[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 20 (Monday, February 5, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H392]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    WAR ON AMERICAN ENERGY PRODUCERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Rose) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROSE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to shed light on the ongoing war 
against American energy producers.
  The Biden administration recently announced a pause on all pending 
non-free trade agreement export permit applications for liquefied 
natural gas export projects. This policy will no doubt have a negative 
impact on job growth, economic development, and energy exploration, but 
it will also empower America's adversaries.
  By curtailing our energy dominance in the natural gas sector, we are 
making our economy and the world more dependent on countries like 
Russia and Iran for energy production. For obvious reasons, we should 
want to do everything within our power to hinder, not help, their cash 
flow.
  This is more than a strategic failure. It is also contrary to the 
goal of reducing carbon emissions.
  We know that American natural gas is cleaner than that of many other 
producers, especially Russia. In fact, our natural gas is 41 percent 
cleaner. The benefit of exporting more, not less, energy would remove 
hundreds of tons of emissions from entering the atmosphere. It would 
also pose an economic benefit here at home.

  This isn't a problem just for the natural gas industry. All of 
America's energy producers, putting aside the renewable sector, have 
taken negative regulatory hits from the Biden administration. We have 
seen energy prices soar as a result.
  On the campaign trail in 2019, then-candidate Biden vowed to end 
fossil fuels. This helps explain why he killed the Keystone XL pipeline 
on his first day in office. It also explains why he went on to put a 
moratorium on new oil and gas leases on public lands and raise taxes by 
nearly $150 billion on oil and gas producers. For those who don't 
remember, this anti-energy agenda resulted in the President of the 
United States begging OPEC to increase their supply.
  It is important to note that we were not just energy independent 
during the Trump administration, Mr. Speaker. We were energy dominant 
and a net oil exporter.
  Gas prices averaged $2.39 per gallon the day President Biden was 
inaugurated. Today, the average price per gallon of gas is $3.15. Let's 
not forget, as a direct result of this anti-American energy agenda, gas 
prices reached an all-time high of $5 per gallon in June 2022.
  The President is also responsible for the largest-ever drawdown from 
our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 180 million barrels of oil over 6 
months. Our reserve is supposed to be used for adverse events like 
weather or national security emergencies, not to combat bad policy and 
harmful regulations from a misguided White House. That reserve, which 
is now depleted by more than 40 percent, is at its lowest level since 
the early 1980s, when I was in high school.
  In addition to the pause on natural gas permits during his 
administration, the President announced he would no longer hold court-
ordered offshore oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and 
Alaska. This assault on domestic energy producers destroys any 
incentive for investment and growth and is going to continue to lead to 
price volatility at home and around the world.
  House Republicans see the pinch this causes working families, like 
the families in my home district in Tennessee, which is why one of the 
first things we did after taking the majority in 2023 was to pass H.R. 
1, the Lower Energy Cost Act.

                              {time}  1215

  H.R. 1 makes sense to most people. It is not radical or extreme. It 
would unleash American energy and get government out of the way by 
reforming our permitting system and removing red tape. It fosters more 
economic growth and job creation while lowering prices for American 
families.
  Yet this administration seems committed to doing the opposite. Since 
President Biden's inauguration, his administration has finalized 812 
new regulations costing the U.S. economy about $451 billion in 
compliance costs annually and requiring 283 million hours of additional 
compliance paperwork by American workers.
  I continue to support an all-of-the-above energy approach to fueling 
our economy. In a time when prices are still hurting families and 
despots around the world are looking for our weak spots, we should be 
unleashing, not overregulating and kneecapping, American energy 
production.

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