[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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