    [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 38 (Wednesday, February 26, 2025)]
    [Senate]
    [Pages S1367-S1383]
    From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                              LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                     ______

       TERMINATING THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY DECLARED WITH RESPECT TO ENERGY

      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now resume legislative
    session.
      The Senator from Virginia.

                                  S.J. Res. 10

      Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to begin a discussion that will take
    place, during today, about S.J. Res. 10, which is a resolution that my
    colleague Senator Heinrich and I have filed to challenge President
    Trump's day-one declaration of a U.S. energy emergency.
      And you will hear from a number of our colleagues today, expressing
    the basic point that the declaration is a sham. There is, in fact, no
    emergency, but it has been declared so as to gut various environmental
    laws passed by Congress, still part of U.S. statutory law, in order to
    advantage certain kinds of energy--i.e., oil, gas, and coal--and punish
    other forms of energy--wind, solar, et cetera.
      I am very, very happy to have the support of my colleague Senator
    Heinrich, who is the energy expert on the Democratic side in this body,
    and very, very happy to have so many colleagues who will be speaking on
    this matter today on the Senate floor.
      President Trump took a number of actions on his first day in office,
    and many of them got a lot of attention. One that didn't get so much
    attention was his decision, on day one--on day one--to declare that the
    United States was in an energy emergency and, therefore, we needed to
    bypass environmental laws.
      I want to dig into the sham nature of the emergency declaration and
    then explore why President Trump actually has done this, and, finally,
    conclude with a request to my colleagues that the article I branch
    should not just roll over and play dead when a President

    [[Page S1368]]

    declares an emergency that does not actually exist.
      So let's first talk about the claim that President Trump has raised
    that the United States is in an energy emergency.
      This is a chart that shows U.S. energy production from 1950 until
    essentially today. The chart goes through about 2023 and does not
    include the 2024 numbers. But I am proud to stand here and tell you,
    especially as one who has supported many of the policies that have led
    to this growth in American energy, that America is producing more
    energy today than at any point in the history of this Nation. America
    is the leader in the world in energy production, and for the last few
    years, we have been an energy surplus nation, producing more than we
    consume.
      You will see that the chart includes different kinds of energy--oil,
    gas, coal, renewable--but the direction of the chart shows steady
    increase in production.
      Let's go into the kinds of energy we are talking about here. In 2024,
    America produced more natural gas than at any time in the history of
    this country. In 2024, America produced more petroleum than at any time
    in the history of this country. And in 2024, America deployed more
    renewable energy than at any time in the history of this country. In
    fact, in 2024, more than 90 percent of the energy added to the Nation's
    energy grid was from renewable sources--wind, solar, and battery
    storage.
      The United States, recently, in the past few years became--there may
    be a technical term for this, but I call it an energy surplus nation.
    We produce more than we consume. That moment happened in 2019, when our
    production started to outpace consumption. In every year since 2019,
    that surplus has grown, and the surplus in 2024 was at record levels.
    And it is a good thing to produce significantly more than we consume.
      Why is it a good thing? Because we are able to sell energy to others,
    reducing our trade deficit.
      I participated with Senators in lifting the ban on export of crude
    petroleum a few years ago, and that plus exports of liquid natural gas
    have helped us with our trade deficit. But more directly related to
    this moment in time, the export of American energy has also helped us
    help other nations that are reliant on energy from petrol dictators.
    The nations in Europe that had to rely on Vladimir Putin, nations in
    other parts of the world that have had to rely on Iran or Venezuela,
    now, increasingly, are able to access U.S. energy.

      I was in Finland over the weekend, visiting Virginia Guard troops
    exercising with the Finnish Army. Finland is importing liquid natural
    gas from the United States and using it for their own energy needs and
    also for the energy needs of other European nations.
      So where is the emergency? More oil than ever, more natural gas than
    ever, more renewables than ever, and a record surplus of production
    over consumption.
      Where is the emergency? The emergency is not in the energy sector.
    The emergency is Donald Trump self-creating an emergency, because
    Donald Trump in other actions taken in the first week of his
    administration has gone full tilt to challenge energy projects that are
    creating jobs and lowering prices all across this country.
      Donald Trump and his administration are attacking wind projects. They
    are attacking solar projects. They are attacking clean energy projects
    that aren't oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear. And by doing so, they
    are reducing supply and likely raising prices on American consumers.
      There are a number of projects in Virginia, as an example, that have
    benefited from tax breaks that were included either in the Inflation
    Reduction Act, for clean energy projects, or the bipartisan
    infrastructure law, for rollout of electric vehicle charging, for
    example. President Trump's administration has attacked those projects,
    has put them on hold, and the Virginians who were intending to invest
    billions of dollars hiring people to build these projects are now
    uncertain about what they can do.
      Why would a President declare an energy emergency and then attack
    homegrown clean energy projects in my State and elsewhere? And that is
    exactly what President Trump is doing.
      Why would he do that? Well, we don't have to speculate about the
    answer. We know the answer.
      In the summer of 2024, President Trump held a meeting at Mar-a-Lago
    with the CEOs of major oil and gas companies, and they reported upon
    the substance of that meeting. And here is a headline from the
    Guardian, and other publications carried the same news: ``Trump
    promised to scrap climate laws if U.S. oil bosses donated $1 billion''
    to his campaign.
      One of the oil executives at the meeting quoted Donald Trump saying:
    ``You'll get it on the first day.'' Oil and gas will get preferential
    treatment on the first day, with end runs around environmental laws
    passed by Congress that are still part of the statutes we take an oath
    to implement in our jobs. And, in fact, the oil and gas guys did get it
    on the first day.
      What did the Trump fake energy emergency deliver to those he had
    promised to support? Here is what was delivered in the emergency order.
    The President said: There is an emergency, and so we need to bypass
    laws passed by Congress. We need to bypass the Clean Air Act. We need
    to bypass the Clean Water Act. We need to bypass the Endangered Species
    Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the National Historic
    Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act.
      Because of this fake emergency that he has created out of thin air,
    we need to take all of these laws that Congress has passed--many of
    which have been in statute, like the Clean Water Act, for more than 50
    years--and we need to give energy producers and transmitters the
    ability to bypass these laws in order to produce and transmit energy.
      It is interesting, though. When you read the Executive order, it
    talks about energy production, but you have to go to the last section
    of the order to read what ``energy'' means. And President Trump is
    calling for a national emergency and bypassing all of these laws, if
    you want to produce using oil or gas or coal or nuclear or hydro, but
    not for wind, not for solar, not for clean battery storage. If your
    homegrown American low-cost energy is wind, solar, and battery storage,
    you don't get to bypass environmental laws. You have to comply with the
    letter of the law as Congress intends. We are only giving a break to
    the guys who supported Donald Trump, the fossil fuel industry.

      Donald Trump is so willing to give away the farm to Big Oil and Gas
    that he even, in the first provision in the emergency order, said: We
    also need to bypass property rights. He encouraged Federal Agencies to
    make aggressive use of eminent domain to produce fossil fuel energy.
      Those watching understand what this means. Eminent domain is the
    government taking the land from private property owners, and there is a
    set of rules in the Federal Code about when you can use eminent domain
    for energy projects, but Donald Trump has said: You know what, if you
    want to do oil, coal, and gas, you don't have to follow the rules. You
    can even take people's private property by bypassing the rules for oil,
    gas, and coal--but, of course, not for wind and solar, not for wind,
    solar, and battery, the clean energy that has been 95 percent of the
    power added to the grid just last year.
      So we know what the game is. ``You'll get it on the first day,'' Big
    Oil, and they did. And Donald Trump is now giving them an E-ZPass lane
    to speed by clean energy projects that are lower cost and cleaner
    because he told them he would do it if they supported his campaign.
      This is no emergency. It was declared for a corrupt purpose, and it
    is an unacceptable effort to undermine laws passed by the article I
    branch. And so I am on the floor with my colleague Senator Heinrich--
    and I am going to yield to him in a second--to just ask Congress: Be
    Congress. Be the article I branch. If a President can just stand up and
    make up an emergency and then gut laws that Congress passed, what is to
    stop President Trump from making up another emergency and gutting other
    laws? What is to stop any President, Republican or Democrat, from
    fabricating a complete emergency and using it to gut laws that Congress
    has passed?
      You know, if President Trump doesn't like the Clean Water Act--I
    happen to like it. I don't think it is perfect. But the Clean Water Act
    has

    [[Page S1369]]

