate can pass assistance to the extraordinary, brave, and 
courageous Ukrainians, who are confronting the Russian criminal 
invasion of their country unprovoked, unwarranted, and unjustified.
  We will have that legislation as soon as it comes back here 
considered, hopefully, on this floor so that we can get some $40 
billion in military and humanitarian assistance that is needed in 
Ukraine so critically.
  It is a sad thing that we passed this bill Tuesday night, and it has 
been sitting in the Senate with essentially now one Senator, one 
Republican Senator, Mr. Paul of Kentucky, holding it up. I am hopeful 
that the Senate can move it over to us quickly.
  We passed it in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion when it was 
here, so that is also a possibility, Mr. Speaker, to be on the floor 
next week.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, as we look at some of the bills that will 
be brought up next week, in the price gouging bill, there are a number 
of concerns with the way it is not really defined in terms of what 
price gouging would even be. But as we know, the current state of our 
energy crisis is really because we, through the Biden administration, 
have shut down energy production in America.
  In fact, just the other day, earlier this week, in the midst of 
dramatically high gas prices, President Biden announced that he is 
canceling massive oil and gas lease sales. In the Gulf of Mexico, where 
there are rich reserves of American energy that could be produced, and 
Alaska, where there are rich reserves of American energy that could be 
produced, President Biden said no yet again. And this isn't the first 
time.
  In fact, since he became President, on day one, Joe Biden started 
attacking American energy. He killed not only the Keystone but the 
ability to produce and make any new pipelines in America to move energy 
around our country so that we don't have to import it from countries 
like Russia. President Biden made us dependent on Russian oil. In fact, 
he was begging Putin to send us more oil while he is canceling the 
ability for us to produce our own energy.

  You have seen other steps that the President has taken all throughout 
his Presidency to make it almost impossible to produce American energy, 
to move American energy, to export American energy. LNG permits are 
sitting on the desk waiting to be signed for over a year, not a single 
new LNG export permit to help not just America lower our energy prices 
but to help our friends around the world, especially in Europe, not 
need to get energy from bad actors like Putin.
  As Putin is, hopefully, going to be pushed to the side in terms of 
energy that we get, the President continues to turn not to American 
energy but to turn to other dictators, to go to Iran, to go to 
Venezuela, while shutting down American energy.
  So, we have a bill, and I brought this up to the majority leader a 
number of times, H.R. 6858, with over 130 cosponsors, a bill that would 
actually open up American energy so that we can lower gas prices. We 
can actually do something about it, not try to point the finger and 
blame this person.
  The President tried blaming Putin. Nobody in the country bought it 
because they knew gas prices were going up dramatically well before 
Putin invaded Ukraine. In fact, President Biden, by shutting down 
American energy, allowed Putin to make $700 million a day selling his 
oil to America and Europe, $700 million a day leading up to the war to 
help fund the war against Ukraine because President Biden said no to 
American energy over and over again. This bill would actually fix that.
  Now, when you look at the price gouging bill, first of all, Secretary 
Granholm, the Secretary of Energy, was asked in a committee hearing 
recently, just about 2 weeks ago, if there was price gouging. She said: 
I am not sure anyone is saying there is wholesale gouging.
  Now, if you read the bill, what we have seen of it so far, it doesn't 
allow the FTC to take action against the President of the United 
States, who actually is responsible for the gouging prices, high 
prices, whatever you want to define ``gouging'' as.
  Again, the bill itself is very vague. If you just don't like a high 
price, you can go blame somebody else, or we could actually do 
something about it. We could actually bring a bill, like H.R. 6858, 
that would actually allow us to open up American energy that is here--
great technology, lowest carbon emissions in the world, by the way, as 
we are now forced to rely on energy from other countries that actually 
emit more carbon to produce their oil.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield just on that point?
  Mr. SCALISE. I would yield. Especially if the gentleman would tell me 
we are bringing this up on the floor, I would be happy to yield right 
now.
  Mr. HOYER. On just that point, the gentleman mentioned this the last 
time we had a colloquy and pointed out that the drilling and processing 
of petroleum products are the cleanest in the world. You made that 
point last week, and you have just made it now.
  Does the gentleman know why that is the case?
  Mr. SCALISE. Because America has the best standards in the world.
  Mr. HOYER. Correct.
  Mr. SCALISE. America knows how to do it better.
  By the way, it is American innovation that has opened up the ability 
to produce more energy cleaner than anyone else in the world, and the 
President of the United States is the one saying no to America. He is 
not saying no to all energy. He is saying no to the cleanest American 
energy. But then he is begging foreign countries, which actually 
produce energy without American standards, begging them to give us our 
oil at a much higher price than just doing it here in the best place to 
do it in the world.
  It perplexes me why the President of the United States says no to 
American energy while begging dictators to give us our energy at a 
higher cost, but that is where we are.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, we have had this discussion before. I am going to take a 
little bit of time to--because if you just listen to the Republican 
whip, you would think that America is bereft of production of oil, or 
of LNG, or of petroleum-based products.
  I want to go through what America is doing, what the increase has 
been, and what can be done.
  First of all, the United States is the largest producer of oil in the 
world--18.61 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia is about half of 
that, at 10.8. Russia is slightly less than Saudi Arabia; Canada about 
half of what Russia is doing; China about half, a little less than 
half, of what Russia is doing. So, we are the largest producer of 
petroleum products.

