[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 103 (Thursday, June 16, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H5632-H5637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          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. Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend and the House majority leader.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, before I start on the colloquy and go 
through the schedule, I was just talking to the Republican whip, my 
friend, Mr. Scalise. We were talking about a friend of ours, his name 
is John Bresnahan; he is

[[Page H5633]]

a reporter. He has covered Capitol Hill since 1994, I believe, is the 
note I had. He is an excellent reporter.
  He reports the facts. He reports the truth. As I know Mr. Scalise 
agrees, reporters who do that not only serve us, but more importantly, 
their major purpose is to serve the American people because we know 
that a free press telling the facts and the truth to the American 
people give them the opportunity to make solid decisions for our 
democracy.
  I wish John Bresnahan a happy 60th birthday, and hope that he has 
many, many more. I have had 23 more than that, so I appreciate the fact 
that he is still going strong.
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the confession 
about how many 60th birthdays he has shared. Here is to many more for 
you, but also for Bres.
  As the gentleman points out, a fair and free press is vital to 
democracy. It is the First Amendment to our Constitution: freedom of 
speech and freedom of the press. While they might not report our press 
releases verbatim all the time--as we might like them to--they serve a 
vital purpose. Bres is one of those that we see in the halls, like the 
press that is around here making sure that the country knows what is 
happening here in the greatest democracy of the history of the world.
  As a 60th birthday gift to him, I promise not to sing ``Happy 
Birthday'' to him. I wish Bres a happy birthday, and I yield to the 
gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I want to tell Mr. Bresnahan that he made 
the same promise to me, which is why we did this. If he was going to 
sing it, I was a little reluctant to do this, and he didn't. I join the 
whip in wishing John Bresnahan, a friend, a very careful and honest 
reporter, the very best 60th birthday and many more to come.
  Madam Speaker, on Tuesday, 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 Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning 
hour and 12 p.m. for legislative business.
  Madam Speaker, on Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for 
legislative business.
  On Monday, we will be celebrating Juneteenth as a Federal holiday for 
the second time in American history. Juneteenth is the day on which the 
last slaves who were in Texas learned of their new status as free 
Americans, an extraordinary day in the history of our country, 
eliminating one of the great blights on the history of America. As de 
Tocqueville pointed out, we tried to heal our wounds and tried to heal 
our wrongs, and we are still working on that.
  Last year, the Congress took the historic step of enacting 
legislation to recognize Juneteenth as a Federal holiday, at long last. 
I look forward to celebrating as we pay tribute to freedom to all men 
and women being created equal in the image of God. We celebrate the 
history of the African-American perseverance and triumph over injustice 
and adversity.
  I say triumph--it has been a triumph--but there are battles yet to be 
won. Juneteenth not only looks back but it looks forward to winning 
those battles.
  Madam Speaker, I see Mr. Green on the floor, who has a resolution on 
the recognition of the blight of slavery. I thank him for that 
resolution and look forward to having that considered.
  On Monday, we will be celebrating that holiday, but we will be 
celebrating it as we do Martin Luther King's birthday, as we ought to 
be in celebrating Washington and Lincoln's birthday, and committing 
ourselves to the realization of the principles for which they stood.
  Madam Speaker, the House will consider bills under suspension of the 
rules. The complete list of those suspension bills will be announced at 
the close of business tomorrow.
  Next week, Madam Speaker, the House will consider H.R. 7666, which is 
titled Restoring Hope for Mental Health and Well-Being Act, a 
bipartisan package of bills led by Chairman Pallone and Ranking Member 
McMorris Rodgers, to address the mental health and opioid abuse crisis.
  The legislation expands access to treatment for opioid use disorders, 
promotes behavioral health integration, and reauthorizes critical 
programs to support mental health and substance use disorder, 
prevention, treatment, and recovery, including in our children.