    helped us to restore the James River in the city of Richmond, where I
    live, which won an international river prize a couple years ago as the
    most improved river in the United States. A river that was a sewer,
    that was closed off to fishing for 50 years, now has fishing, swimming,
    rafting, kayaking, bald eagles that had been extinct along the river
    because of chemicals now breeding in one of the most dense population
    of bald eagles in the United States. I like the Clean Water Act. I
    think it served a valuable purpose for 50-plus years, but maybe
    President Trump, who was elected, has decided that the Clean Water Act
    or the Clean Air Act or property rights protections have outlived their
    usefulness.
      And if he has decided that these laws have outlived their usefulness,
    well, he has got two Republican Houses. He can introduce a bill to
    repeal the Clean Air Act or repeal the Clean Water Act. That would be
    the right way to do this, not invent a bogus fake emergency and
    unilaterally gut these laws.
      But the President has got a problem. If he introduced the bill to
    repeal the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, not even
    Republicans--some Republicans would--but not even Republicans would
    support it. In two Republican Houses, he would have zero luck in
    repealing these laws that have protected the public health and the
    environment. So his attitude is, Wow, I could benefit my Big Oil
    cronies by repealing these laws, but that is a nonstarter in the
    article I branch. So why don't I kick the article I branch to the side,
    create a fake emergency, end-run them, and that is how I benefit my
    cronies.
      Congress should stand up against this and vote for S.J. Res. 10
    because it is the right policy, and we shouldn't gut these provisions,
    except by doing it in the course of ordinary legislative business,
    should that be the will of the appropriate majority of both bodies.
    That would be the way to do this.
      So I am asking my colleagues to stand up and support S.J. Res. 10.
    This would be horrible policy. But more than a horrible policy on these
    laws, it would also set a horrible precedent, a precedent that a
    President of either party can invent a sham emergency and then grab
    away from Congress powers that Congress has under article I.
      Let's not be sheep in this place. Let's not have this be the
    ``Silence of the Lambs,'' just doing whatever Donald Trump says he
    wants to do, with the article I branch not saying or mumbling a word,
    not willing to issue a peep, not showing a backbone, not showing a
    voice. We have got a backbone; we have got a voice; but more
    importantly, we took an oath to a Constitution that gives Congress
    certain powers. We should not let the President trample on those
    powers.
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). The Senator from New Mexico.
      Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from
    Virginia for bringing this resolution to the floor.
      And it was a little less than a year ago, I met with workers at
    several manufacturing facilities in New Mexico. These are the workers
    who are making the solar and wind technologies that are generating
    record quantities of clean, affordable, American-made energy. And at a
    groundbreaking ceremony for Array Technologies, at their factory in
    Albuquerque, I met with over a dozen New Mexicans, and they told me
    about the impact of our investments on their lives, their abilities to
    support their families.
      I talked with folks like Ramon Romero, who joined Array Technologies
    as an entry-level machinist, worked his way up to have a career as a
    production manager.
      I met with Daniel Beltran, who explained how Array's expansion has
    created new job opportunities for himself and many others in his
    community. He told me that the company's growth has been ``life-
    changing'' for him.
      And I met with Ray Muddaluri, who spoke about how significant a role
    Array has played in supporting her growth as a young professional and
    her ability to serve her community.
      Here is what every one of those New Mexicans had in common: They were
    able to create better lives for themselves, better lives for their
    families, because of the jobs that were available for them. This is
    what I mean when I say these industries, these clean industries, are
    creating careers that New Mexicans and other Americans can build their
    families around in their home communities.
      And thanks to the investments that Democrats made in the last few
    years, we have seen record growth in new American manufacturing
    facilities. More than 400,000 new jobs have been announced across the
    country as a part of this ``Made in America'' clean and affordable
    energy manufacturing boom. In New Mexico, we celebrated the first wind
    towers coming off the line at Arcosa Wind Towers, a new factory in
    Belen. It was a shuttered plastics factory. And now Arcosa's workers
    are creating the huge steel towers. They are heading straight to the
    SunZia Wind and Transmission Project, a 3\1/2\ gigawatt project. That
    project, SunZia, brought in more than $20 billion to States like New
    Mexico and Arizona in capital.
      And when it comes online, it is going to generate more clean power
    with its wind turbines than the Hoover Dam. It is the largest ever
    built clean energy project in the Western Hemisphere. America is
    actually building big things again. So these projects have enormous
    scope.
      But our affordable, American-made energy boom is already under threat
    because of the uncertainty that President Trump has foisted on the
    energy sector.
      And if you are thinking about opening a new factory, like Array or
    Arcosa did in my State, you don't know what your tax structure will be
    after the Republicans take up their Trump tax bill. If you are trying
    to site and build a new transmission line, the Federal Agencies and the
    staff that you work with just had their expert staff sacked, making it
    hard to get a permit when no one is on the other end of the phone.
      And thanks to Trump's so-called national energy emergency, many of
    the lowest cost, 100-percent clean additions to our grid can't get
    permits.
      Make no mistake, Americans' electric bills are going to go up. I am
    going to say that again: Americans' electric bills are going to go up
    because Trump and his loyal Republicans are picking winners and losers
    on the power grid.
      That is why I am joining my friend and colleague Senator Kaine to
    force a vote to put an end to all of this before any more damage is
    done.
      And I want to be clear about something, and certainly Senator Kaine
    raised this point, but America is the world's leading energy producer.
    And before Trump injected all of this uncertainty, our country was
    producing record quantities of both conventional and clean advanced
    energy. There is no energy emergency. It was made up to skirt the law.
    It was made up to favor some sources and not others.
      But if Trump gets his way, his faux declaration may very well create
    a real emergency, an energy emergency and an economic emergency.
      I also want to be clear to my colleagues across the aisle that this
    clean energy phenomenon has created 400,000 jobs around the country.
    But most of them--most of them--are in Republican-led States. This is
    not a red States or a blue States issue. This is about good-paying,
    blue-collar, skilled jobs in all of our States.
      So what is at risk because of all of this? Let's take a look. In
    North Carolina, there is a new nearly $13 billion--with a ``b''--$13
    billion Toyota battery plant, which will employ 5,000 workers.
      Where are we getting our batteries now? We are getting them from
    China. This is progress. This is putting Americans to work to make
    batteries here.
      In Louisiana, First Solar announced a billion dollars for a new solar
    energy project that is projected to create 700 new jobs, making that
    technology here, not being dependent on China.
      In Kentucky, Ford is building a new battery plant, which will employ
    another 5,000 workers and manufacture batteries here instead of China.
      In Georgia, an estimated billion dollars in projects to modernize the
    power grid--and our power grid needs a heck of a lot of modernization.
    We are going to have more and more demands on this grid in coming
    years, especially with the growth of data centers and AI--a billion
    dollars sidelined to upgrade that power grid in Georgia.
      Do we really want all these jobs to disappear because President Trump

    [[Page S1370]]

    wants to create a war on affordable, American-made, clean energy? Do we
    want to import more batteries from China? I don't because that is what
    is going to happen if we turn our backs on these factories and these
    energy sources.
      And among other things, Trump's so-called national energy emergency
    declaration would allow his administration to use eminent domain, one
    of the most controversial powers that a government can have, to take
    private land for oil and gas infrastructure at the expense of our
    American jobs and livelihoods.
      As we speak, President Trump's chaos and incompetence are
    jeopardizing and fueling the real energy emergency in our country.
    Trump's plans to eliminate dozens of advanced energy tax credits, those
    have unleashed more than $165 billion in private sector capital, moving
    into over 1,000 factories and expansions across the country.
      The President has also halted many of the Department of Energy's loan
    guarantees, which will further jeopardize the U.S. energy manufacturing
    expansion and will lead to higher energy bills for millions of
    Americans.
      This is blatant hypocrisy, as Trump's favorite billionaire ``bro''
    Elon Musk actually took a $465 million Federal loan guarantee from that
    same Department that literally saved Tesla from bankruptcy in 2010.
      And when these massive, multibillion-dollar construction projects
    stall, it is not Trump's billionaire friends who will suffer; it is
    everyday Americans who work in these factories. It is all the families
    who will be stuck with higher electric bills.

      I want to emphasize something that my colleague from Virginia raised.
    More than 90 percent of the electricity generation projects currently
    in line to connect to the grid all across this Nation--in red States
    and in blue States--waiting interconnection are clean energy projects.
    They are wind, solar, storage, nuclear.
      Just last year, 93 percent--93 percent--of new electricity generation
    was carbon-free. That is a record. We added 52 gigawatts--50 nuclear
    power generating station quantities' worth--of solar, wind, and storage
    to the grid in the last year alone. There is a reason for that. In
    addition to being clean and carbon-free--and many of the big companies
    that procure energy care about that--these power sources are cheaper,
    they are faster, they are less capital-intensive than older
    technologies, like coal-fired plants or gas turbines.
      Put simply, clean energy is the cheapest electricity on the grid. You
    can see it right here. Onshore wind and solar are by far the cheapest.
    We have combined cycle natural gas.
      Guess what? You can't get a gas turbine these days. If you order a
    combined cycle natural gas turbine today, you are going to wait 3, 4, 5
    years before that is actually delivered, without permitting.
      Nuclear is great. I hope we build more of it, but we have to get the
    cost down. It is 18 cents a kilowatt hour, average.
      If we don't plug these clean sources into the grid, especially at a
    time of surging demand, the outcome is obvious: Prices will go up. And
    it is not physically possible to stand up enough costly gas plants to
    keep growing power demands and keep prices down. As I said, the wait
    times to just get a turbine is 4 or 5 years.
      If Trump has his way and he keeps blocking American-made clean energy
    projects, we know that significantly higher energy and electricity
    costs are on the way. Is that what we want to do? We want to impose on
    working families that are already struggling to pay for eggs--if they
    haven't crossed that off their grocery list already--the rising cost of
    milk, groceries going through the roof, rent payments going up--we are
    going increase their electric rates because that is what this fake
    emergency is going to do.
      A couple of weeks ago, an Alabama utility company sent a letter to
    customers saying: Sorry, you owe us another $100 because what we
    credited you based on the law is no longer valid. Trump's EO took that
    away, so pony up. Write us another $100 in your electric bill this
    month.
      That is just the tip of the iceberg.
      Advanced groups who do the analysis, folks like the Rhodium Group,
    have looked at what his crusade will mean regarding American clean
    energy investments and electricity costs. And they say that, on
    average, American families' electricity bills could go up by nearly
    $500 a year as a result of these actions.
      Trump's war on American-made clean energy is going to kill thousands
    of jobs in the skilled trades. Huge construction projects are going to
    get stalled. The biggest winner in all of this is going to be China.
    China wants to become even more dominant in the global renewable energy
    marketplace. They will happily take the private investment that could
    have gone to the United States and take those jobs back overseas. The
    biggest loser from this is our economic competitiveness, our national
    security, our families.
      Trump has claimed that his so-called natural energy emergency order
    is needed to unleash more American fossil fuel development. He is also
    wrong about that. Not only is our production--13 million barrels a day
    on average; a little over that--not a record-producing number, but oil
    and gas executives will tell you the truth.
      Look at what ConocoPhillips' CEO said in response to a question about
    this: Would he really increase production with the gloves coming off?
    He said, ``Not really.'' Why is that? Because American oil and gas
    production is already at a record high, and it is not economically
    advantageous to push production further. I know this firsthand because
    we are producing more oil and gas in New Mexico than most other States
    combined, with the exception of one.
      Clearly, we need to put an end to this stuff that will fuel a real
    energy emergency, kill thousands of jobs, and raise electricity costs
    on American families. The most important decision of our energy
    future--worth hundreds of billions of dollars in private sector
    investment, factories, thousands of high-quality jobs--remains in the
    hands of our Senate Republican colleagues.
      If you want to have an ``all of the above'' approach, if you want to
    continue to bring down energy costs, if you want to protect jobs for
    hard-working Americans in our States, and to help America remain the
    global leader in energy production, I would urge you to vote in support
    of this resolution and against higher electricity bills.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
      Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today in support of my
    colleagues'--Senator Heinrich and Senator Kaine--resolution. I
    appreciate their part of the presentations, but I strongly support this
    resolution. I want to also acknowledge one of many reasons we vote for
    this resolution is because it is also Senator Kaine's birthday. I think
    nothing would be a better birthday present for my friend of 40, 45
    years than having this body make a firm statement about being against
    rising utility costs.
      The resolution--I know they both spoke on it extensively--would
    repeal President Trump's flawed and misguided national emergency
    declaration.
      We all know on the first day in the midst of signing Lord knows how
    many Executive orders, President Trump declared a ``National Energy
    Emergency'' and issued an Executive order titled ``Unleashing American
    Energy.''
      Let me be clear. Frankly, I have some fights on this side of the
    aisle because I actually support all of the above in terms of our
    energy mix. Part of that does mean LNG--and for national security
    reasons, to make sure we ship it to our partners in Europe.
      It also means we need to bring more of these energy jobs back here to
    America. I was at a fascinating presentation yesterday with the CEO of
    Commonwealth Fusion. Commonwealth Fusion is a company out of
    Massachusetts, but they are making a major development in Virginia. We
    have been talking about fusion since the seventies. Those kind of jobs
    ought to be here in America, and they can provide an abundance of
    energy.
      But if you actually read the President's Executive order, you will
    see he is not really about promoting energy security. He is interested
    in, frankly, only favoring certain parts of the energy sector. I think
    that is a huge mistake.
      I have the honor of having been the chair of the Intelligence
    Committee. I