                              {time}  1245

  We import some, and that is largely based on the type of petroleum 
products that we use. On crude oil we produced 11.6 million barrels in 
February 2022. The all-time high was 12.9, almost 13 million barrels.
  When Trump took office, we produced 8.8 billion barrels in January 
2017. In 2008, we produced 5 million barrels. We more than doubled that 
in a decade from that 5 million.
  Oil production is up more than 700,000 billion barrels from January 
to December 2021. It is up. It is very substantially up. Oil production 
is projected to grow more than 1 million barrels this year alone.
  The U.S. rig count--this is important because these are the rigs that 
are in operation. The U.S. rig count is at a current level of 705, up 
seven from a week ago, and 257 from 1 year ago--a 57 percent increase.
  So the presentation that somehow we are handcuffed in producing 
petroleum products is simply not true. In terms of natural gas, the 
United States is also the largest producer of natural gas in the world, 
at 3 trillion--3.109 billion cubic feet. Russia is second, Iran is 
third, and China is fourth, and Qatar is fifth.
  In December of 2011, Mr. Speaker, the U.S. was producing 82.1 billion 
cubic feet of natural gas. That was in 2011. In December 2021, we are 
now producing 118 billion cubic feet, a 45 percent increase in 10 
years. Again, to hear the

[[Page H4958]]

whip talking about it, it would be as if we have been somewhat 
constrained and are not doing our job.
  Now, I happen to have an export company in my district, Calvert 
Cliffs, a nuclear facility. Right south of Calvert Cliffs is an export 
facility for LNG, in Cove Point, Maryland. In October 2021, 66 percent 
of the deliveries went to Asia, 34 percent went to Europe.
  In February and March of this year, it is now 80 percent to Europe 
and 20 percent to Asia.
  Why is that? So that we can meet the cutoff that has either happened 
because Russia did it or it has happened because the Europeans have 
stopped buying, in some respects, Russian product.
  In any event, at the end of 2021, the U.S. had a peak export capacity 
of 11.6 billion cubic feet per day. By the end of 2022, that figure is 
expected to increase by 20 percent. This is not a country that is 
locking down the production of oil.
  In addition, let me point out that there are--I want to get the right 
figure--oil and gas companies already have 26 million acres of public 
lands to drill on and over 11 million acres of Federal waters that are 
currently at their disposal. They have 37 million acres in total. 
Nothing is stopping these companies from drilling there, if they choose 
to do so.
  The industry, Mr. Speaker, holds 9,000 unused approved permits right 
now. There are 9,000 approved permits to drill, which they are not 
using.
  Last fall, the Biden administration put 80 million acres of the Gulf 
of Mexico for auction; unfortunately, the court overturned that. There 
has not been a pursuit of that, as the whip will point out, since that 
time. The point is that the response to that offer got a 2 percent 
response for 1.7 million acres out of the 80 million acres that were 
offered.
  Now, the reason I took some time to go through these figures--nobody 
ought to be confused by the fact that what we are experiencing is a 
cause of the President's proper view that we need to move to 
alternative fuels, a proper view that we need to, as the whip has 
pointed out, have safe production, safe processing, energy efficient, 
but also environmentally sensitive production of our oil products. All 
of which we are doing.
  I want to make it very clear that my personal view is we need to make 
sure that Europe has product, period, for national security reasons 
and, as the whip points out, for environmental reasons. There ought to 
be no confusion that oil production in this country is doing very well.
  Now, why do some companies say they are not producing a lot? Because 
they are making a lot of money, a lot of profits, and buying back 
stock. That enhances the value of that stock. It enhances the value of 
the company. It enhances the value of the CEO. I don't criticize them 
for that.
  Very frankly, we are at war. A dictator has invaded, without 
justification, a friendly country, Ukraine. They have fought back with 
extraordinary valor. What we really ought to do is talk together about 
how we can make sure that we bring gas prices down.
  Now, whether the FTC decides--as the gentleman has pointed out, Mr. 
Speaker--whether or not there is gouging, if they don't decide that 
then, as Secretary Granholm observed, they are not sure, so be it. If 
they are gouging--if they are incorrectly charging consumers a higher 
price just because they can, then we ought to know about that.
  That is what this bill is about, and that is going to be discussed 
next week. There ought to be no confusion, we are producing a lot of 
oil. We are producing a lot of LNG. We are trying to provide for our 
own needs and the needs of those who are confronting tyranny in Europe 
and are confronting shortages in Europe, which is driving up prices.
  For the gentleman to say that these are Biden prices is simply not 
the case. Biden didn't have anything to do with these prices. We were 
producing more petroleum products. What happened is the cartels, which 
have done so--and I am old enough to remember what happened in the 
early 1970s--the cartels are controlling supply.
  As a result, the shortness of supply and the increase in demand--why? 
Because we dealt with the pandemic. We got shots in arms. Once we got 
shots in arms and we are not wearing masks on the floor anymore, we are 
in better shape health-wise.
  So what are people doing? They are going out and driving. Demand is 
up and supply is being kept down by the cartels, not by Joe Biden.
  This evidence of the companies not producing more product--I get it. 
They are getting very high prices.
  So why should they produce more product? If you produce more product 
and if you want to sell more product to make more money--but they are 
making a lot of money right now and they are buying stock back. The 
dividends are being paid at a healthy rate. So here we are.

  Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman that we are going to deal 
with both the supply side, which is important, but I also want to make 
sure that we aren't gouging consumers in the process.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, to say that Joe Biden is not the reason 
that supply is limited just doesn't match with the facts. Again, just 2 
days ago, Joe Biden, not Putin, not the big oil companies, Joe Biden 
canceled oil and lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.
  Joe Biden canceled lease sales in Alaska.
  Joe Biden, as a candidate--this isn't just some new development for 
Joe Biden--Joe Biden as a candidate for President of the United States 
said: ``No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil 
industry to continue to drill. Period.''
  That was Joe Biden as a candidate, and he didn't stop there.
  When he became President, on day one he started an attack on American 
energy. It is crystal clear why.
  Now, I am glad the gentleman is bragging about high production 
levels, but let's not think for a minute that Joe Biden is the reason 
we have production today. If you understand the oil and gas industry--I 
was just on a rig in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico 2 weeks ago, 
one of the largest-producing rigs in the Gulf. Do you know that rig got 
its first lease in 2002? It took about 10 years to get the first oil. 
They put private money--all private money; over $10 billion of private 
money--into developing those leases. There were many leases and permits 
along the way to finally get to the point where they could bring oil 
out of the ground, making money to pay back the $10-plus billion, to 
ultimately get to a point where they could produce over 130,000 barrels 
today.
  If Joe Biden wants to try to dare take credit for those 130,000 
barrels today, he needs to go check the record at how long it took to 
get that oil from lease, permits, out of the ground, to ultimately 
getting it into world markets, not American markets. Oil companies 
don't set the price of oil, it is world markets. That oil ultimately 
depletes, which is why the oil companies are always looking for new 
opportunities.
  The gentleman talks--as the White House has talked--about thousands 
of permits that are out there. It sounds really good. Understandably, I 
think people recognize it is a misleading number because many of these 
permits are for wells that were tried where there is no oil. There is 
not oil everywhere.
  You buy leases to go explore. It is called ``exploration'' for a 
reason. If it was known reserves--if you go drill right under a gas 
tank you find oil. If you want to find oil out amongst the natural 
resources that leases are issued for, you do test wells, you do seismic 
engineering. By the way, that takes years to go through the process of 
permitting.
  Since Joe Biden has been President they have not issued new leases 
for seismic. So you might have a 3-mile by 3-mile lease in the Gulf of 
Mexico that you paid millions of dollars to the Federal Government for 
years ago, and you are continuing to try to explore those 3 miles by 3 
miles that the Federal Government was happy to take the money for, but 
you can't even get a permit from the Federal Government today to 
explore that lease--to exercise other permits.
  You have to get permits for the pipelines. Not a single new pipeline 
permit has been issued. Even if you get it out of the ground, the Biden 
administration doesn't want you to have the ability to move it through 
to refineries and world markets.
  What you see is a recognition by the rest of the world that America 
has

[[Page H4959]]

