[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 19 (Monday, January 30, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S138-S139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            AMERICAN ENERGY

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the new Republican House of 
Representatives has already done more to protect our Nation's Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve than the single-party Democratic government did in 
the last 2 years.
  First, House Republicans passed legislation that would ban the 
Federal Government from selling energy from the SPR to benefit our 
Nation's No. 1 strategic adversary--the Chinese Communist Party. Then, 
last week, the House followed on by passing H.R. 21, a bipartisan bill 
that would require the Department of Energy to offset any nonemergency 
drawdowns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by expanding access to 
America's abundant domestic energy on Federal lands. Speaker McCarthy 
and Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers were right to make American energy 
security a top priority for their new majority.
  It is too bad that it is even necessary to protect our Nation's 
emergency energy reserves from our own Commander in Chief and his 
party, but unfortunately the Biden administration has proven that it is 
necessary.
  Last year, with his party hurting at the polls, President Biden 
released more than 200 million barrels, leaving America's strategic 
reserve at its lowest level since 1983. To make matters worse, this 
political gamble didn't just leave America less secure, it directly 
benefited China. President Biden's Department of Energy hadn't just 
sold off critical supplies; they sold some of them--listen to this--
directly to a Chinese refining company.
  Last year, Senate Republicans put every Democrat on the record with 
an amendment to clamp down on selling our strategic reserve to China. 
Senate Democrats blocked it. The Democratic Senators from States like 
West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio voted on party lines to let the Biden 
administration continue to sell our reserves to the CCP.
  Democrats' recklessness with our energy reserves actually predates 
this particular administration. Remember back when oil prices were at 
historic lows during the early days of the COVID pandemic? We 
Republicans tried to refill the SPR to the top. We could have totally 
replenished our stockpile at bargain-basement prices. But the Senate 
Democrat leader blocked it and bragged about blocking it. Our colleague 
crowed that his party had stopped a ``bailout for Big Oil.'' Of course, 
what he really blocked was a win-win for national security as well as 
the American taxpayer.
  Washington Democrats have been dead wrong on how to handle our 
strategic reserve literally for years. This is just one symptom of 
their deep misunderstanding about energy, about the importance of 
American energy dominance and the way to achieve it.
  Across the Atlantic, war in Ukraine has brought the vulnerability of 
Europe's dependence on Russian energy

[[Page S139]]

into stark and painful relief. Half-baked green transitions, an allergy 
to clean and reliable nuclear power, and an addiction to Russian gas 
sent our allies' energy costs through the roof, with working families 
and ratepayers actually footing the bills.
  It could have been a helpful, cautionary tale for the United States, 
but by last year, the Biden administration was already a year deep into 
their comprehensive war on abundant and affordable American energy. 
Remember, on day one in office, President Biden canceled further work 
on the Keystone XL Pipeline with the stroke of a pen--forget safe and 
efficient energy transport, high-paying American jobs, and lower cost, 
reliable power. The President had already put climate activism in the 
driver's seat of his own energy policy.
  The Biden administration has frozen new oil exploration on public 
lands, overhauled permitting rules to make it harder to develop natural 
gas resources, dragged the United States back into a climate deal that 
gives the Chinese Communist Party a pass to keep increasing its carbon 
emissions, and balked at a chance to block Vladimir Putin's latest 
pipeline for controlling European consumption.
  It is an absolutely nonsensical agenda, and it hasn't taken long for 
families across our country to feel the direct effects in the form of 
soaring prices in their heating and electricity bills, at the gas pump, 
as well as at the grocery store.
  Fortunately, millions of working Americans were fed up last November 
and decided to put an end to Democrats' total control here in 
Washington. Republicans will stand strong on the side of American 
energy dominance, on the side of national security, on the side of 
American workers, American families, and America's future.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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