    [[Page S1371]]

    am now the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee. One of the things
    we tried to do on the Intelligence Committee is redefine national
    security so it is not simply who has the most tanks and guns but who
    wins the battle for technology. If we are going to win the battle for
    technology and, particularly, in AI, that is going to require enormous
    amounts of additional energy in the United States.
      It is terribly important that the United States remains in its role
    now as being the world's energy leader. But the truth is, China has
    also made this kind of commitment. In certain ways, China--although
    they are still using, many times, coal-based power--they have made
    massive investments in renewable energy.
      Today, China is the world's top supplier of long-duration energy
    storage batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines. Just last year,
    China added 357 gigawatts of solar and wind generation. That is nearly
    100 more gigawatts of renewable energy than the United States added.
      That is why Congress said: We have to catch up. In a very bipartisan
    way, with both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the
    Inflation Reduction Act, we made a record set of investments to
    incentivize the build-out of a 21st century energy economy here in the
    United States so we can actually beat China in these fields.
      Unfortunately, the President's ``Unleashing American Energy''
    Executive order is actually attempting to rein in or potentially
    reverse much of the progress that has been made. His Executive order
    actually calls for the pause of any disbursement of funds lawfully
    appropriated and obligated by the Inflation Reduction Act or the
    Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That unlawful withholding of
    funds, which already has been rejected by the courts--I know my
    colleague from Virginia has already said this--really jeopardizes a
    whole lot of large-scale manufacturing projects around the country. I
    don't know if Senator Kaine mentioned, but a number of those projects
    are in Virginia. We worked years with our Republican Governor to try to
    get these projects funded. They include things in solar, in wind that
    are extraordinarily important. They were funded because they would
    support this growth of American energy.
      This is printed on both sides of the paper. I will cut to the chase.
      The fact is, what President Trump did on that first day by putting
    out this Executive order which denies the fact that America is already
    the energy leader in the world--we need to make additional investments
    in cutting-edge additional energies where China is making these
    investments--solar, wind, battery. I am a big advocate for small
    modular nukes, both efficient and fusion, which I have talked about.
      A lot of that comes from blending the infrastructure bill and the
    IRA. Why in the heck would we put a halt on all of that? Why in the
    heck would we cut back on cutting-edge energy investment in the United
    States? Why would we cut back on American energy jobs?
      I am all for the natural gas jobs coming out of the Presiding
    Officer's State. I am all for ``all of the above.'' Why restrain us
    though in areas where we have some catching up to do?
      I think about fusion again. We are going to spend about $800
    million--hopefully--in some of this legislation. China is spending
    about twice that amount. If we want to truly create the ample sources
    of energy that is needed in the United States, if we want those jobs to
    be in America, if we want to think about a National security regime
    where we are the leader in the world in cutting-edge energy, then we
    have to support Senator Kaine and Senator Heinrich's resolution to
    overturn this phony national energy emergency. If we don't and we give
    up on these projects that have been vetted--some for years--then we,
    frankly, are going to allow our national security to fall behind China,
    because I can assure you--I get classified briefs on a regular basis--
    China is not giving up in investment in all these new domains. China is
    pedal to the metal on the ``all of the above'' energy strategy. That
    should be our strategy, as well.
      I urge all my colleagues to support Senator Kaine and Senator
    Heinrich's resolution. I look forward to that vote later today.
      I yield the floor.
      I suggest the absence of a quorum.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
      The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
      Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
    the quorum call be rescinded.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

          Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems

      Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss our
    continued efforts to reverse the Biden administration's regulatory
    overreach, specifically as it relates to energy. This includes our
    efforts to work with President Trump to unleash America's full energy
    potential and truly make our Nation energy dominant--not just energy
    secure but energy dominant. Energy security is national security, and
    so it is vitally important for our country.
      We have worked diligently in the Senate to swiftly confirm President
    Trump's Cabinet officials, and we continue to do that. We made it a
    priority to ensure that the President's Department heads are in place
    as we work to empower the United States to produce more energy from all
    of its abundant and affordable coal, oil, and gas reserves.
      The key to this effort was confirming Doug Burgum of North Dakota--my
    State--as Interior Secretary, Chris Wright to be Energy Secretary, and
    Lee Zeldin to serve as Administrator of the EPA. We look forward to
    working with President Trump's newly established National Energy
    Dominance Council, chaired by Secretary Burgum and vice-chaired by
    Secretary Wright.
      We also continue legislative efforts to get our country back to
    energy dominance.
      Soon, the Senate will vote on my resolution to nullify the Democrats'
    natural gas tax rule, using the Congressional Review Act. We will be
    voting on that today. This new tax was mandated by the Democrats in
    their so-called Inflation Reduction Act. It should have been called the
    Inflation Acceleration Act. Not only did it increase spending for their
    Green New Deal, it also put taxes on things like natural gas. No
    wonder, under their watch, inflation went up to 9 percent. That hits
    low-income, hard-working Americans the hardest of all. So we are going
    to change that.
      This tax actually puts a fee on emissions from facilities that
    produce natural gas. It starts at $900 a ton and goes up from there,
    eventually up to $1,500 per ton. So essentially what you are looking at
    is putting a 5-percent-plus added tax on natural gas. Now, think about
    that. Everybody uses natural gas to heat their homes or to cook their
    meals and for many other purposes as well. So it is a tax on every
    consumer, and it is regressive. It hits low-income individuals the
    hardest.
      This, of course, has a disproportionate effect on small oil and gas
    producers in States like mine, in North Dakota, Montana, and other
    States. It hits small businesses the hardest. Of course, ultimately, it
    is paid by consumers.
      It will impact the energy bills of consumers across the country who,
    as I said, are already struggling with high inflation because of the
    Biden administration.
      Today, the United States is the world's largest oil and gas producer,
    and at the same time, we have led the world in emissions reduction.
      Here is a stat I am going to talk about for a minute, and it is
    important to focus on this because at the very same time that the Biden
    administration is putting additional taxes and fees on natural gas, we
    are reducing emissions from natural gas.
      Since 1990, we have reduced emissions from methane by 20 percent.
    Now, that sounds pretty good, right--a 20-percent reduction in methane
    emissions since 1990. But think about this: In that same time, we have
    doubled how much natural gas we produce. So we have doubled the amount
    of natural gas we produce and still reduced overall emissions by 20
    percent. Remarkable. Remarkable.
      Biden's and Democrats' response to that is, well, gee whiz, let's
    raise taxes on everybody that uses natural gas.
      Obviously, not only does that drive up prices, it curtails
    production. Instead, what we need to do is support

    [[Page S1372]]

    the innovation and empower the technology development that has enabled
    us to reduce emissions while producing more natural gas. That is the
    answer. That is the solution. That is exactly what President Trump and
    Republicans have done and will continue to do, and that is an important
    part of, again, making our country truly energy dominant.
      We are also working with the Trump administration to replace the
    Biden administration's rules that closed off access to vast areas of
    taxpayer-owned energy resources. That includes both offshore and
    onshore.
      For example, in my State, the Bureau of Land Management's--BLM--
    public lands rule essentially enables environmental groups to lock away
    Federal coal, oil, and gas reserves under the argument that they are
    somehow undertaking conservation. The reality is, in North Dakota, for
    example, this Biden administration--what they call their Resource
    Management Plan closes off leasing to 45 percent of the Federal oil and
    gas acreage in our State and nearly 99 percent of Federal coal.
      But it doesn't just end there. When they close off those Federal
    lands from development, they also impact everybody else because Federal
    minerals are often colocated in our State and other States with
    privately owned minerals under non-Federal surface acreage. Their
    Resource Management Plan prevents other mineral holders and owners,
    private owners, from exercising their private property rights and
    limits the ability to develop minerals that are owned by the State, by
    the Tribes, and by private individuals.
      That is why I am working with Senator Cramer, Congresswoman
    Fedorchak, and Secretary Burgum to overturn the BLM's Resource
    Management Plan and maximize access to North Dakota's energy resources.
    That approach is not just important in my State, it is vital for
    energy-producing States across the country.
      This truly is about taking the handcuffs off our energy producers and
    empowering them to increase supply and help bring down prices for
    American families and businesses.
      There is an energy component in every product and service we consume,
    and when we make energy more plentiful and bring down that price, that
    helps reduce inflation. When we bring down energy and make it more
    plentiful, that helps us grow our economy, create more jobs and
    opportunities, and, in fact, not only provide for national security
    through energy security but help our allies as well so that they are
    not dependent on Russia or on OPEC or on Venezuela or anyone else--any
    of those bad actors--for their energy because they can get it from the
    United States.
      All these things go with producing more energy. All those benefits,
    all those things go with truly making America energy dominant. That is
    absolutely what President Trump and that is absolutely what Republicans
    intend to do.
      With that, I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). The Senator from Oklahoma.
      Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, President Biden liked to be able to say
    over and over again that we are producing record amounts of oil and
    gas. Some of my Democratic colleagues have even come to this floor in
    the last couple of days and have said: We don't have an energy
    emergency.
      Those two things together are kind of a message going out to the
    American people: There is nothing to see here. Move along. Everything
    is fine on energy.
      But if you talk to electricity-generation companies, regional
    distribution networks, and ask them ``How are things going with
    electricity generation? How are we doing with capacity?'' they will
    give you a very different story.
      The feeling is, when you walk into your own house and flick on the
    lights and the lights turn on, you are like: Yeah, the lights are fine;
    there is no emergency. But if you talk to the electric company behind
    it and say ``Two years from now, what does it look like for capacity
    for you?'' they will probably shake their head and say ``We have a
    problem coming.''
      Now, we can either deal with that problem 2 years from now when we
    are having brownouts and don't have enough electricity or we can deal
    with it now. I would rather deal with it now so we don't have the
    challenges ahead.
      How do you do that? Continue to be energy dominant in, actually, the
    energy that we are producing here in the United States and to be able
    to make sure that we are producing truly ``all of the above'' energy
    but we are actually producing energy at a price Americans can afford
    and at the amount Americans need.
      If we are going to be the world leader in AI, if we are going to be
    the world leader in data centers, if we are going to be world leaders
    in innovation, you can't be that if you don't have the power behind it.
    You can't be that if the price continues to go up, up, up for
    continuing subsidies.
      Under the Biden administration, the price of gasoline went up 30
    percent--30 percent in 4 years. Under the Biden administration, in 4
    years, the price of electricity nationwide went up 28 percent. Every
    American feels it. When we pay our light bill, when we put gas in our
    car, we feel it.
      So now the question is: What do we do about it? How do we actually
    engage to be able to make this better?
      Well, there are multiple things that we can do. We have already
    started some of those already. Quite frankly, President Trump, in his
    earliest days in office, stepped in and started the process of turning
    around some of the policies to increase more American energy so we can
    begin to bring prices down and availability up, because sometimes it is
    not just about price; it is making sure, 2 years from now, we are not
    running out and we are not having brownouts all across the entire
    Nation in our electric grid.
      So there are a couple things President Trump did right away. He
    actually changed all the cancellation of leases in Alaska to actually
    drill in the area literally set aside, decades ago, for drilling. That
    is an area that should be a no-brainer, but the Biden administration
    stepped in and said: No, we are not going to allow anyone to drill in
    the area set aside for oil exploration in Alaska. They canceled that.
      President Trump canceled the mandate for electric vehicles, not
    because he hates electric vehicles. There happens to be a guy who hangs
    around him a lot that runs a company that sells electric vehicles. The
    problem is not electric vehicles. The problem is the mandate to try to
    force Americans to be able to shift to that when we don't see that in
    the grid.
      Quite frankly, the electric grid is not prepared, even, for Americans
    to be able to do all-electric vehicles, and frankly, most Americans
    aren't either. If you talk to Oklahomans in rural areas and say, ``Are
    you willing to have an electric vehicle when it is 35 miles to the next
    town from where you are and to be able to take the risk?'' they are
    not.
      And even for a lot of our farmers and ranchers that will say, ``Well,
    there is an electric pickup out there,'' if you ask the question, ``How
    far does that electric pickup go if you are towing a trailer?'' the
    answer you will get from the manufacturers is 80 miles. Do you know
    what? Our farmers and ranchers need to go a little farther than 80
    miles with their vehicles.
      So there are a lot of issues that are out there. To be able to take
    the mandate away and say, ``Let people choose what vehicle they want to
    be able to choose,'' we think is a better option, and, quite frankly,
    with our grid not prepared for the strain on that long term, it is a
    wiser option for everybody in the process.
      Decisive action has taken place on the issue of drilling in Federal
    waters. President Biden, literally in the final hours of his
    administration, put a ban on actually drilling on 625 million acres
    offshore. So 625 million acres that have oil and gas in them, President
    Biden just banned it.
      Well, President Trump flipped that and said: No, we are going to
    allow that to be able to happen--quite frankly, as every other
    President has on that.
      So these are basic things the President can do and has done, but what
    do we, as Congress, need to be able to do?
      We have engaged in several areas already. We have chipped away at
    what we call the methane fee that has been put on. Every single
    homeowner that has a hot water tank that uses natural gas--or even if
    their electricity that is

