[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 107 (Thursday, June 23, 2022)]
[House]
[Page H5827]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE PERILS OF EXPERTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, we all know the tale of ``The Emperor's 
New Clothes.'' Grifters convince an emperor that they are expert 
tailors who weave a cloth so fine that only the virtuous can see it. 
The emperor wraps himself in nothing and parades the streets as all the 
townspeople compete to signal their own virtue by proclaiming how 
beautiful the material is, even though their own common sense tells 
them otherwise. This scheme is successful until a little boy who knows 
better states the obvious.
  For 2 years now, we were told by the experts that they could stop 
COVID-19 if everyone did exactly as they commanded. I am science, as 
one put it. They quashed debate within the medical community and 
ridiculed, censored, and fired any dissenters.
  Looking back, we can clearly see what a self-destructive folly they 
produced. Study after study now confirms the obvious, that the mask 
mandate, school closures, home detention orders, and business closures 
had virtually no impact on the virus. But they did appalling damage to 
the economy, seriously harmed children in ways we are still cataloging, 
and cost untold lives due to suicides, drug and alcohol overdoses, 
delayed health screenings and treatments, and poverty-related deaths.
  This recent, tragic experience should warn us all to be much more 
skeptical of surrendering common sense to so-called experts and of 
suppressing free debate over what science actually is telling us, which 
brings us to the Democrats' ongoing and escalating war on fossil fuels.
  The road they have placed us on leads to a bleak future of 
unaffordable energy, rolling blackouts, empty shelves, and increasingly 
brutal rationing of every watt of electricity and drop of gasoline that 
we once took for granted.
  Gasoline prices are already the highest ever seen in this country as 
we have discouraged production. Electricity prices are skyrocketing, 
pushed by the crushing cost of renewables. Utilities across the county 
are now warning of summer blackouts because renewable mandates have 
destabilized the electricity grid.
  Joe Biden and the Democrats promised to wage war on fossil fuels, and 
they have succeeded. On his first day in office, he canceled the 
Keystone pipeline, which today should have been completed and 
delivering 830,000 barrels of crude oil every day into American 
markets. He canceled oil and gas exploration on Federal lands. Just 
last month, he withdrew 1 million acres of land from exploration and 
production in oil-rich Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
  And he blames Vladimir Putin? Under the progrowth policies of the 
Trump administration, America didn't need Putin's oil. We were energy 
independent for the first time in our lifetimes. We were producing more 
oil than Russia and even Saudi Arabia. The day the Democrats took 
office, gasoline was averaging $2.39 a gallon.
  Today's sky-high fuel prices are aggravating supply chain breakdowns 
and adding to consumer prices. Acreage once devoted to growing corn for 
food is now used to produce ethanol, which requires trading an entire 
acre of corn to produce just 550 gallons of ethanol.
  The irony is, at a time when these Green New Deal policies can't 
guarantee enough electricity to keep the lights on this summer at any 
price, these Democrat elitists are telling families to buy electric 
cars. Where do they think the electricity for their electric cars comes 
from? Eighty percent comes from fossil fuels that they are ruthlessly 
shutting down.
  The excuse for all of this, of course, is to stop global warming, but 
they cannot account for why it is that there have been periods 
throughout paleo history when temperatures have been much higher and 
also much lower than they are today. Nor do they account for the 
infinitely more powerful natural forces that shape our constantly 
changing climate.
  The blind reliance on handpicked experts and the suppression of 
dissent in our approach to COVID cost lives and destroyed the most 
prosperous economic expansion in our lifetimes. But its excesses pale 
in comparison to what the green left is now doing to our society. The 
pain and damage we are feeling today is just the first bitter taste of 
what is to come if they prevail.
  Of one thing we can be certain: Whether or not we destroy our 
Nation's prosperity by continuing the Democrats' war on fossil fuels, 
the Earth will continue to warm and cool, as it has for billions of 
years. The only question we can answer is whether ours will be a future 
of abundance or scarcity, prosperity or poverty, comfort or misery.

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