[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 20, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S3519]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Unanimous Consent Agreement

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes and Senator Durbin for up to 15 
minutes prior to the scheduled vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I am happy to come to the floor today 
to join my colleague the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Sullivan, as well as 
my colleague from Kansas, to talk about where we are with this 
administration or where, unfortunately, we aren't when it comes to 
prioritizing American-made energy.
  As has been noted here on the floor by my colleagues, the President 
has just returned from the Middle East. It wasn't for a sightseeing 
trip; it was really all about oil. He was talking about oil. Above all, 
the President made that trip to ask the leaders of several foreign 
nations, members of OPEC, to increase their production levels.
  OK, we get it. Gasoline prices are way too high. We know that. We 
have hit national records in recent weeks. They are averaging right now 
about $5.32 a gallon in my State. That is actually down a little bit 
from where we were last month, but it is up over 50 percent from where 
we were last year.
  As has been said repeatedly, and we don't need to say it here on the 
floor of the Senate, people are feeling it in their homes. They are 
feeling it in their pocketbooks. Families are. Businesses are. Whether 
you are in places like Anchorage or Fairbanks, your budgets are 
stretched thinner and thinner and thinner.
  It is increasingly difficult for small tourist operations, whether 
you are trying to take people out on sightseeing trips in the air or on 
the water. Our fishing fleets have to fill up their fishing vessels. 
But especially, particularly, our outlying villages--these villages 
that are off the road system--that already faced high prices, now the 
prices are astronomical.
  I met with some leaders from the Northwest Arctic Borough just a few 
days ago, and they shared with me that in many of their communities, 
the communities were paying about $5.25 on average. But these were 
prices that were locked in from last fall when the last fuel barge came 
into those northern waters and was able to make its way up the river 
systems. Now, with the first spring barge comes literally--literally--
in 1 day going from $5.25 to over $8 a gallon. That is a lock-in price 
that they are going to be living with until that next barge.
  Think about what that means when you are a community that is locked 
into these extraordinarily high prices. When that last fuel barge 
comes, you are going to have small villages that are going to be 
looking to see how much--not how much do we need to get through the 
winter but how much can we afford? They don't have much of a tax base. 
How much can we afford?
  My theory is that they are only going to be able to buy as much as 
they can, and it is not going to be enough to get them through the 
winter. So halfway through the winter, in the darkest and coldest, when 
everything is locked in the ice, they are going to run out of fuel. And 
you have to be able to keep the heat on or everything breaks. So how do 
you get the fuel? You fly it in. Think about what those costs then 
become. So for us in Alaska, this is not only frightening, but it has 
the potential to just be catastrophic as we look at no end in sight for 
these prices.
  I don't begrudge the President for meeting with world leaders. We 
expect him to do this. And I think it is a great idea to do what we can 
to increase supply to reduce prices. This is kind of the basics of 
supply and demand. I have championed this for years. Let's increase our 
supply. But the question is where that energy is going to come from. 
Where should we focus our time? Where should we focus our efforts? I 
think it just has to begin at home. It has to be here.
  But apparently this administration has decided they are going to go 
elsewhere. They are going to seek oil from the Middle East. They are 
sending envoys to Venezuela. They are pushing for a weakened Iran deal, 
signaling that oil from the two worst regimes in the world could 
somehow come back online? This makes zero sense to me. It just makes no 
sense. Why would we do this? Why would we go abroad when we have the 
resources here? Why choose oil produced at low environmental standards, 
like my friend from Kansas just said? You are going to countries that 
have lower environmental standards and track records when it comes to 
human rights abuses, and we are just going to turn our eye to it? We 
are just going to close our eyes and say that is OK now? No, it is not 
OK.
  Why? Why do we give fist bumps to leaders while sucker-punching the 
producers, the refiners, and the gas station owners in our own domestic 
industry? Unfortunately, that is what we are seeing. We are seeing that 
happen in my State. We have billions of barrels of oil in our Federal 
areas. We have a world-class pipeline that is one-quarter full and a 
general refusal from the administration to help us do much of anything 
about it.
  We can talk about the 1002 area, the largest untapped conventional 
oilfield in North America, is what is projected, but you are not seeing 
this administration pushing forward with that even though we mandated--
even though Congress mandated this in 2017. Not a chance. They are not 
moving forward with that. They have halted all development--illegally, 
I might add.
  But also take the 5-year plan, the proposed 5-year plan. It is long 
overdue. Now we are learning that the administration may not hold a 
single offshore lease through 2028. They are proposing a single sale in 
Cook Inlet in Alaska after canceling the one that was just supposed to 
have been held, suggesting that they are OK, they are somehow OK with 
crimping the only source of natural gas for hundreds of thousands of 
Alaskans.
  Again, this direction just makes no sense to me. We need a course 
correction from the Biden administration. Even as we are moving forward 
in so many other initiatives, we need to have a strategic plan that 
assures that our own energy security--our own energy security--is 
addressed and also helping to improve the energy security of our 
allies.
  I believe that we can do this without taking our eye off the ball of 
what we need to do to reduce emissions to address the challenges that 
face us when it comes to climate. But we have to acknowledge that the 
world has changed. There is still, though, no substitute or equal for 
American energy. So what we need is for common sense to prevail over 
wishful thinking. We need resource development here at home in places 
like Alaska and Kansas. They need to be our first and our highest 
priority. The longer it takes for that to happen, the greater the price 
that Alaskans will be paying and all Americans will be paying.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.