    [[Page S1373]]

    coming into their house is produced by natural gas or they cook with
    natural gas--had a new fee added on to them at the end of the Biden
    administration. We have now voted to be able to take that away and say:
    We are not going to raise the prices of everybody because they happen
    to use natural gas to cook their food or to be able to heat their homes
    or heat their hot water or that they get electricity from as well.
      We have also now voted on, quite frankly, a regulation that was done
    by the Biden administration at the very end of their time that was
    intentionally designed to be able to raise the price of offshore oil
    drilling, where they intentionally placed a new fee on any company that
    is drilling offshore. That could be $1 million per well. The reason for
    that is to try to block more development offshore on that.
      What does that actually do? That doesn't decrease the need that we
    have in the country. It increases the number of imports that are coming
    into our country. So we are buying more from Saudi Arabia, more from
    Venezuela, rather than actually producing from our own jobs and our own
    locations.
      I don't have a problem with ``all of the above'' energy. In fact, I
    have had this conversation with multiple people in this body. I am
    willing to put the Oklahoma portfolio for energy against any State that
    is here, as far as our use of renewables versus fossil fuels. Forty-
    five percent of the electricity produced in my State today is done with
    wind. We do wind, solar. We do hydro. We do oil, gas, coal. But we are
    working to be able to make sure that we can actually produce
    electricity that is needed for manufacturing and for our homes. That
    shouldn't be a difficult issue for us. That should be what it is
    actually all about.
      Quite frankly, the frustration that we have had is this has been a
    challenge for energy companies just to produce energy in the last 4
    years. This is something that should be normal. America needs energy.
    Every single American needs energy. Every person sitting in this room
    or watching this right now is using energy. We need access to that. So
    let's find the best ways to be able to do it.
      A couple of things that we are working on right now: One is that I
    have a bill dealing with what we are talking about, with the tax
    treatments that we are all debating right now, as well, on this floor,
    called Promoting Domestic Energy Production Act. That act is very
    straightforward. It treats oil and gas companies the exact same way for
    taxation as every other manufacturer is treated.
      Now, a lot of Americans may say: Well, they are not treated the same
    now? No. When Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act--which was
    bizarrely named because, actually, inflation spiked after that, with
    all they put into it. When the Inflation Reduction Act was passed, it
    created a new tax on oil and gas companies, specifically designed to be
    able to reduce new wells coming into America and increase the price of
    oil and gas. That was the design of it because their goal was, if they
    could make it so expensive to get gasoline, then more people would
    actually run to an electric vehicle, and they would buy an electric
    vehicle.
      Well, guess what is happening. The more expensive gasoline is
    definitely happening, but more and more people aren't running to an
    electric vehicle. They want to be able to choose. And that is a pretty
    fair option for them for that. So the bill that I have actually moves
    us back to treating oil and gas companies the exact same way as every
    other manufacturer is treated in our tax policy.
      There is another bill that is not just an oil and gas bill. It is
    called the ALIGN Act. This handles what we call bonus depreciation.
    When a company actually buys a big piece of capital equipment, they are
    going to pay their tax that year on it, but they have to decide, for
    that big piece of equipment, how many years it takes to be able to
    depreciate the value of that. The ALIGN Act just says: In the year that
    you bought it, you can also depreciate it, and you can take it off your
    taxes.
      Now, this doesn't change the amount of income coming into the Federal
    Treasury one bit. You are either going to have it over several years or
    you are going to have it over one year. It doesn't change the amount at
    all, but it does make a huge difference to that business, in the year
    they do a big capital investment, that they also get to write that off
    on that same year.
      Well, I think it is just good policy to be able to say: Let's
    incentivize every manufacturer to be able to do additional
    manufacturing. Our economy needs it right now because, when they do
    more manufacturing, that is more jobs in the country. And for energy,
    that means more pipelines, more capabilities to be able to move energy
    at a cheaper rate. Those are commonsense things that don't hurt our
    deficit as a nation but actually benefit our economy and benefit jobs.
      Energy policy should be just commonsense conversation. It shouldn't
    be political. It should be: What do Americans need? And we should look
    beyond just today that the lights are on. We should at least look 2
    years in the future to say what is about to happen in the country with
    our electric grid, anticipate the problems that are coming, and make
    changes in policy here to make sure we don't have an emergency there.
      So let's declare the American energy emergency. Let's fix it before
    we have the challenges that are coming in just a few short months.
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
      (The remarks of Mrs. Fischer pertaining to the introduction of S. 750
    are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
    and Joint Resolutions.'')
      Mrs. FISCHER. I yield the floor.
      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. JUSTICE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
    for the quorum call be rescinded.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
      Mr. JUSTICE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed
    to address the Senate while seated when necessary.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
      Mr. JUSTICE. Mr. President, well, to this great Senate body and to
    all of you, I will speak from my heart. I won't have hardly any notes,
    but I will speak from my heart about something that I think is
    absolutely key to Emerald City, and that is all about energy.
      Absolutely, I am an energy guy. I am from an energy State. In my
    backyard, two-thirds of the population of this entire country is within
    a rocks' throw of West Virginia. If we don't watch out, we are going to
    awaken to a situation, as far as energy in this country, that is
    really, really, really bad. I believe this with all my soul.
      Secretary Burgum is a really good man, and I always called him ``the
    pick of the litter.'' I think President Trump's nominees are absolutely
    great, but with all that being said, I think about Doug Burgum--our
    Secretary of the Interior--a guy that is supersmart, really, really
    experienced, compassionate, and has an unbelievable knowledge.
      Now, with all that being said, if we could just go back to just this,
    we could think about Chris Wright. Chris Wright gets it. He knows what
    we need to do, and if you just step one step further, I would just say
    just this: President Donald Trump understands it. He knows exactly just
    this, and this is all there is to it: Energy is everything. It is
    everything right now.
      It solves the inflation bubble. It insulates us from the standpoint
    of wars all over the place. Why in the world do we in America need to
    blow our own legs off and turn China loose, India loose, whomever it
    may be? That is what we are doing.
      I am an absolute believer--and you have seen it in West Virginia, if
    you are paying attention. I am an absolute believer to embrace all the
    energy forms. We did 100 percent.
      But if you believe today that we can do without our fossil fuels--our
    great fossil fuels--and absolutely if you think we can do without them
    today, I say you are living in a cave. You are absolutely living in
    fantasyland.
      Absolutely, if you don't believe that today--a year and a half from
    today--that we are going to have a crisis in this country, off the
    chart, as far as electricity, you need to wake up because that is what
    is coming.

    [[Page S1374]]

      Now, let me go one step further, and let me just say just this: Let's
    just say we awaken to an opportunity of AI, data centers, whatever it
    may be, industry, manufacturing, whatever it may be. Do we want to say:
    Nope. We can't do that. We can't do that because we are going to be in
    a situation with our grid and with our energy production in a year and
    a half from today. I promise you, a year and a half from today, we are
    going to be in a situation that we are going to have to decide: Are we
    going to have opportunity and jobs and manufacturing and AI and data
    centers--are we going to have that--or are we going to choose with our
    electricity amounts that we have--we are either going to be able to
    support industry or we are going to have to support homes.
      For God's sake of living, we don't want to go and get cold. We don't
    want to be hot in the summer. We don't need a choice between industry
    and our homes. What we need to be doing is exactly what I am saying. We
    have got to realize that energy is the key to everything here. That is
    all there is to it.
      You know, it does solve all the things that I have already said,
    whether it be inflation or the war situation or our national security
    and on and on and on, but there is something else that it does. And it
    just goes just simply just this: We have a $37 trillion--none of us has
    any comprehension what a trillion dollars really is. None of us has any
    comprehension--can possibly imagine what a trillion dollars is.
      We have got a $37 trillion deficit. How are we going to get out of
    it? Please tell me. Please tell me how are we going to get out of it?
    First of all, what we should do is mind the store. That is what we have
    got to do. Mind the store. That is the first thing you have to do.
      That means cut as much waste as we possibly can. But after we do all
    of that, I will bet you this in every way. See, I am a business guy. I
    am not a politician. You can tell by the way I talk. For crying out
    loud, I am a business guy. With all that being said, I have never
    seen--never have I seen a situation to where you can cut your way out
    of a problem.
      We will absolutely have to mind the store. President Trump is dead on
    point. The DOGE is absolutely real, and we can absolutely make a real
    dent, but it won't be a dent nearly big enough. At the end of the day,
    the only way you can truly get your way out of a mess--mind the store,
    and it grows. That is what we have got to do. You have got to grow
    revenue.

      Say what you want, but at the end of the day, you have got to grow
    revenue. How are you going to grow revenue in America? For God's sake
    of living, the last thing on the planet that anybody would ever want to
    do is raise taxes. That would be the worst thing we could possibly do.
    That would kill us in every way imaginable.
      We need to be supportive of President Trump's tax cuts. We absolutely
    need to grow revenue one way. This is the only way to do it in West
    Virginia. You won't hear me all the time just standing up on a soapbox
    going on and on, but really this is a West Virginia guy that is telling
    America and telling the world just this: We sit on so much energy it is
    off the chart. Why can't we be Saudi Arabia? I mean, for crying out
    loud, it absolutely is the answer, period. If you want to grow revenue
    in this country, absolutely it will start with energy, and it will end
    with energy. That is all there is to it.
      Think about this for just 1 second: Every single country in the
    world--the gigantic countries or the real small countries--every
    country in the world today, the people will live longer and the people
    will be healthier if they have more energy--guaranteed. Every single
    country in the world, the more energy they have, the longer their
    people live, and the healthier they are.
      Absolutely just go back and think just one more thing: Civilization
    only progressed--only progressed with abundant, cheap energy, and now
    it is abundant, cheap, clean energy. America produces the cleanest
    energy on the planet. Our coals are so clean it is unbelievable
    compared to China's coals or other countries.
      Absolutely our natural gas is so good, it is off the chart. Embrace
    all the alternatives. All the wind, all the solar, embrace them all,
    but for gosh sake of living, you cannot--you cannot--forget the very
    thing that God above gave us in our fossil fuels.
      So with all that being said--I didn't even look at the notes--but I
    would just say to you just this: We have a real opportunity in America
    today, a real opportunity to move forward in a way that absolutely can
    solve a lot of the riddle. The riddle is tough.
      The riddle is tough, and absolutely when you step back from it and
    you think about, Well, what are we going to do? Here is a guy that has
    come to you not as a politician. I came to you not as a 40-year-old,
    you know, aspiring to someday being the chairman of some committee. I
    came to you with white hair as a 73-year-old because of one reason and
    one reason alone: I meet up with being a patriot. I am the real deal. I
    challenge the media all the time: Tell me something that, knowingly, I
    have told you is not true. They can't do it because I am going to tell
    the truth.
      My parents taught me that. It is not OK to just tell anything and
    say: Oh, it is just politics in my world. It is not. I am telling you
    from my heart as a business guy and absolutely as a West Virginian but
    first and foremost as an American: I love you with everything in me. I
    love this country with every single thing in me. I want nothing but
    goodness.
      I don't want one thing for me--nothing. I don't want the next hot
    tip. I don't need the next perk. I don't need the next invite. I don't
    want a thing for me. I am telling you, energy is our ticket. It is
    everything. It always has been everything.
      Now, we have got to do something about it. America, you have got to
    listen to me on this one. We have got to do something about it, and we
    have got to do something about it right now. I mean, there is a bad day
    coming, and it is coming right at us like a freight train. Let's do
    something about it, America. God bless each and every one of you. Thank
    you so much for having me.
      Mr. President, I will follow these guidelines correctly and make sure
    I do.
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.