  Madam Speaker, the House will also consider legislation under 
suspension from Chairman  Bobby Scott and members of the Education and 
Labor Committee to address the mental health, addiction, and suicide on 
college campuses, which is far, far too prevalent.
  Our young people have faced stresses by the pandemic, stresses within 
our Nation, the divisions on which prey on their minds, so this is a 
very important piece of legislation. I hope it will be--and I believe 
it is going to be--bipartisan.
  The House will also take up H.R. 6411, the Veterans Affairs' 
Committee Chairman Mark Takano's STRONG Veterans Act, again, bipartisan 
legislation to combat veterans' suicide and address mental health, and 
help our Nation meet its commitment to those who risk their lives and 
safety for our country.
  Additionally, Madam Speaker, the House will consider H.R. 5585, 
Representatives Eshoo's ARPA-H Act. This legislation would establish 
the Advanced Research Project Agency for Health, an independent agency 
tasked with accelerating biomedical innovation and making 
transformative breakthroughs in the fight against the most challenging 
diseases confronting our people.
  This agency will oversee the next steps in the Cancer Moonshot 
program and help meet the President's goal of cutting the cancer death 
rate by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years, and hopefully 
sooner.
  Madam Speaker, as we celebrate Pride Month, the House will consider 
H.R. 4176, the LGBTQ Data Inclusion Act.
  Madam Speaker, I anticipate that the House will vote on a 
compromised, bipartisan Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring 
Our PACT Act, after the Senate takes action on the version agreed upon 
in May. As the whip knows, that Act was a bipartisan act that dealt 
with those who were exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances of 
which they did not know while they were serving on bases, both here and 
around the world.
  This bill, we believe the Senate will take action on, a version 
agreed upon in May, which preserves much of the House-passed 
legislation to care for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic 
chemicals during their service.
  In addition, the House will consider other bills under suspension of 
the rules, the complete list of suspension bills will be announced by 
the close of business tomorrow. Additional legislative items are 
possible.

                              {time}  1215

  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that update. As 
we celebrate Juneteenth next week, also right here in this House 
Chamber over 150 years ago is where the 13th Amendment to the 
Constitution was debated and passed. So history is made here on a 
regular basis. And then we celebrate the freedoms that result and 
continue as our Founders talked about to aspire towards a more perfect 
Nation so we will do that next week.
  I do want to thank the gentleman because last week during this 
colloquy I know I asked my friend if we could bring the Supreme Court 
protection bill, the bill to make sure that Supreme Court Justices and 
their families get proper protection, as we were watching and saw a man 
arrested for trying to murder a Supreme Court Justice. Leader McCarthy, 
I know, urged that as well. So I appreciate that we got to bring that 
bill up, debate it, and quickly pass it to President Biden's desk where 
we can get that in place.
  I would hope that the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, would start 
enforcing 18 U.S. Code 1507 to give protection properly as Federal laws 
dictate, but it is not being enforced at the homes of those Justices. 
But, again, I appreciate that we got a very overwhelming bipartisan 
vote on that bill this week.
  Does the gentleman have anything to add before we talk about the 
schedule for next week?
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

[[Page H5634]]