taken itself off the shelf in terms of the ability to produce energy. 
Again, Joe Biden is the one who canceled all these sales. Joe Biden is 
the one who, as a candidate, said there will be no drilling. Cartels 
love this policy because they know now they control the supply.
  America is producing oil today based on permits and actions that were 
taken years ago. What we are seeing today is an inability to continue 
developing these leases, which means ultimately they will dry up, as 
all of those leases do. That is why you are always exploring for the 
next round of finds.
  Those next rounds of finds are not being explored for in America, 
they are being explored for in other countries, but it is countries 
that are cartels, countries that are monopolies, so they can control 
the price.
  It is interesting that the gentleman brought up the last time we saw 
these kinds of prices was in the 1970s under a similar Democrat 
President who had the same kind of attitude toward American energy. It 
made our country dependent on foreign energy and it created lines at 
the pump where people had to wait days to get gasoline.
  When you saw President Trump opening up American energy and allowing 
a free market to produce energy--we don't put those constraints in 
place when we are operating under a free market, so the cartels have no 
leverage, Putin has no leverage. The only reason he has leverage is if 
you have a President like Joe Biden who says we are not going to 
produce in America.
  He said it. He took the actions to follow up on it, including just a 
few days ago. Amidst high gas prices, he actually took more American 
energy off the market, giving the cartels more monopoly power to raise 
prices. I wish we would address that. We have a bill to address that 
and reverse those bad policies. Unfortunately, I haven't heard the 
gentleman commit to bringing those to the floor yet.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1300

  So I wish my friend would address that. We have a bill to address 
that and reverse those bad policies. Unfortunately, I haven't heard the 
gentleman bring it to the floor yet.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. It is unfortunate that at a time of war that we spend all 
our time blaming our own President.
  It is unfortunate that when the Europeans put themselves over the 
objections of numerous administrations in a place where they had 
dependence on Russia, Russia has no leverage over us. We don't need 
Russia for energy. As a matter of fact, we voted overwhelmingly to stop 
buying any petroleum products from Russia which I supported strongly. 
On this side of the aisle and on the other side of the aisle we 
supported that strongly.
  The fact of the matter is the gentleman refuses to recognize 80 
million acres--now, it was overturned by the courts later--80 million 
acres. He says all these people want to produce it and they want to 
look to new places, and they want to find oil someplace. There was a 2 
percent of response.
  Mr. Speaker, 1.7 million acres out of 80 million acres were bid on. 
That doesn't sound to me like a stampede to find it.
  But let me tell you what he doesn't tell the American people, Mr. 
Speaker, when he is making that presentation. And you would think the 
Biden administration has clamped things down. The Biden administration 
approved more drilling permits in 2021 than the Trump administration 
approved in the first 3 years they were in office. Let me say that 
again: The Biden administration approved more permits in the first year 
of their term than the Trump administration did in the first 3 years of 
their term.
  So when he says: Oh, the Biden administration is shutting it down and 
that is why we are having the problem; we are having the problem 
because Russia--the second, third producer of petroleum products in the 
world--is an irresponsible dictatorship run by one man, essentially, 
who wants to use petroleum products as leverage. And he had leverage on 
the Europeans, and he had leverage certainly on the Ukrainians. They 
used energy as a bludgeon.
  In addition to that, the oil companies were making huge profits as 
these prices kept going up. So they didn't go out and do a lot of 
drilling. They didn't bid on a lot of new opportunities that maybe they 
could have produced oil on. They didn't bother.
  Why?
  Because they were making so much money. Now, that is a business 
judgment. But the effect of not doing it meant that as demand went up 
and less of a supply, not just from their actions but from the actions 
of the Saudis, others, and the cartel, again, three times as many 
permits were authorized in the first year of the Biden administration 
than 3 years in the Trump administration.
  So don't tell me about Donald Trump and the free market. The free 
market is one reason why this is happening. I am for the free market 
because sound business judgments work: we are making a lot of money, 
with that money we are going to buy back stocks; it will make the 
remaining stocks more valuable; we are going to pay good dividends; our 
stock value is going to go up, and everybody is happy--except the 
consumer, of course, because supply on the world markets--and it is a 
world market price, it is not Biden's price, it is the world market 
price--have gone up because demand is up and supply is down.
  So I don't know how the gentleman rationalizes his comments about 
Biden constricting petroleum production when the permits issued are 
three times--or said a different way--in 1 year three times the number 
of permits that Mr. Trump issued in the first 3 years of his term. I 
wish we would get off this and really focus on the enemy. I know there 
is a lot of politics here, but we are at war. We need to produce 
energy.
  As I told my friend, Cove Point is now sending 80 percent, reversing 
Asia supply to European supply because they need it because we are at 
war. And we are up in almost every category of production of petroleum 
products. So we can go on and on and on about this. Rig counts that are 
producing oil are up 57 percent--57 percent from a year ago--a 57 
percent increase in operating rigs. It doesn't sound to me like Biden 
is shutting people down.
  Biden does want a clean environment. Biden does want us to look at 
alternative energy. That is what he was talking about in the campaign 
that he wanted to look to that. But President Biden has made it very 
clear he understands in the short term--short term could be 25 years or 
5 years--in the short term, particularly during the course of this war, 
we need to have all the petroleum products, and we need to have them 
for ourselves and for our allies.
  Mr. SCALISE. We will continue this discussion. I would like to see us 
bring up the bill that would actually address it. We will see this 
debate go on next week and beyond.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________