                                  S.J. Res. 10

      Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the American people are being told once again
    not to trust their own eyes. Democrats are telling them not to worry
    about their soaring electricity bills, telling them to ignore rolling
    blackouts. Republicans are just fearmongering, they say. But, of
    course, the reality is that Americans have seen the power shortages.
    They have paid the higher bills. They have felt the weight of the past
    4 years of the failed policies of the Biden administration, and we
    cannot ignore the resulting crisis anymore.
      The power grid is buckling, energy demand is exploding, and the very
    people who created this mess are now telling us, quite audaciously,
    that there is no emergency. Why? Well, they claim that the United
    States is producing more energy than we have in American history, but
    what they conveniently omit is that we are consuming more energy than
    at any time in American history, and we are expected to need much, much
    more within just the next few years--much more than we are producing,
    much more than we ever have produced.
      So it is not enough to just look at how much we are producing
    relative to what we have produced in the past when you don't take into
    account the demand, what we need, and what we need is going way, way
    up.
      Now, according to Goldman Sachs, artificial intelligence alone--just
    artificial intelligence, nothing else; not population growth, not any
    other uses, household or industrial, of energy--just artificial
    intelligence alone is likely to drive a 160-percent increase in data
    center power demand by 2030. The largest data centers can consume more
    power than 700,000 households. That is equivalent to the energy use of
    a city of 1.8 million people.
      But there is no emergency, according to them. According to the
    sponsors of this resolution, this is just a handout. It is a handout to
    Big Oil, as they characterize it.
      Now, good luck with that. Try telling that to the American families
    and businesses that struggled during the January 2025 polar vortex when
    the U.S. power grid was pushed to its absolute limits. Electricity
    demand hit historic

    [[Page S1375]]

    highs, forcing grid operators to rely heavily on coal and natural gas--
    the very sources of power that Democrats want to eliminate and have
    been working aggressively, with some effectiveness, to do precisely
    that: to eliminate--just to keep the lights on.
      It is not Big Oil that will suffer in the winters if we fail to keep
    the power on.
      Across multiple power market regions, electricity demand during that
    event set new single-day records, as heating demand across sectors
    spiked. In response, grid operators had to rely heavily on dispatchable
    generation--primarily coal and natural gas--to ensure system
    reliability and stabilize supply during the extreme event.
      Now, during that time, coal-fired powerplants dramatically increased
    their electric power output--that is, those coal-fired powerplants that
    have not yet been torn down at the demand of Democratic-backed
    policies. In many regions, coal capacity factors soared above 80
    percent, far exceeding typical winter levels.
      On the other hand, wind and solar were challenged by unfavorable
    weather conditions. On peak days, wind and solar generated only 3
    percent and 0.2 percent of the incremental electricity needed to meet
    demand.
      But what exactly are Democrats worried about? What is their concern
    amidst that very emergency? If that is not an emergency, I don't know
    what is. What is it they are worried about? Not grid failures. Not
    surging energy costs. Not the reliability of our power supply. No. No.
    They are concerned that President Trump is making things worse by
    canceling the wind and solar projects that failed to generate enough
    power to meet demand at those peak moments when it was so badly needed.
      They are using the same old playbook that they always have: Do
    anything to prevent President Trump from getting a win regardless of
    whether his policies might actually bring relief to the American
    people, which, of course, they would.
      I have spent my career fighting against unchecked Executive power. I
    authored the ARTICLE ONE Act to curb the abuse of Presidential
    emergency declarations, requiring congressional approval within 30
    days. But let me be clear. This is not an abuse of those powers--not by
    a mile; not at all; not in any way, shape, or form. It is a real
    emergency, and if President Trump's declaration were put to a vote
    today, this Chamber would affirm it.
      Congress has had countless chances to fix this problem and failed
    every time. Republicans have fought for years to reform our outdated
    permitting laws, only to be met with Democratic resistance at every
    turn. NEPA, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act--Democrats
    treat these laws as if they were sacred texts, untouchable even when
    they are clearly broken; a sacred text that can't be not just repealed
    but even amended meaningfully to avert the disaster that they have
    created--especially created in the hands of the previous
    administration.

      Now, at this moment, we hear that they are ready to play ball. Now
    and only now do they say: Oh, yeah, we need to deal with this. Now, if
    that is true, great, but let's see. If Democrats are serious about
    fixing it, now is the time to prove it. Until Congress acts, how can
    anyone really blame the President for stepping in to address this
    emergency? Which it is, which it has become, which it undeniably is. In
    some cases, an emergency can be created by the government itself or at
    least severely exacerbated, and that is the case here.
      His Executive order tells Agencies to do exactly what Congress has
    neglected to do for years, exactly what Congress has been unable to
    do--in large part because Democrats have resisted that, getting back to
    the sacred text theory of these same laws that have become part of the
    problem.
      However, rather than working with President Trump and Republicans in
    a productive way to try to make energy more accessible for Americans
    and more reliable and, of course, remain affordable, Senate Democrats
    are forcing a vote on a resolution to terminate President Trump's
    declaration and reinstate the restrictive energy policies from the
    Biden administration's Green New Deal.
      Look at where those policies have left us, where they have put us,
    where we are, and where we are headed. Energy prices increased by 30.54
    percent, gasoline prices increased by 30.5 percent, electricity prices
    increased by 28.55 percent, and natural gas prices increased by 33.3
    percent.
      Meanwhile, Democrats' message to American families is clear: Pay
    more, expect less.
      That is the sort of gospel of scarcity, the idea that we have to live
    off of scarcity because that is what they demand because government
    wants it that way for reasons that only they can fully articulate but
    that the American people do not find persuasive.
      This is a problem. The United States is, in fact, in an energy
    emergency--not because of a lack of resources but because the Biden
    administration's unrelenting regulatory assault on domestic oil and gas
    production in blind adherence to the climate cartel has put us in this
    position.
      Now, President Biden's Executive orders--including orders he issued
    on his very first day as President of the United States back in January
    of 2021--pausing all new oil and gas leasing on Federal lands, where
    nearly 25 percent of U.S. oil production occurs, significantly hindered
    U.S. energy independence.
      Even after courts mandated the resumption of these leasing programs
    essential to our energy development, Secretary Haaland slow-walked the
    process, offering the fewest acres for lease since World War II and
    holding a record-low number of offshore lease sales.
      The chilling effect of the Biden administration's anti-production
    policies is as undeniable as it is indefensible as a matter of public
    policy. Oil companies are withdrawing from investments in Federal lands
    due to the uncertainty created by erratic leasing decisions and hostile
    regulatory policies.
      Now, let's remember, of course, this is made more severe by virtue of
    the fact that the U.S. Government is not just the largest landowner in
    the United States, but it owns around 28 percent--between one-quarter
    and one-third of all land in the United States. We compound that by
    giving enormous discretion to Federal land management Agencies, to the
    executive branch, and then you put in place an administration that
    wants to preach and live by the gospel of scarcity, and that is a
    recipe for disaster.
      Biden's EPA contributed meaningfully to the problem as well. The
    Biden EPA introduced methane fees starting at $900 per metric ton in
    2025 and increasing to $1,500 over just a fairly short period of time.
    That imposes significant financial burdens on producers, particularly
    small operators.
      Now, lest anyone led by the Democratic talking points might be
    tempted to look at this and say ``Oh, but they are businesses. They can
    afford it. Suck it up. Just deal with it,'' that is not really who pays
    for this, no. These things get passed on. The wealthy folks--at least
    the wealthy folks who own these businesses--they are not the ones
    hardest hit by this. Those hardest hit are American families,
    particularly in low- and middle-income brackets, those who, like so
    many Americans, live paycheck to paycheck. It is those people whose way
    of life, whose livelihood, whose ability to afford life is so
    dramatically affected by these regulatory intrusions into the
    marketplace. Those are the people who get hurt, and that really is a
    problem.
      Meanwhile, as our domestic production slows, our reliance on foreign
    oil increases. In 2023, we imported 1.3 million barrels per day from
    OPEC, up nearly 50 percent from 2020 levels. Meanwhile, critical
    mineral dependencies on foreign nations--particularly China--threaten
    everything from titanium in pacemakers, to cobalt in batteries, to
    copper in transmission lines and antimony in semiconductors. The
    absence of just one of these minerals would devastate the sectors they
    serve. Yet the Biden administration, with its vast discretion as it
    invented and reinvented Federal regulations and as it presided over
    this Byzantine labyrinth of Federal regulations--laws put in place by
    unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats--can make those things much worse,
    and it did make those things much worse, and the American people, hard-
    working Americans, are paying too high a price.
      The American people are done. They are done with Joe Biden's failed
    policies. Over 77 million Americans voted

    [[Page S1376]]

    for President Trump just a few months ago, and a recent poll shows that
    60 percent of Americans support expanding American oil and gas
    production.
      Senate Republicans will not let Democrats delay and obstruct any
    longer. They have created and exacerbated an emergency. President Trump
    is addressing it, as the law allows him to do. We will ensure the
    President has the tools necessary to deliver the results that the
    American people justifiably expect, demand, and truly do deserve,
    because the facts are undeniable. America is in an energy emergency
    because of the Federal Government and specifically because of the
    previous administration's failed policies.
      Instead of embracing abundant, affordable, and reliable energy,
    Democrats--again preaching and living by the gospel of scarcity to
    which they are so closely wedded--are doubling down on a radical agenda
    to make everything, from gasoline to electricity, more expensive for
    working families.
      Remember, as the price of those energy inputs goes up, so, too, does
    the price of everything else because it becomes more expensive to make,
    to process, to buy, to sell, to transport all of those same things.
      Instead of learning from those failures, Senate Democrats are trying
    to block President Trump from taking action to fix it. What? Are they
    too afraid that their own policies will be exposed as the source of a
    significant amount of the problem? You will have to ask them about
    that. But one could certainly make that argument, and it certainly
    appears to many that this is the case.
      They are standing in the way of relief for American families, hoping
    that if they delay long enough, the American people will simply accept
    high costs as the new normal. Only in Washington could you light the
    house on fire and then act shocked when someone else tries to put it
    out. Make no mistake, that is exactly what is happening here.
      We refuse to let that happen. We applaud President Trump for taking
    action to address an emergency created by our own government--presided
    over, directed, embraced, and now defended by the Democratic Party.
      I urge my colleagues to vote no on this resolution.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
      Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I join my colleague from Utah, the
    chairman of the Energy Committee, in speaking today in clear opposition
    to S.J. Res. 10, which would terminate the energy emergency that has
    been declared by President Trump.
      I think my colleagues here on both sides of the aisle know that I am
    not afraid to suggest when I think that the President may be heading in
    the wrong direction. But, folks, on this one, he absolutely, positively
    clearly hit the mark, and I think that the chairman of the Energy
    Committee has outlined in pretty good detail how that has come about.
      We know that our country is blessed with extraordinary--
    extraordinary--assets. We have the potential to become the world's
    leading resource superpower. But in order to do that, we have to be
    able to produce more energy domestically, and that means we have to be
    able to extract more minerals. We have to be able to build more
    transmission lines. We need to be able to overhaul what is clearly a
    broken Federal permitting process. And we can do this. We can do this
    in a way that is cheaper, that is more reliable, more clean, really,
    than any other nation in the world. But we have got to kind of dig out
    now from where we have been over these past 4 years, where we saw
    setback after setback for resource-producing States like mine, the
    State of Alaska.
      Let me give you a little detail in terms of what we are facing in the
    State of Alaska--a State that, again, is known for its resource wealth.
    But right now, in the south central part of the State, we are on the
    verge of importing LNG to meet the needs of some 75 percent of our
    population during the colder winter months.
      I will just repeat that. Alaska, the place where everybody knows we
    have got extraordinary oil resources--we have extraordinary natural gas
    potential, not only in the North Slope but down in Cook Inlet. Well,
    Cook Inlet reserves are on the decline, and we are actually talking
    about importing LNG from Canada. That ought to just be considered a
    nonstarter for anyone who knows and understands the extraordinary
    potential for resource development that we have in our State with the
    wealth that we have.
      Right now, in some of our remote communities across the State,
    residents are truly in what I would describe as an energy emergency.
    They might not use that term anymore because they have just gotten so
    used to the fact that they are paying so much to keep their lights on
    and to keep warm. We have residents in many communities that are
    spending up to one-half of their incomes on energy just, again, to keep
    the lights on and to keep warm.
      Think about what that means when you are spending half of what you
    make for just the basic necessities. It means that you have less to
    feed your family, to educate your kids. We have got communities where
    power costs 10 times the national average, where gasoline can easily
    exceed $10 a gallon, and that includes diesel as well.
      And those costs, of course, impact everything--everything--because
    you have got to move your food, your goods, usually by airplane,
    sometimes over the water, sometimes you are able to drive it. But when
    you are paying this much for diesel, for gasoline, for avgas, it
    impacts everything. So it is not unusual to go into a village store,
    and if you can find a gallon of milk, see that it costs 18 bucks a
    gallon.
      I do my comparison shopping by checking the prices of a box of Tide.
    People need to be able to wash their clothing just for sanitary
    purposes. Almost in every village that I am going to, you are looking
    at prices over $50 a box--$50 for a box of Tide laundry detergent--and
    it is not because Tide is any more expensive than anything else. It is
    just the reality of what we are paying here. So I think we have got an
    energy emergency when it comes to affordability.
      Right now, in our State, we have an oil pipeline that is one-quarter
    filled. We have this pipeline that has been pumping oil safely from the
    North Slope to delivery down in Valdez, going to other parts of the
    country for refining. That oil pipeline was completed in 1974 and has
    been producing for America ever since. But right now, it is about one-
    quarter full.

