[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 148 (Wednesday, September 14, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H7793-H7794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         GOVERNMENTAL OVERREACH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Ryan) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, the Supreme Court of the United 
States delivered a gut punch to the body politic here in the United 
States with the Dobbs decision. This is the largest governmental 
overreach into the private lives of American citizens in the history of 
our lifetime. This is Big Government coming into our doctors' offices, 
coming into our bedrooms, a small group of people trying to control 
American citizens, make women second-class citizens. And I believe that 
the vast majority of the American people are absolutely exhausted and 
want the government out of their lives, out of our personal lives.
  Justice Thomas' opinion about nullifying marriages, about getting rid 
of birth control, is an extreme overreach. This is a country built on 
freedom, and it is time for us to stand up; the exhausted majority, 
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, saying we want limited 
government, and we want it out of the private lives of American 
citizens, especially the women of the United States.


                      Opportunities in Natural Gas

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I rise to talk about a very 
important issue in this country. This country is a country that has 
been and was founded on the idea of freedom. This country has fed more 
people, clothed more people, cured more people, and liberated more 
people than all the other countries in the world combined. And the 
source of American power has always been the great American middle 
class which we need to have an aggressive policy to rebuild. And the 
strength of the American middle class has always been connected to our 
energy policy.
  Do we have a policy in this country that will allow us to dominate 
the world in manufacturing, to dominate the industries of the future, 
to keep costs low for both business and consumers?
  And so I am rising here today in support of this permitting process 
bill that we will be voting on here this week.

                              {time}  1100

  This is an important opportunity for us to mobilize and move the 
natural gas industry in places like Ohio to both reduce costs here for 
manufacturers and consumers and for us to export this product abroad to 
make sure our allies in Europe are able to get cheap natural gas so 
that they are not hooked on Vladimir Putin.
  There is an opportunity here to sell to China, which is putting on 
one coal-fired power plant a week.
  This is both a jobs bill; this is about putting money in people's 
pockets by reducing energy costs; and this is about helping our allies 
abroad.
  The number one country to reduce CO2 from 2005 to 2020 was 
the United States of America because natural gas replaced coal. If we 
do that around the world, we have an opportunity in the next 5 to 10 
years to dramatically reduce carbon around the world and meet some of 
our climate change goals.
  This permitting bill is acknowledging the fact that the average 
duration of some of these projects is 4\1/2\ years to get the permits, 
and 25 percent of these projects take 6 years. If you are doing a 
hydrogen project, 5 years and 11 Federal and State agencies.
  You wonder why the average American is so frustrated or the average

[[Page H7794]]

businessperson is so frustrated to interface with the American 
Government. As a business or a consumer, for that matter, it is 
maddening. It is limiting our ability to create jobs here in the United 
States, to power the United States, and to meet our climate goals. This 
is a win across the board.
  This permitting bill is for 42 percent of the DOE projects or for 
clean energy transmission or conservation. Only 15 percent is for 
fossil fuels. But it is all gummed up, and we can't get any progress.
  This bill is an opportunity for us to provide some framework to 
streamline this process so that we can get moving on some of these 
projects so that we can dominate these industries in the future.
  In my district, we have two natural gas power plants. We need more. 
We want to build electric vehicles, electric trucks, electric cars, 
electric tractors, batteries, solar panels. We want to move into 
hydrogen. We have so many opportunities in this country, but it is 
gummed up by an old, corroded government that doesn't know how to 
interface with business.
  I am supportive of this permitting bill. I think we need to 
streamline this process. We need to juice up the natural gas industry, 
as well as the other industries in the future. This is a red, white, 
and blue energy policy and permitting process bill. We need to support 
it on both sides of the aisle.

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