  I would simply observe, as I observed the other day, that we all want 
to make sure that our Justices are safe.
  Let me say, Madam Speaker, there is a very important reason for that. 
We want to keep all our people safe. But nine Justices of our Supreme 
Court represent that we are a nation of laws. They are one of the three 
branches of our government. Just as I was extraordinarily and remain 
extraordinarily concerned about the attack on this institution, the 
Congress of the United States, as we were preparing to elect a 
President of the United States, an attack on the Supreme Court and the 
lives of the Supreme Court Justices are an attack on our democracy, on 
a separate branch of government that is charged with continuing to make 
us a nation of laws.
  So, very frankly, the Supreme Court Justices, under existing law, 
were protected. There were security people there. Luckily, there were 
security people there. But the gentleman is absolutely right. We want 
to make sure whether we agree or disagree with the individuals, whether 
we agree or disagree with the opinions or the judgements that Congress 
makes, we are a nation of laws, and the way to resolve our differences 
is not through violence but through the democratic process.
  I thank the gentleman for his observation.
  Mr. SCALISE. I share those comments by the gentleman from Maryland.
  As we look towards next week--we have had this conversation a number 
of times--one of the items I don't see on the agenda is an item to 
address the problem of high gas prices, and, of course, we have now 
crossed an average of more than $5 a gallon. It is a major burden for 
families, especially lower-income families who are being forced more 
and more to make those tough decisions of can they even afford to drive 
to work, and can they even afford to drive to see their doctor or to 
drive to the grocery store where they are paying maybe 20 percent more 
for some of the food items.
  We have had a bill for over a month now, H.R. 6858, that would 
address these problems and allow us to actually have more control over 
our own energy production in America, to be able to drill in America 
for energy to lower the cost of gasoline, by confronting so many of the 
problems that this Biden administration has imposed that are making it 
hard for us to produce more energy in America to the point where you 
now have President Biden announcing that he is going to go to Saudi 
Arabia to beg them to produce more oil.
  As we try to confront this challenge--and again, H.R. 6858 would 
allow us to do that--if you look at President Biden's proposed trip to 
Saudi Arabia, the President likes talking a lot about carbon 
footprints, carbon emissions, and global warming.
  Why would the President get on Air Force One and fly 5,700 miles to 
Saudi Arabia to beg them to do something that we can do right here in 
America?
  In fact, he could go less than 1,000 miles to Port Fourchon, 
Louisiana, in my district where they can produce hundreds of thousands 
of barrels a day in America which, by the way, because America has the 
best standards in the world, would emit less carbon than the oil 
produced in Saudi Arabia.
  While the President will be flying over to Saudi Arabia, he won't 
know the answer he is going to get. They are an OPEC nation. They 
typically support a limited supply of oil because they want a higher 
price. So he doesn't know what the answer is going to be. He is going 
to fly 5,700 miles over and another 5,700 miles back to the United 
States. There are no solar panels on Air Force One, so that is going to 
be a lot of jet fuel and a lot of carbon emissions to do something that 
he could pick up the phone and call Port Fourchon. We would love to see 
him down there, but he can call them. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, 
the answer would be ``yes.''
  They would say: Yes, we will produce more energy here in America.
  But they are not allowed to right now because of limitations put in 
place by the Biden administration. So while we push to get this bill, 
H.R. 6858, brought forward, it really begs the question of first: What 
is the carbon footprint of President Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia?
  But why even do this trip? Why go to Saudi Arabia and ask them to 
produce oil when we have it right here?
  It is President Biden's policies that are stopping that oil from 
being produced, and, by the way, at a much lower carbon footprint than 
anything that Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, or any of those 
countries would produce if it were their countries meeting the demands 
of our Nation and so many others.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman, hopefully, to see if we can 
get the bill scheduled for next week.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  We continue to talk about this as if this were the President's fault. 
First of all, in a much wider range, this is a result of the pandemic.
  Why is it the result of the pandemic?
  Not solely the pandemic but let me take the pandemic first. Everybody 
stayed home--this body and businesses across America.
  What did that mean that they stayed home?
  They stopped buying gas.
  What did the oil companies do?
  They shut down some of their production, a very substantial reduction 
in production. But then as the prices went up, they were making as much 
money or much more money. So in making much more money, they didn't 
increase production, as the gentleman says will be an answer to the 
question, in a country that does, in fact, have regulations and does 
have rules, and because of those regulations and rules the production 
of our energy is, in fact, as the gentleman asserts, more efficient and 
more environmentally considerate.
  The oil companies--acting from what they thought was good business 
practice, demand was down, but prices were going up--were making 
profits. They bought back stock, which, of course, increased the value 
of the stock that remained. They increased dividends, which, of course, 
encouraged people to invest in them. It made people happy about their 
investments.
  But they didn't increase production. They didn't have to increase 
production. They were making good profits and making, from their 
standpoint, good business decisions.
  As I indicated in the last colloquy that we dealt with this problem, 
there were millions of leases put on the market by this administration, 
as I recall, some 80 million acres. Approximately 2 percent of the 
leases were bid on, and then the Court said that this was not a legal 
process.
  But it is interesting how small was the interest in additional 
production at that time irrespective of what happened subsequently.
  The gentleman mentions a bill, as he has done in the past, H.R. 6858, 
the American Energy Independence from Russia Act.
  But before I say that, let me say, I hope the President is going to 
Saudi Arabia to talk privately, not publicly trying to embarrass or 
harangue, and certainly not to beg. The United States of America 
doesn't need to beg any nation in the world, and this President is not 
begging anybody.
  This President should say, however, Madam Speaker: Saudis, stop 
controlling the supply unreasonably and driving the prices up of your 
product.
  Yes, they are making more money, and they have a cartel. That is 
called a monopoly. That cartel has made sure that the lack of supply 
drove up the international market price. And then Russia went to war.
  Now, Russia going to war has affected to some degree the supply of 
oil, but, very frankly, buying Russian oil supports their criminal war 
effort, their vicious and murderous war effort. We are all against 
that. So we agreed that we would not take any oil, and we urged our 
European allies not to rely on it either.
  Now, what did that create?
  It created a lack of confidence in the stability of the market.
  What happens when you have lack of confidence in the stability of a 
market?
  Prices go up because it is a bet on what is going to happen with the 
price of that product in the future that the market really reflects.
  Now, the reason I say it that way is because these are not Biden 
prices. Even if tomorrow we snapped a finger and said: ``Okay, go 
ahead,'' nothing would happen tomorrow, nothing would