      That pipeline starts in, again, one of the most geologically
    prospective regions on the Earth. But what is happening is you have
    Federal Government control that surrounds most of the lands there, and
    it has led to decreased opportunities to expand production up there and
    a pipeline that, again, is about one-quarter full.
      I mentioned the benefits of oil here and talked about natural gas,
    but we also have known deposits of about 50 critical minerals, the
    building blocks of our modern society and our national security. We
    have just about everything that our Nation needs to break its deep
    dependence on China, to be able to rebuild our supply chains. But if
    you can't access it, you can't produce it, and we can't benefit from
    it.
      When we try to build a road from the Dalton Highway to the Ambler
    Mining District--this is explicitly provided by a 1980 Federal law--we
    did this as part of a grand compromise. The road corridor was in
    exchange for the creation of a massive national park and preserve. But
    we can get that project approved in one administration, only to have
    the next one come in, reopen it, ignore the law, and then make a
    political decision to reject it.
      And then, here in Congress, we run into a partisan wall with some
    less interested in the rule of law than the whims of the very same
    environmental groups that pushed this resolution.
      And then, meanwhile, what is happening when we are not able to
    produce in our own home States, China is cutting us off from its
    mineral exports, including the gallium and the germanium that we could
    produce from the Ambler District, if only the Federal Government would
    uphold its promise to allow Alaskans to responsibly access it.
      So, yes, when I look at my home State, when I look at Alaska, I do
    see an energy emergency--I see several, actually--and I see even more
    reasons to be concerned nationally.
      As the chairman of the Energy Committee just noted, electricity
    demand is growing, and yet we can't permit new powerplants or build
    transmission

    [[Page S1377]]

    lines. We can't build pipelines in the Northeast or almost anything,
    particularly mines, on Federal lands in the West.
      And, you know, I guess I am listening to some of the arguments that
    are being presented here, and maybe I would feel differently if my home
    State was producing more than 2 million barrels of oil per day, as some
    are. But we are not, and it is not because we can't. It is because we
    have been denied the opportunity to do so. And that is why I am very
    thankful for President Trump and the administration for the focus that
    they have given to the State of Alaska with a specific Executive order
    to allow us to unleash Alaska's energy and resource potential.
      I have shared with the Secretary of the Interior, as well as the
    Secretary of Energy, that we need to stop treating energy like it is
    some kind of an evil or a bad thing. We need to recognize that it is
    good. When I was chairman of the Energy Committee, we had a little
    bumper sticker, and I summed up my whole policy with ``Energy is
    good.''
      I haven't deviated from that policy. Energy makes us stronger, makes
    us less vulnerable, and it is an asset, not a liability, like we have
    seen it treated as such. We need to be unleashing our resources,
    including--including--all of our renewables, because that is all part
    of the energy basket as well. So it is not an either-or in my view. It
    is all of the above. And that is good for our economy. It is good for
    our security. It is good for our geopolitical power.
      America's resource production is good for the global environment
    because, when we are producing our resources--where we stop paying
    countries that have little to no environmental standards, no interest
    in reducing their emissions, and that often rely on child or slave
    labor and that, frankly, don't even like us--so why not seize the
    opportunities that we have here, benefit our own people, our own
    economies, and, again, benefit the global environment as well.
      So if an energy emergency helps us figure this all out, then I am
    good with that. And if it helps us take the Federal sanctions that we
    have seen placed on Alaska and return my State to the heart of our
    national strategy for resource production, then that is also good. I
    think we will all be better off.
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
      Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today in support of
    S. J. Res. 10, which would terminate the misguided national energy
    emergency that President Trump signed on his first day in office.
      It has been 37 days since President Trump declared, for the first
    time in this Nation's history, a national energy emergency. This is an
    attempt to throw red meat to the base of the Republican Party and to
    seem like Donald Trump is the oil and gas President.
      But there is no evidence to support that. In fact, the evidence we
    have points in exactly the opposite direction. This emergency was
    declared despite the fact that the United States is producing more oil
    than any other country ever in this Nation's history. And we have been
    doing that for the past 7 years.
      The emergency was declared despite the fact that the United States is
    in the midst of a clean energy boom and a manufacturing renaissance. We
    generated 17 percent more electricity in 2023 than the high point of
    the first Trump administration. Clean energy jobs are growing at twice
    the rate of the economy overall. And this emergency was declared
    despite the fact that, as the Wall Street Journal headline noted after
    the election: ``Trump's Oil and Gas Donors Don't Really Want to `Drill,
    Baby, Drill.' ''
      They are very happy to lock in demand for the long term. But increase
    supply and potentially undercut profits? Not so much.
      So we find ourselves with an emergency declaration in search of an
    emergency. But it is not without consequences. President Trump has
    assumed vast power for the executive branch through this emergency
    designation. He is encouraging the use of eminent domain that could
    literally allow the government to take your land away. He is waiving
    away key protections for clean water. And he is suggesting that a
    timeline of just 7 days is sufficient for public comment on projects
    that could cause irreparable harm to historic and cultural resources.
      President Trump campaigned on ``lowering the cost of everything'' and
    he promised:

           Your energy bill within 12 months, will be cut in half.

      Voters responded to those promises, and Americans do want to see
    lower energy costs. I am all for that. I focused, as Governor, on how
    we could address the high energy prices in New Hampshire. We permitted
    two gas pipelines through the State--both gas coming from Canada. And
    we negotiated a deal with our largest utility company that lowered
    rates 16.5 percent.
      I am all for lowering energy costs. We absolutely should be talking
    about that. But let's take a step back here, and let's talk about what
    President Trump's energy policies actually are and how they affect the
    American people. In the first 37 days, we have seen the Trump
    administration cut off funding for solar, wind, and clean manufacturing
    projects that are cheaper and faster to build than fossil fuel
    infrastructure. We have seen him halt energy efficiency programs and we
    know energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest way to deal with our
    energy needs.
      He has prepared a 10-percent energy tax in the form of tariffs on
    heating oil, propane, gasoline, and other energy we import from Canada.
    And that hits New Hampshire really hard because of the energy sources
    we get from Canada. I talked about the two gas pipelines that come down
    from Canada. And because we have so many households that burn No. 2
    fuel oil to heat our homes and because it is cold in New Hampshire at
    this time of year, that hits us really hard.
      He has fired more than 1,000 workers at the Department of Energy,
    including those who were keeping State energy programs and
    weatherization up and running to respond to emergencies and to help
    folks like we have in New Hampshire stay warm this winter.
      And tomorrow, what we expect is that Senate Republicans will roll
    back a commonsense fee on venting or flaring of methane rather than
    capturing it for productive use. If that passes and the President signs
    it, it will cost the taxpayers $2.3 billion over the next 10 years,
    effectively lighting money on fire to save Big Oil a few bucks.
      In New Hampshire, as in other States, President Trump's actions have
    sown chaos and uncertainty. They are raising costs for families, for
    farmers, for small businesses, and for town budgets.
      For example, the tariffs that are set to go into effect--and I
    understand the President has now decided he is going to wait until
    April--but they could mean about $150 to $250 more for the average
    family in New Hampshire who are using heating oil just to keep warm
    through the winter. President Trump's efforts to cancel promised
    funding for electric charging infrastructure in New Hampshire harms our
    travel and tourism sector, particularly in northern New Hampshire where
    ski areas and other outdoor recreation drive our local economies. A
    recent study found that the State risks losing an estimated $1.4
    billion in overall economic impact if we don't build up our charging
    infrastructure.
      One small business owner in Barrington, in the seacoast of New
    Hampshire, told me that he has nearly $3 million in projects. Those
    projects are on hold this year, including work for school districts
    with the State and with other customers to install solar projects that
    provide long-term taxpayer savings. They are on hold because of what
    President Trump has ordered.
      Farms and local shops across rural areas of New Hampshire are nervous
    about receiving promised reimbursements for energy-saving work through
    the Rural Energy for America Program, the REAP program. At least one
    business owner at Seacoast Power Equipment has been covering interest
    with the bank until his grant--which he has a signed commitment for--is
    actually paid out. Of course, this is affecting his bottom line.
      Then we have Super Secret Ice Cream in Bethlehem, NH, the northern
    part of our State--an award-winning small business that provides the
    best ice cream you have ever eaten. They were gearing up to install
    solar panels using $15,000 in Federal funds. Now that project is on
    hold. Many family-owned

    [[Page S1378]]

    businesses like Super Secret Ice Cream have very tight margins, and
    this small investment of $15,000 would help Kristina and Dan grow their
    business and lower the electric costs that they are paying to store
    their ice cream.

      Then we have the town of Peterborough in the western part of New
    Hampshire. They plan to use funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure
    Law to enhance much-needed workforce development. But, of course, they
    have had to wait far too long for Federal approvals.
      And in rural towns like Berlin in the northern part of our State,
    residents eagerly signed up for federally funded projects that will
    insulate and add solar arrays to their manufactured homes. This is a
    real solution to their high utility bills. But these projects are now
    on hold because the contractors are uncertain that they are going to be
    paid.
      I could go on, as I know my colleagues could, but since we have
    people waiting, I want to close with a point of agreement. In his
    Executive order, President Trump stated:

           We need a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of
         energy to drive our Nation's manufacturing, transportation,
         agriculture, and defense industries and to sustain the basics
         of modern life and military preparedness.

