[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 116 (Thursday, July 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S3297]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              The Economy

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, inflation continues to batter American 
families at a rate we have not seen in 40 years. Since last year, the 
prices of items that Texans use every day have increased more than 9 
percent. That is, if your paycheck is still the same, you have 9 
percent less purchasing power just since last year. At the grocery 
store, the price of bread is up nearly 11 percent. Chicken is up more 
than 17 percent. And the price of eggs has jumped a whopping 33 
percent.
  I sense there is a huge disconnect between the folks here in 
Washington--perhaps in Congress--that this does not have a dramatic 
effect in terms of our daily lives; but to the people we represent, the 
29 million people I represent, this is real, it is happening now, and 
it is to the detriment of their quality of life.
  Groceries aren't the only thing that are challenging family budgets. 
Electricity is up 14 percent.
  I will be traveling with some colleagues to the Rio Grande Valley 
this afternoon. I looked at the weather forecast for today and 
tomorrow. It will be 104 degrees in the Rio Grande Valley; and, no, it 
will not be a dry heat. And demand on our electricity is real because 
people cannot live without air-conditioning and climate control; but in 
order to run your air-conditioning, you are going to have to pay 14 
percent more for that electricity this year as opposed to last year.
  Propane used at summer barbecues costs 26 percent more. And gasoline 
prices--there are about 280 million cars on the road today that run 
using gasoline. The price has jumped 60 percent since last year. If 
people want to go on a vacation, they just commute to work, they want 
to take their kids to summer camp, they have got to pay 60 percent more 
for gasoline than they did last year. And, for the first time, the 
national average price has exceeded $5 a gallon. Over the last few 
weeks, thankfully, prices have fallen slightly--and I emphasize the 
word ``slightly''--but there is no reason to celebrate. The national 
average is still about $4.60 a gallon, which is about a buck and a half 
higher than it was last year alone.
  So the American people are looking to Washington, DC, to their 
elected leaders, and they are wondering: Why aren't you doing something 
about it? They want to know what the Biden administration's plans are 
to address these rising costs, especially when it comes to things that 
are not--I mean, there are some things you can substitute for others. I 
even saw a woman on the news who said she decided to become a 
vegetarian because she couldn't afford the meat cost in the grocery 
store. But there are some things that are simply irreplaceable, and 
gasoline to drive your car is one of them.
  Well, one of the most logical ways to increase the supply of 
gasoline--because it really is about supply and demand--would be to 
boost American production of our domestic energy supply. That way, we 
could reap the economic benefits of strong production here at home, 
along with the jobs that go along with it. We could continue to use our 
capability to export things like natural gas to countries that 
previously were dependent almost exclusively on the Russian Federation.
  Actually, the capacity of the United States to produce energy at home 
and export it around the world has changed the geopolitics of the 
planet in a very positive way. But, unfortunately, we see the Biden 
administration has taken a different approach. He knows that a part of 
his political base would have an absolute meltdown if the President 
showed anything other than contempt for the domestic energy producers. 
So he has come up with a different strategy that, frankly, makes no 
sense whatsoever.
  So he is on a trip to the Middle East. He is going to visit with 
Muhammad bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and 
ask him to increase production of oil and gas from not the United 
States but from Saudi Arabia. Forget American energy producers. 
President Biden would rather go, hat in hand, and talk to an autocrat, 
an oligarch in the Middle East, than take his boot off the neck of 
American energy producers.
  So, apparently, the President is not anti-fossil fuels; he is just 
anti-American fossil fuels. President Biden's trip illustrates a 
remarkable show of his priorities. He views the crown prince in Saudi 
Arabia as a more dependable ally than energy producers in Texas.
  Well, the decision to shop for oil in the Middle East instead of 
harnessing what is in our backyard is absolutely baffling. The sooner 
the administration views domestic energy producers as a friend and ally 
rather than enemies, the better we will all be off.
  We are fortunate to live in a resource-rich country. Growing up, I 
learned in school that countries that are endowed with great natural 
resources have an advantage over other countries that do not have those 
natural resources. And we do have them here in the United States, along 
with the technology to develop them. But, for some strange reason, we 
just simply refuse to do so--take what is a gift and ignore it 
completely and go, hat in hand, and talk to autocrats in other parts of 
the world and ask them to do what we should be doing here domestically.