[[Page H5635]]

happen next week, and nothing would happen next month. It would take a 
substantial period of time because the oil companies, based upon the 
lack of demand, shut down, nor did they pursue further production.
  Now, let me say something about the price of oil. The national price 
of oil now does not reflect the increase as part of the market response 
to what is called the West Texas Intermediary, which I am sure the 
gentleman from Louisiana, an oil-producing State, knows much more about 
than I do.
  But let me say this: In 2008, that benchmark for crude oil peaked at 
$147.02 in July of 2008. Adjusted for inflation, that is $199.57 today.
  In that time, 2008, the average U.S. gasoline peaked at $4.14 per 
gallon. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $5.62 today.
  So, in other words, in 2008, otherwise known as the last year of the 
Bush administration, gasoline prices were higher than they are today 
notwithstanding the fact that the world price was $31 less.
  Excuse me, yesterday, June 15, that West Texas Intermediary oil--the 
benchmark for crude oil prices--was $116 a barrel, $31 less, without 
accounting for inflation, which would make it greater than it was in 
2008. That wasn't George Bush's fault. It was the international 
market's fault and also this cartel that controls a large part of the 
supply of the oil in our country.
  Now, my point--I still have to deal with H.R. 6858. One of its tenets 
is to approve the Keystone pipeline. The problem with that is, for 
whatever reason--and I understand my friend will have a response, Madam 
Speaker, as to well, because you disapproved it, meaning the Obama 
administration. They want to open the Keystone pipeline. The problem is 
the company that had the Keystone pipeline has abandoned it. Even if it 
were approved, they would have to get back in business and we would be 
well over a year--well over a year.
  Now, I happen to have agreed that we should have approved that 
pipeline. I have said that publicly. I said that to the press. That 
didn't happen. But it would not solve the problem. And particularly, 
when you look at the figures that I just gave with respect to the world 
market price, we are paying a lot more now than we did in 2008 when it 
was higher.
  So I would say to my friend, he also had a provision that expedites 
the LNG facility approval process. One of the problems we had is 20 
percent of the LNG export capacity is now shut down.