      That makes sense to me. I agree with that. But, unfortunately, that
    is about the only thing he said related to energy in the past 37 days
    that does make sense. Lowering energy costs, creating good jobs, and
    increasing America's economic competitiveness in the world--those ought
    to be things that we can all agree on. But if we give up our leadership
    on clean energy now, the People's Republic of China, who President
    Trump claims is our greatest competitor--and I agree with him on that.
    I just don't understand how the Trump administration policies are
    allowing us to be competitive--but China is going to be more than happy
    to fill the void for its own economic advantage.
      I think we should also agree Americans deserve clean air, clean
    water, and a chance to have a say in what happens in their communities.
      I want to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on these
    goals. That work starts by ending this disastrous, misguided emergency
    declaration and by stopping the chaos. I hope my colleagues will join
    me in voting to restore Congress's appropriate role in setting energy
    policies that benefit the American people by supporting this
    resolution.
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
      Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here to join my colleagues in
    objecting to President Trump's fake energy emergency, which is part of
    the Trump continuing strategy to hurt families and help billionaires--
    in this case, the fossil fuel billionaires who put at least $100
    million into getting him elected, probably a good deal more because so
    much of the money was dark money. We don't know. But there is every
    reason to believe it was multiple hundreds of millions of dollars spent
    to get him elected and it is payback time for the big donors.
      Tough bounce to the families whose bills are going to go up as a
    result.
      How are families bills going to go up? For starters, renewables are
    less expensive than fossil fuel. When you add them to the mix, the grid
    runs on a cue, and it takes the cheapest sources and puts them in the
    line. And as you demand more and more electricity, you finally get to
    the more expensive energy sources. And inexpensive renewables coming in
    drives out the expensive fossil fuel from the top, and it lowers energy
    costs overall.
      So when you stop doing that, the most expensive plants have to come
    back online, and that will raise utility bills but, most importantly to
    Trump, profits for fossil fuel billionaires.
      We make ourselves, with this, more vulnerable to the OPEC fossil fuel
    cartel, the oil and gas cartel. They raise prices by manipulating
    international markets. The American oil and gas companies follow up.
    Even if they don't need to make that much money, they will follow the
    OPEC prices. As a result, they have declared the biggest profits in the
    history of humankind at the expense of American families both at the
    fuel pump and at home on their electric bills. It doesn't matter to
    this administration. It is a win for the fossil fuel billionaires who
    paid good money to get this administration in, and families will be
    hurt to help the fossil fuel billionaires.
      Another one is LNG export. What happens in the natural gas market
    when you take our natural gas, liquefy it, and send it offshore
    someplace else? It doesn't go into the pipelines here in America. It
    pinches the supply available to Americans, which raises prices for
    Americans, unless you want to repeal the economic laws of supply and
    demand.
      So over and over and over again, these pro-fossil fuel, mega donor
    policies hurt American families, raise families' electric utility
    bills, and provide huge benefits back to the big donors who spent good
    money to get him into office.
      Who gets hit the most when you attack solar and attack wind power?
      Well, here are the top solar States by installed capacity. Start with
    California. Obviously, it is the fifth biggest economy in the world,
    but the next four are Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona.
    There are a lot of red voters in those States who are going to pay the
    price for this bad policy. Look over to wind. The top State is Texas,
    the next is Iowa, the next is Oklahoma, and the next is Kansas. Again,
    red States will pay the price for this donor-oriented policy.
      The Trump administration doesn't even concede that solar and wind
    power are energy. When they use the word ``energy,'' they only mean
    fossil and nuclear. They have literally defined solar and wind out of
    the energy mix by a process of vocabulary magic.
      So we are headed for a bad place, and consumers are going to pay--all
    to make big fossil fuel barons even richer than they are.
      The shame here is that there actually is an emergency out there.
    There actually is an energy emergency out there, and the energy
    emergency is happening because fossil fuel emissions are changing the
    weather and the natural systems of the Earth so that the risk of
    weather disasters, whether it is wildfire or flooding, is getting so
    bad that property insurers can't keep up. So we are having a crisis in
    property insurance markets that is fully developed in Florida, and
    California is not far behind.
      What the chief economist for our mortgage giant, Freddie Mac, has
    warned of is that the property insurance crisis morphs into a mortgage
    crisis because if you can't get property insurance on a property, guess
    what else you can't get on a property--you can't get a mortgage on it.
    And the mortgage crisis devolves into a property values crash because
    if you can't find buyers because nobody can get a mortgage on that
    property, your property's value just collapsed. Then that morphs into a
    nationwide economic crash on the scale of 2008. That is what they said
    just about coastal property values. Now we have the wildfire risk
    coming along side by side--the evil sibling.
      So is there an emergency? Yes. It is coming on, and it is coming on
    soon enough that the Fed Chair, in testimony just over a week ago here
    in the Senate, said: After a decade goes by, there will be regions of
    the United States of America where you can't even get a mortgage any
    longer.
      What is that going to do to property values and people's homes? By
    the way, if that is the case for 10 years out, markets are going to
    start to move sooner. So this is a problem that is on us now. We have a
    real emergency coming. It is going to clobber us economically.
      Our friends on the Republican side don't want to listen to us because
    of all the fossil fuel money that goes into their party. The President
    doesn't want to listen to it because he got paid so many hundreds of
    millions of dollars in political funds to get himself elected. But
    nature's rules can't be repealed by man. This is coming on. We ought to
    be prepared for it.
      With that, I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
      Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am pleased to follow my colleague
    and friend from Rhode Island and to join with the Senator from
    Virginia, Senator Kaine, in supporting S.J. Res. 10, which is a joint
    resolution to terminate President Trump's illegal Executive order
    declaring an energy emergency.

    [[Page S1379]]

      It is not only nature's rule that is being violated, as Senator
    Whitehouse just said so eloquently; it is also this Congress's rule. In
    effect, the President is flouting and defying this Congress--this
    independent, separate body of the U.S. Government--in the money that
    has already been appropriated for projects that will help avoid an
    energy emergency in the future and reduce the prices of energy for
    American families.
      To the families of America, let's just be very clear. President Trump
    is illegally withholding appropriated funding for for projects in your
    communities and your neighborhoods, not only projects to increase
    energy efficiency but also to strengthen the electrical grid that
    brings electricity into your home and projects to build out America's
    clean energy infrastructure that will avoid pollution in your
    neighborhoods.

      This funding freeze sweeps a range of programs having nothing to do
    with unleashing American energy, whatever President Trump thinks it
    is--we are talking about funding for clean drinking water projects that
    will enable better drinking water for your homes; brownfield
    remediation so that businesses can be developed in places that now are
    polluted; heating assistance for low-income households during the end
    of this winter--causing confusion and consternation across the country.
      But make no mistake, if this funding is withheld, the projects and
    the needs and the challenges don't go away. There will still be a need
    to clean up those brownfields, to deliver through the electric grid, to
    make energy efficiency real in communities and neighborhoods, but you
    will pay. Your taxes will be increased at the State level and the local
    level, and those projects will become more expensive. So there is a
    double and triple whammy here. Increase the costs now and in the future
    for projects that are absolutely essential to the health as well as the
    energy efficiency of our country.
      The Republicans say they are for an ``all of the above'' approach to
    energy, but then they turn around and they attack renewables. They say
    they are for cleaning up brownfields, but then they support this kind
    of Executive order that is illegal and also stymies or stops that
    brownfield remediation.
      Like all of the actions by Executive order President Trump has taken
    in his first month of office, it isn't actually solving the problem; it
    is exacerbating it. It is lining the pockets of his billionaire
    buddies--in this case, oil and gas executives--at the expense of
    everyday Americans. If there is an energy emergency, it will be created
    by President Trump--it won't be solved by him--and congressional
    Republicans will be complicit in it.
      There is also an effect on jobs. In fact, thousands of jobs are
    threatened by this Executive order. Repealing the Inflation Reduction
    Act by Executive edict threatens 400,000 new jobs that have been
    announced since August of 2022. Connecticut alone has around 50,000
    workers in the clean energy sector. All of those jobs are at risk. They
    are threatened by President Trump's attack on the industry.
      To my colleagues across the aisle, make no mistake, this is going to
    affect your constituents as well. Studies have found that a majority of
    clean energy jobs created during the first full year after the
    Inflation Reduction Act passed actually were in the South, in
    Republican States. Jobs in clean energy are not in one State or just
    blue States; they are across the country. Eight out of ten
    congressional districts that received the most funding under these laws
    were represented by Republicans.
      It shouldn't be a partisan issue. It is, as we say all the time, an
    American issue. We stand ready to work with anyone who wants to lower
    costs for consumers and support domestic energy production by building
    on historic investments made by the Infrastructure Investment and JOBS
    Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, but President Trump's order in no
    way helps; it simply harms that effort.
      I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution.
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
      Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, the United States is in an energy
    boom. Our Nation has never produced more electricity or oil and gas
    than we are producing right now. This ``all of the above'' approach to
    energy using everything--including solar, wind, and geothermal--is
    keeping energy prices as low as possible for working families but at
    the same time is recognizing that climate change is real and moving
    toward a clean energy future.
      Excluding coal, the United States produced more energy than any other
    country in the history of the world in 2023. It appears that some in
    this administration are determined to undo that progress.
      Despite American leadership in energy, the President signed an
    Executive order on his first day declaring a national energy emergency.
    That sounds dramatic, almost theatrical, because it is meant to be.
    Let's call this political theater for what it is--an attempt to
    accelerate oil and gas projects while at the same time holding back our
    renewable energy.
      Of course, there are things that we need to be doing to keep energy
    cleaner, prices lower, and to cement American energy independence.
      For starters, we need to increase energy production. We need to meet
    our energy future by streamlining the permitting of our new energy
    projects--of all of our energy projects--while at the same time being
    mindful of the environmental impacts and giving impacted communities a
    public forum. We need to upgrade our grid. We need to increase clean,
    domestic, critical mineral production. But that is not what this
    Executive order will do. In fact, it won't do a single one of these
    things.
      They claim we are in an emergency, an energy emergency, but they
    continue to block Federal wind and energy permits. They claim we are in
    an emergency, an energy emergency, but then they ship oil and gas
    overseas. They claim we are in an energy emergency, and yet their
    actions would cede complete control of what eventually will be an
    enormous global market in renewable energy to China.
      The administration has also fired thousands of government workers who
    play vital roles in American energy--all in the name of government
    efficiency and giving tax cuts to the ultrawealthy.
      Listen, I am all for making the government more efficient. I have
    worked on that most of my public life. If you want to seriously look at
    how we spend money and where we can actually cut fraud, waste, and
    abuse, I am game. But hastily, almost randomly firing Department of
    Energy employees or letting go 300 workers who maintain our nuclear
    security and safety--I don't think that is the way to do it.
      Our office has even heard from a private company that worried that
    the Federal employee responsible for managing their permitting process
    is about to be fired, placing the entire success of their project at
    risk. They help bring energy to our local communities. This will stop
    them dead in their tracks and raise prices for households at the same
    time.
      America's energy economy is booming, in large part because of the
    bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act--bills
    that make historic investments in American-made energy.
      These bills have created more than 400,000 good-paying jobs. Yet
    there is an effort by some in the Congress--mostly Republicans; I
    should say all Republicans--and the administration to slash and impede
    the progress that we have made, even though an estimated 70 percent of
    the benefits--the jobs, the investments, the increased energy--are
    going to red States.
      Cutting funding from these critical pieces of legislation is going to
    hit our rural communities the hardest, where it could provide the
    greatest benefit. It will shrink county government revenue; it will
    force layoffs; and, ultimately, it will increase the cost of energy.
      Clean energy isn't just some liberal boogeyman. It is not some
    notion. In fact, most of the energy that is ready to go as we expand
    our capacity--it is ready to go--is clean and affordable.
      Solar, wind, and storage, they make up 95 percent of the capacity of
    new energy ready to connect to our grid. Wind generates 10 percent of
    our electricity now and will provide much more affordable renewable
    energy if more permits were made available.
      Withholding funds already appropriated by Congress through these laws

