[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 32 (Thursday, February 16, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S436]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Energy

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, it was good to hear President Biden 
acknowledge in his State of the Union speech last week that we still 
need oil. He is right.
  And while I am a big supporter of clean energy, and I am proud to 
come from a State that gets the majority of our electricity generation 
from renewables, the fact of the matter is that even in States like 
mine, conventional energy sources like oil and natural gas are 
essential to maintaining an affordable, stable, and reliable energy 
supply.
  Renewable technologies have come a long way, but they still have a 
ways to go. And we, literally, wouldn't be able to keep the lights on 
in this country without conventional energy sources like natural gas 
and coal.
  So it was good to hear the President acknowledge that we still depend 
on affordable and reliable legacy sources of energy like oil. But it 
would be even better if he pursued an agenda that acknowledged it, 
instead of an agenda that is actively hostile to conventional energy 
production.
  From canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline on day 1 to hiking taxes on 
oil and gas companies and making it more challenging for companies to 
make more oil and gas, the President's agenda seems designed to do 
everything it can to discourage production of the oil the President 
says that we need.
  And then there is ESG. The Biden administration has been attempting 
to use the long arm of regulation to implement ESG policies--
environmental, social, and governance policies--to advance its anti-
conventional energy climate agenda. The President's ESG regulations are 
designed to choke off investment into the oil and gas industries and 
even to other essential industries like farming and ranching due to 
their natural methane emissions.
  Take, for example, the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed 
climate disclosure rule. This would require publicly traded companies 
to disclose information, not only about their own greenhouse gas 
emissions but, in many cases, about those of their suppliers and even 
their customers. It would also require companies to determine the 
effects of climate-related risks on each line item of their 
consolidated financial statements.
  There are multiple problems with this rule, one notable problem being 
the fact that it is a totally unworkable regulation. Companies have 
zero control over the emissions of their suppliers and customers and 
little to no ability to accurately gauge those emissions.
  But leaving aside the unworkability factor, the major problem with 
this proposed rule is that it is clearly designed to coerce companies 
to sever or reconsider their ties with certain industries, notably, of 
course, the conventional energy industry but also with other industries 
like agriculture.
  Private companies, of course, have the right to consider whatever 
factors they want when determining what companies they would do 
business with and what they will invest in. But the Federal Government 
should not be putting its thumb on the scale. And the SEC rule is just 
one of the regulations the Biden administration has put forward 
designed to encourage investment in industries that aren't part of 
Democrat's Green New Deal vision.
  There is the Biden administration's proposed Federal contractor rule, 
which, like the SEC rule, would require companies applying for certain 
Federal contracts to disclose not only their own direct and indirect 
emissions but also, in some cases, related emissions over which the 
contractor has no control.
  The Federal Reserve--they are getting in on the act, too--has stepped 
outside its statutory role and established a pilot program to analyze 
climate-related financial risks for the Nation's largest banks. The 
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit 
Insurance Corporation, and the Fed have all put forward principles for 
large banks on ``climate-related financial risk management.'' And the 
list goes on.
  Then there is the Department of Labor. In November, the Department of 
Labor issued a new rule that would allow pension plan fiduciaries--
these are individuals who manage Americans' retirement accounts--to 
consider ESG; in other words, environmental, social, governance factors 
and not just the rate of return when investing their customers' money.
  In other words, the individuals--think about this--the individuals 
who manage $11.7 trillion of Americans' retirement will no longer be 
required to make investment decisions based solely on maximizing 
return. Instead, they will now be allowed to opt for a less valuable 
investment if they prefer its environmental profile.
  I want you to just let that sink in for a minute. The Biden 
administration has essentially announced that its top goal is not 
giving Americans a secure retirement; it is giving them a retirement 
that supports the Biden administration's environmental agenda. The 
Biden administration is apparently happy to let your retirement money 
suffer as long as the investments are advancing its Green New Deal 
goals.
  The very idea that the government is encouraging fiduciaries to 
consider anything but maximizing a return on Americans' retirement 
investments is outrageous.
  I am very pleased to join all of my Republican colleagues on Senator 
Braun's resolution to overturn this rule.
  I also reintroduced legislation earlier this week that would require 
Federal financial regulators, like the Securities and Exchange 
Commission, to estimate the impact their rules would have on gas, food, 
and energy prices, and prevent them from imposing any rule that would 
drive up these prices when the economy is struggling with high 
inflation, which gets to the heart of the matter here, and that is the 
impact the President's ESG rules are going to have on hard-working 
Americans.
  Leaving aside the question of whether or not the government has any 
business using financial regulation to advance its environmental 
agenda, the fact of the matter is that choking off investment to the 
oil and gas industries could seriously impair our oil and gas supply. 
And that would mean two things: higher prices for Americans and a less 
reliable supply of energy. And that is a big problem.
  Americans have had a tough 2 years in the Biden economy. The last 
thing they need is higher energy bills for the long term, and the last 
thing our country needs is a less reliable energy supply that forces us 
to rely on foreign energy sources or forces Americans to deal with 
regular blackouts and other supply problems.
  President Biden talks about building an economy that works for 
working families. Unfortunately, so far, his policies have pretty much 
succeeded in doing just the opposite. And if the President continues to 
pursue his radical ESG agenda, working families, once again, will be 
the ones who pay the price.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lujan). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Kansas.

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