                              {time}  1230

  It was shut down because the regulations that the gentleman speaks 
of, correctly, were not followed, and the LNG plant had an explosion. 
It shut down because it violated regulations that were imposed upon it.
  What I would say to my friend--I have talked to the committee about 
his bill. The LNG process is working. As I told him, I have an LNG 
export plant in my district, which has changed from substantial exports 
to the Pacific region, and now, 80 percent is going to Europe to try to 
bridge that gap as the Europeans retreat from being dependent upon 
Russian oil.
  I tell my friend, with all due respect--and I am not going to plead 
with him, but I am going to suggest to him--we are going to Saudi 
Arabia, I hope, to tell them in private: Look, this is not a game you 
want to be playing. You are making our consumers pay far more.
  We have acted. We acted, and we passed, some time ago, a bill that 
said you cannot have gas prices that are set at unreasonable levels, 
which we know as gouging. It is like you have a flood in your city and 
80 percent of the grocery stores are wiped out, and the grocery stores 
that remain triple their prices. That is called gouging. We passed that 
bill.
  We also passed a bill today which, unfortunately, most Republicans 
voted against--``most,'' I say, not all--which will, again, seek to 
bring the price down at the pump. How? By utilizing American products 
to supplement and expand the supply of gas and, we believe, bring the 
price of a gallon down some 40 cents--that is what the experts say--if 
we continue to use a mix of fuel.
  But let me say in closing, on these remarks, which I know have been 
relatively lengthy, we are in this together, Republicans and Democrats.
  FOX News criticized me for saying we are at war. We just sent a 
billion dollars for a war we are not in because we believe in freedom. 
We believe in international law.
  We believe that we have a dictator, a dangerous dictator, who is 
committing war crimes through his men and women in eastern Ukraine in 
particular and did it in western Ukraine as they came into Kyiv.
  We are in this together, one Nation, one America, on behalf of 
freedom. We have taken tough action. As part of that, we are paying the 
price at the pump because of that invasion.
  The pandemic shut down production and shut down the purchase of 
gasoline by people because they didn't go to work. They didn't need to 
get in their cars. They didn't need to commute.
  I would simply say to my friend that we are on the same team. Our 
President is leading our effort to defeat this despot, to stop this 
war, to ensure the freedom not only of the Ukrainian people but of all 
people, and to ensure that we respect international law.
  I looked at the gentleman's bill. I would be glad to talk about other 
ways, including maybe some of the things that are in his bill. But I 
will tell the gentleman, the first couple that I looked at, the 
Keystone pipeline is not going to be reopened. The gentleman and I may 
lament that as a policy because I was publicly, during the Obama 
administration, for the approval of that pipeline. So, I am prepared to 
work with the gentleman to see what we can do.
  But we have done today's bill. It may not be perfect. It may not 
work. But it is certainly worth a try, to try to bring these awful 
prices down at the pump because I know all of our constituents, whether 
they live in Louisiana or Maryland, are struggling because they have to 
use their cars. They have to use that gasoline. They don't have an 
alternative. And they don't have an alternative to buying food.
  Both of those are tough, and we need to act together to try to see if 
we can solve that problem in the context of an extraordinary pandemic, 
a historic pandemic that shut down the world, and we are just trying to 
get back.
  We are trying to get supply chains going, including gasoline 
pipelines, which is why the President is going to Saudi Arabia, not to 
beg, but to assert the economic fact of the ramifications of the 
cartels stifling supply.
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, if there is common ground we can find on 
the components of H.R. 6858, I would be happy to help facilitate that 
negotiation because there are a number of very specific items in that 
bill that address the shortfalls, the deficiencies, the inabilities to 
produce energy in America. The Keystone pipeline might be one of the 
more well known.
  President Biden, on his first day in office, canceled the Keystone 
pipeline.
  Of course, it is not moving forward because he canceled it. It would 
provide a vital supply of oil from our friends in Canada that we 
wouldn't need from other people.
  But there are a number of other pipeline issues. No new pipelines 
have been approved in the country. You have to have an ability to move 
energy around the country if we are going to be able to produce our 
own.
  If a conscious decision was made in the White House that they don't 
want any pipelines, because that impedes the ability to produce energy 
in America, it just means we have to import more of it from other 
countries. Whether it is Saudi Arabia, Russia, any of them that I would 
not want us to have to get it from, it is going to come in some form. 
It might be a tanker. It is going to get here, and it is going to have 
to be put on rail or an 18-wheeler if it can't be put in a pipeline.
  Let's get more pipelines produced, LNG export facilities. There are 
multiple, at least four, LNG export facilities that are sitting on the 
desk over at the Department of Energy ready to go. These are 
multibillion-dollar, privately funded projects that can't move forward 
because they won't move, yes or no, on those requests that have been 
pending for over a year.
  Obviously, you look at leases, not being able to develop your lease. 
If you are a farmer and you own land, you could talk about all the 
thousands of acres of land, but if you need a permit

[[Page H5636]]

from the Federal Government to plant food and the Federal Government 
won't give you a permit to plant the food, then you can't use the land. 
The land is worthless.

  You own leases on Federal or State lands, but the Federal Government, 
through President Biden, said you can't get permits to go and exercise 
that lease. Then the lease is worthless.
  There has been a lot of talk by the White House about who to blame. 
By the way, I have never heard of President Biden pointing the finger 
at himself or looking in the mirror and going, is there something I can 
do? We have a list for him that he can do, and he won't.
  But Joe Biden, as a candidate for President, has said things like 
this multiple times since being President: ``No more drilling on 
Federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the 
oil industry to continue to drill, period.'' That was Joe Biden.
  Then, Joe Biden continued to carry out policies that followed through 
on those promises to kill drilling in America, and each step of the 
way, the price kept going up.
  Prior to Putin's invasion--I know the President loves trying to blame 
Putin. Well in advance of Putin's invasion, the price of oil was going 
up. In fact, the President was--whatever terminology you want to use--
pleading with, begging, asking Putin to produce more oil prior to the 
invasion of Ukraine. That was who Joe Biden was asking back then as he 
was carrying out his promise, ``No ability for the oil industry to 
continue to drill, period.''
  He only applied that, by the way, to America. He was asking other 
countries to drill. He was just saying you can't do it here. Putin said 
no, by the way.
  In the meantime, Putin was making $700 million a day selling his oil 
to America and Europe during that period when President Biden was 
carrying out all the steps to stop drilling in America.
  Then you fast forward. The price keeps going up. President Biden, 
again, doesn't look in the mirror.
  The gentleman mentioned they blamed the pandemic. That didn't fly 
because that wasn't the case because people started getting out again, 
started going again.
  Energy companies asked to start producing again and filed permit 
after permit application and got denied and denied and denied, so then 
the President blamed the oil and gas companies. They had hearings up 
here, brought in all the oil and gas companies.
  Do you know what the oil and gas companies said under oath? They want 
to drill more, and they can't drill because of President Biden's 
policies. It is President Biden's policies stopping them from drilling.
  Again, if the oil and gas companies or Putin were the reason that 
there was this inability, and President Biden, as he has done multiple 
times, blamed them, if they were the reason that they had this 
shortfall, he would continue to be blaming them. But he knew the public 
wasn't buying it because it wasn't them, so he just blames more people.
  Then, he goes to price gouging. As the gentleman pointed out, there 
was a bill here on the House floor a few weeks ago to try to shift the 
blame over to price gouging, and the answer was to allow you to sue 
your local gas station if you didn't like the price of gas.
  Well, none of us like the price of gas. Suing your gas station is 
only going to make the price higher. Obviously, that had no impact 
because that wasn't the reason. But that was the answer and the attempt 
to try to blame somebody else.
  Then we moved forward, and it is all of these other issues--
refineries. This week, the White House started blaming refineries.
  While the White House keeps throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying to 
figure out if somebody else will take the blame, he is going to go to 
Saudi and ask them to help us lower the price. Saudi's ability to 
produce is irrelevant to the price if we produce in America because we 
have the ability to drive down that price because we are not an OPEC 
nation. We are not a monopoly. We are a free-market economy when the 
free market is allowed to operate.
  But President Biden, through his promises--``No ability for the oil 
industry to continue to drill, period''--in essence, he took the free 
market ability for America to produce energy off the table, which means 
he gave that leverage to monopolies, to cartels. They are taking 
advantage of it because President Biden gave them that.
  Instead of asking them to produce more when they are fine with the 
high price of oil, whether it is Brent, West Texas, it doesn't matter 
what it is. He has taken it off in America so that they can limit the 
supply.
  Let's not limit the supply. Again, if it is about saving the planet, 
if it is about carbon emissions, why not produce more here? There is no 
country in the world that produces oil that does it cleaner or better 
than us.
  If you take America off the table, as President Biden has done--``No 
more drilling on Federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore.'' 
That was Joe Biden. He took it off the table here. That means you are 
going to need oil from countries that emit more carbon to produce the 
same oil, so you get higher carbon emissions.

  Again, that doesn't even count the carbon emissions that will occur 
when President Biden gets on Air Force One and flies over 5,700 miles 
to go have this conversation that he doesn't need to have because he 
can have that conversation right here in America at a place like Port 
Fourchon, where the answer would be yes, and it would be cleaner. And 
by the way, it would bring billions more dollars into America's 
Treasury. It would lower the price of gasoline. It would create more 
jobs in America.
  Every answer says yes, except President Biden keeps saying no. We 
want to address it through this legislation, which would counter some 
of those many things that President Biden has done to turn off the 
spigots in America.
  If we can work on ways to confront this, I would be more than happy 
to have that negotiation, and we could go through, offline, how to do 
that. That is why I continue to bring up this bill.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for all of that 
information.
  It continues to befuddle me why our Republican friends would much 
prefer to blame President Biden and so avoid placing blame on Mr. 
Trump's friend, Mr. Putin. I don't understand that, Madam Speaker. It 
is not a nation indivisible.
  Now, Madam Speaker, I used a statistic some weeks ago that I have 
heard not at all disputed. The Biden administration has approved more 
drilling permits on public land in 2021, in 1 year, than the Trump 
administration did each year during its first 3 years in office.

                              {time}  1245

  Not compared to the combined 3 years, just compared to each 
individual year. Number one.
  Number two: Domestic oil production is greater today than it was 
under Trump. Not a whole big difference, 10,968 versus 11,185, but 
nevertheless, it speaks to the fact that the representation that 
somehow Biden has shut down the industry, and therefore, he is to 
blame.
  We don't want to talk about the pandemic that shut down oil 
production. In Trump's last year--in Trump's last year--refineries in 
the U.S. reduced their capacity by more than 800,000 barrels. So, under 
the Trump administration, production was decreased.
  Maybe they will look at the records and see whether or not that 
representation is accurate, and if it is not, I stand to be corrected. 
But those are the figures I have.
  I notice that my friend did not respond to my representation that 
prices were higher under George Bush in 2008 than they are today. Now, 
because of inflation, the number is different, and compared to the 
world price, prices are higher.
  So, I will say to my friend, we had at least 80 million acres, 2.5 
million taken. As the gentleman pointed out before, the court said, No, 
that wasn't legal, so it was never effected. But we have those 800,000 
that are not back online.
  Don't blame them, though. Don't blame Putin. Don't blame the 
pandemic. Politically, let's blame Biden.
  Now, I'm not sure why Bush had the higher price. Maybe it was that he 
was shutting down the oil business, the President from Texas. Maybe.

[[Page H5637]]

  But there is more today being produced. Not by enough. Still, there 
are 800,000 barrels shut down. That is per day, by the way; not just 
800,000--per day.
  So we can argue back and forth on this. We are passing legislation. 
Our Republican friends, for the most part, voted against it. It won't 
work. It won't do.
  I don't know whether they are right or wrong, but it is worth trying. 
It is worth trying because our consumers are hurting.
  People at the grocery store--I go to the grocery store every weekend, 
Madam Speaker. I live alone. I don't buy a lot of groceries because 
they will go bad, so I go every weekend.
  I see the shelves that are empty. I see the price of bacon has gone 
up now over $10. I see the price of the eggs I get, the price of the 
half and half I buy, or the orange juice I buy. It is going up.
  I am in the fortunate position where I can pay for it without it 
binding me someplace else. But I know that a whole lot of people that I 
see shopping, they have got that list out, and they are very worried 
about their costs.
  I don't know whether this bill we just passed is going to solve 
that--certainly, not overnight. I don't know whether a month from now 
it will help somewhat, 5 cents or 10 cents on a pound of bacon or a 
dozen eggs.
  I don't know that, but it was worth a try, and we passed this bill. 
We got some Republican support, including, I think, the ranking member 
of the committee that reported the bill out.
  We are not technically at war, but we are spending a lot of money on 
behalf of freedom, and we ought to be together. We ought not to be 
carping about our President who is doing everything he can think of to 
try to get a handle on this, both on inflation, on the cost to 
consumers, and on the supply of a product that we all need.
  So, I would simply make a request that let's work together to try to 
get this problem solved. Saudi Arabia is not the answer, but it is part 
of the answer. The cartel is part of the answer. The Russians are part 
of the answer.
  Maybe none of them are the entire answer. But when you understand 
that this administration has given more leases on public land than the 
prior administration did in its first 3 years, it is hard to say that 
this administration is the reason for this. Other than politically, it 
is a very salient argument, but that is all it is.
  Mr. SCALISE. Just for clarification, the ranking member voted ``no'' 
on the bill.
  Mr. HOYER. Oh, okay. Sorry.
  Mr. SCALISE. The 800,000 leases--and I know we talked about this 
before. You can have 800,000 leases, but when you need, then, permits 
to actually utilize the lease--so you have a lease to go and develop 
oil, but you need to drill. You need to do seismic. You need to build 
pipelines, infrastructure to move it. If you don't get those permits to 
actually utilize the leases, the leases are worthless. That is what 
H.R. 6858 addresses. We have been raising that issue for a long time. 
The lease is no good if you can't, then, use the lease.
  Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. What I said was, in Trump's last year, refineries in the 
U.S. reduced their capacity by more than 800,000 barrels. That didn't 
have anything to do about leases.
  That had to do with an economic decision, which probably made sense 
because what happened is the economy was contracting.
  Madam Speaker, 2.8 million net jobs were lost during the 4 years of 
Trump, and 8.7 million have been gained.
  As they have been gaining, people are getting back in their cars. 
They are getting back and driving. They are spending on the economy. 
But what happened?
  The pandemic had shut down supply lines. And the oil companies, 
rationally, when demand went down, they reduced capacity. They don't 
need a new lease to go back up to the 800,000. They were doing it under 
the present authorization that they have.
  That was my point. It continues to be my point. The companies have 
made a decision and they are not moving ahead rapidly to try to get 
more production.
  One of the reasons is--I get it--they are making a lot of money. Some 
oil companies have got 300 percent greater profits now than they had 
some years ago. 300 percent.

  So, why do we need to do more product? We are making great money. 
Chevron says it had the most successful year in 2021 than it has ever 
had. It may be another oil company. I may be wrong on that.
  Was it Chevron? I am asking somebody who probably knows the answer 
better than me. One of the oil companies reported that.
  I am not criticizing them for that. What I am saying is, this is a 
multifaceted challenge that confronts us, and we ought to address it in 
a way that it deserves, and that is in a bipartisan way that will have 
effect.
  I am going to work with the gentleman. As I said, I was for Keystone. 
I was not for shutting Keystone down. I was approving it to go ahead. I 
thought it made sense. Our friends in Canada have an extraordinary 
supply.
  As the gentleman observes, though--interestingly, because I think 
many of your colleagues oppose those rules and regulations--it is 
cleaner. It is better for the environment to produce it here.
  Why? Because we adopted regulations--either the administration 
adopted or we passed them in legislation, and very frankly, I think 
that many of those were opposed by--I don't know whether you, but many 
in your party, so it is better to do it here.
  So I don't want to dispute that, but it is also necessary to have 
production, particularly among the cartel countries, and Russia has no 
interest--Russia has an interest in additional production.
  Why? Because that is how they are funding this war. But we ought to 
spend time on criticizing Putin and his war and the crimes that are 
being committed in his name in Ukraine, and our determination to make 
sure the Ukrainian people who have displayed extraordinary courage, and 
Zelenskyy, who has displayed extraordinary leadership, make sure they 
know that we are focused on them. And we are focused against Putin, not 
our own President, any more than I did when, you know, George Bush was 
President.
  Very frankly, I supported, as the gentleman probably knows, the trade 
bills. I thought it was good to do business. A lot of our people didn't 
support him on that. I supported him on that.
  So I think we need to be not so critical of our President. We have 
one President at a time. We had a pandemic. It wasn't on his watch we 
got a pandemic. It was on his watch that we got a handle on the 
pandemic.
  On his watch, he has been giving more access to public lands than his 
predecessor did. We can debate the nuances of differences, but we ought 
to focus on why we have this crisis.
  The gentleman knows these prices in many ways reflect the confidence 
and the stability, or the lack of confidence and the lack of stability 
in the market, and the war directly relates to that issue.
  Mr. SCALISE. Obviously, we will continue to debate this. Hopefully, 
we will debate it over H.R. 6858 where we can actually be talking about 
how we work together to solve the problem.
  Of course, as the gentleman knows, Congress did come together, 
Republicans and Democrats, to give our friends in Ukraine the tools to 
go and push Putin out of much of Ukraine and, hopefully, all of 
Ukraine.
  We will continue to stand with the incredibly strong, resilient 
people of Ukraine in standing up to Vladimir Putin.
  We will, hopefully, have this debate further as we are talking about 
the legislation that we would like to bring.
  Unless the gentleman has anything else--Madam Speaker, I yield back 
the balance of my time.

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