    [[Page S1380]]

    could balloon energy bills by up to 12 percent for American families.
    That is at least $240 a year for working families that they will have
    to come up with one way or another. When you are struggling to afford
    eggs at the grocery store, trying to balance your checkbook at the end
    of the month, the last thing you need is an increase in your energy
    bill.
      Some in Congress, some Republicans, have introduced their budget
    which strips critical services for Coloradoans while adding $4 trillion
    to our national debt, all primarily so they can give tax breaks, which
    more than half go to the ultrawealthy who, at least many in Colorado,
    don't even want them.
      I put an amendment on the floor that would strip any provision from
    their budget that would raise energy costs for Americans. How can
    people be opposed to that? Yet every Republican voted against it. I
    think they are putting politics over people.
      We are able to keep energy prices low for working families because we
    use everything: oil, gas, geothermal, wind. So rather than limiting
    energy sources, proclaiming a false emergency, or firing critical
    government employees, let's meet the moment and usher in a new energy
    future that helps everyone, a future marked by a resilient energy grid
    built by American innovation that delivers low-cost, reliable energy
    for every Coloradan, for every American.
      If this administration is looking for a bipartisan roadmap on this,
    we have one. We should pass permitting reform that streamlines review
    for all energy projects, not just oil and gas. We can build a modern
    electric grid that will reduce energy prices for all.
      Let's continue supporting emerging technologies like advanced
    geothermal and nuclear so that we can remain dominant in the markets
    that are emerging.
      And let's stop picking winners and losers. The vast majority of new
    electricity is coming from low-cost solar, wind, and energy storage.
    Let's follow the law and let the investments in energy from the past
    few years go to the communities that need them.
      Let's cut the nonsense. This isn't an energy emergency; it is an
    emergency opportunity. This administration's actions certainly would
    cause an emergency for many Coloradoans and American working families.
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
      Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking my
    colleague from across the Potomac River, Senator Kaine of Virginia, and
    also Senator Heinrich of New Mexico for bringing this resolution before
    the U.S. Senate.
      We are now witnessing in realtime two of the most corrupt bargains in
    American history. One of those corrupt bargains is the one that
    President Trump made with Elon Musk.
      Elon Musk spent $280 million to help elect Donald Trump President of
    the United States--$280 million--and President Trump has handed the
    keys of Federal Agencies over to Elon Musk. He even appeared at the
    Cabinet meeting today with other members of the Cabinet that went
    through the advice-and-consent process of the U.S. Senate. Elon Musk
    didn't do that, but he did spend $280 million to help elect President
    Trump.
      And now the actions that Elon Musk is taking are designed to rig
    government Agencies to do the bidding of people like Elon Musk and
    other billionaires. In fact, we have been reading more and more about
    the billions of dollars of Federal contracts that Elon Musk has gotten
    and more to come. Just within the last 48 hours, we are talking about
    an FAA contract for Starlink.
      This has nothing to do with government efficiency. If it did, you
    would not start by firing all the inspectors general across the U.S.
    Government whose job it is to look out for waste, fraud, and abuse. In
    fact, what you would do when you get rid of the inspectors general is
    open the door to waste, fraud, and abuse.
      So we should be on full alert here in the U.S. Senate as to what is
    happening.
      As others have said, we are also watching them claim to make savings,
    which actually they have had to change their, sort of, tally board
    every day because of misrepresentations. But they do want to clear the
    way to provide tax cuts to very, very wealthy people like Elon Musk at
    the expense of everybody else in America. And, of course, the House
    just passed a budget resolution to set up that process last night.
      So that is one corrupt bargain that is playing out right now, and
    thousands of patriotic Federal employees around the country who do the
    people's work are being fired based on lies. I say ``lies'' because
    they are claiming they are firing them based on performance, only to
    find out that these Federal employees are coming forward with glowing
    performance reports as part of their most recent assessments. So that
    was a lie because that was the standard that had to be met, even if
    they had to make it up.
      All these cases are now finding their way through the courts. We have
    over 60 court proceedings. Many Federal judges have issued temporary
    restraining orders to put a halt to this rampage of illegal activity.
      The other corrupt bargain is the one that brings us to the Senate
    floor today because it was in May of last year, during the campaign,
    that Candidate Trump promised the Big Oil executives that he would
    deliver their wish list if they spent a billion dollars to return him
    to the White House.
      So much has happened since then, I think some people forget, but here
    is the Washington Post headline from May 9, 2024:

           What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1
         billion to his campaign.

      The story describes how the CEOs there were stunned--stunned--when he
    went on to say:

           You are all wealthy enough . . . that you should raise $1
         billion to return me to the White House. [And] he vowed to
         immediately reverse dozens of President Biden's rules and
         policies.

      And as the article indicates, among the things he promised to scrap
    were the efforts to develop more clean vehicles, more electric
    vehicles, and to develop more wind energy. So he promised to provide
    more opportunities for the big oil companies while harming their
    competitors in the clean energy industry.
      He promised he would do all of this on day one. He also made another
    promise as to what he would do on day one. He promised the American
    people he was going to lower prices on day one. We all know that that
    is just not happening. Prices are going up. Grocery prices are going
    up. Rents are going up. Home prices are going up. The price of eggs is
    through the roof. So President Trump is not delivering on that day-one
    promise.
      He is delivering on his promise to the Big Oil executives to issue
    that order that has made it even easier for them to produce, when they
    are already producing close to maximum current levels.
      In fact, as my colleagues have said, for the past 6 years in a row,
    the United States has been producing more crude oil than any other
    nation at any other time ever, ever. In fact, the last administration
    actually approved more oil and gas leases during those 4 years than
    Donald Trump did during his first term in the White House.
      And there is plenty of room to grow. Under existing leases, about
    half of U.S. oil and gas leases are currently not being used.
      So here he issues an Executive order to allow even more to move
    forward, even when a lot of potential is still not being tapped, but
    doing it in a way that will negatively impact the public health,
    sacrifice clean air and clean water.
      That is only half the problem. That is half the problem because what
    President Trump is doing is not only giving a blank check to the big
    oil companies, he is also sabotaging clean energy in the United States
    of America. They, of course, provide competition to the big oil
    companies.
      So by throttling and sabotaging efforts when it comes to solar power
    or wind power or electric vehicles, you are actually producing less
    overall energy. You are actually giving the big oil companies a
    competitive advantage. That means prices go up, not down.
      I can tell you that in my State of Maryland, people are feeling the
    impacts of higher electricity prices. We need to generate more
    electricity. We have got data centers coming onboard. AI consumes a lot
    of energy. So why in the world would President Trump be trying to
    cripple the clean energy industry?

    [[Page S1381]]

      Well, that is what he told the Big Oil executives he would do: He is
    going to crack down on wind power.
      I will tell you that solar and wind energy are among the cheapest
    forms of energy in the country. And at a time when American pocketbooks
    are tight, renewable energy will help keep energy bills down.
      In fact, renewable energy is expected to save Americans $38 billion
    on electricity bills by the year 2030 and produce more than 350,000
    jobs in America. So why is President Trump trying to sabotage bringing
    that additional energy onto the grid and to Americans?
      In Maryland, we are planning investments in offshore wind that will
    create 2,600 local jobs and power over 718,000 homes. That is wind
    power energy. That is what Donald Trump is trying to sabotage.

      So if you really want to create more energy and you want to reduce
    energy prices, you wouldn't be doing what Donald Trump is doing when it
    comes to putting the screws to clean energy production.
      I do want to mention one other way in which this is really going to
    harm America's interests, and that is, it is going to open the door
    even wider to our adversaries who are competing in the space--
    principally China. We spent a lot of time trying to improve our supply
    chains, develop supply chains for minerals that we need to develop
    electric vehicles, and by sabotaging this sector, we are opening the
    door to China just to run into this market and leave us behind.
      That is not ``America First''; that is America in retreat, just as it
    is America in retreat for us to vote with Russia and North Korea at the
    U.N. General Assembly the other day, against the people of Ukraine and
    freedom-loving people around the world.
      So, Mr. President, I hope we will support this resolution. I hope we
    will ensure that we can develop our clean energy sources that will
    produce more energy supply for the American people and help lower
    prices.
      I know, back in May of last year, Candidate Trump told the big CEOs
    that not only was he going to help them develop more but he was going
    to help them by hurting their competitors in the renewable energy
    industry. That is no way to conduct an energy policy for the United
    States of America.
      I urge my colleagues to support the resolution.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
      Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it has been almost 6 weeks--maybe a couple
    of days beyond 6 weeks--of the new administration of Donald Trump and
    his second term. It is a lot different than his first term. I was here
    for that occasion as well.
      What we have found is unique is a blizzard of Executive orders issued
    by President Trump from the beginning of his administration. Among
    those Executive orders was his declaration of an energy emergency--
    energy emergency. It turns out that claim is not based on fact. There
    is no energy emergency in America.
      Under the Biden administration, we saw record deployment of wind,
    solar, biofuels, batteries, oil, gas, and nuclear. In fact, the United
    States is producing more power than ever. Last year, the United States
    of America produced more oil than any other nation in the history of
    the world. Yet President Trump continues to insist that America is on
    the verge of nationwide blackouts and that clean energy will raise
    prices. It is simply not true.
      So what is the reason for the President to try to mislead the
    American people? The short answer is that he wants to give handouts to
    his billionaire buddies in the fossil fuel industry. Before Elon Musk
    showed up with his multibillion-dollar fortune, it was reported that
    then-Candidate Donald Trump invited fossil fuel executives to Mar-a-
    Lago to ask for--hold on to your seats--a $1 billion campaign
    contribution--1 billion bucks.
      Now that he is in office, President Trump is doing everything he can
    to keep those billionaires happy. That means tax cuts for the
    ultrawealthy--which is on its way, I am afraid--opening up Federal
    lands and waters for drilling, and, yes, declaring this phony energy
    emergency.
      Why is he doing it? Declaring an emergency grants the President
    additional statutory authority. Donald Trump is using these authorities
    to fast-track pipelines and drilling in the Gulf of--may I say it?--
    Mexico. But there is nothing in this declaration to support fossil
    fuel's cleanest competitors: wind and solar.
      If Trump doing the bidding of billionaires wasn't bad enough, his so-
    called emergency will also raise the electric bills of thousands of
    families. Wind and solar are the cheapest energy in the world, and
    those cheap prices get passed on to the families who take advantage of
    them.
      I know personally. A few years ago, my wife and I made the decision
    to install solar panels on the roof of our home. Our home project gave
    union workers in my community a good-paying job, and it was just one
    project contributing to hundreds of thousands of jobs created in the
    Biden administration.
      Since Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act was enacted 2\1/2\ years
    ago, more than 1\1/2\ million Americans have installed solar panels.
    Was it a good idea? Well, I compared the electric bills I had been
    receiving in my home before and after the solar panels. Before the
    solar panels were installed on my roof, my monthly bill was about $115
    for electricity. Now it is $15 because of the solar energy.
      Every one of these installations also helped to create good-paying
    jobs for electricians, carpenters, and other workers, and supplying
    those panels created thousands of new jobs at factories around the
    country. But President Trump is not impressed. He wants to eliminate
    those jobs.
      We have an opportunity to undo the harms of one of President Trump's
    many lies today. I want to thank Senator Kaine of Virginia for leading
    this effort. We need to raise up American workers, lower utility bills,
    and put America back on track to lead the world on clean energy.
      I urge my colleagues to support the Kaine measure.

                               January 6 Pardons

      Mr. President, on January 6, 2021, a solemn constitutional proceeding
    was disrupted when a mob of thugs, egged on by President Trump,
    attacked and trashed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the
    results of a Presidential election.
      The grim result of that insurrection was the subsequent death of 5
    law enforcement officers and injuries to approximately 140 others, many
    of whom are still paying the price to this day.
      It came as a shock when, on the first day of Donald Trump's
    Presidency, he issued a blanket pardon for those who had been convicted
    for that January 6 attack on the Capitol.
      We all saw the videos. We all saw the photographs. Here is an
    illustration of one of them.
      Listen to what President Trump said about 1,600 pardons at a recent
    press conference when he was asked: Why did you pardon all those people
    who attacked the police officers at the Capitol Building?
      He said:

           I pardoned people that were assaulted themselves. They were
         assaulted by our government. . . . They didn't assault. They
         were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for
         humanity.

      The American people overwhelmingly disagree with the President, and
    they disagree with his decision. In fact, 83 percent of them oppose the
    pardons that he gave. That includes 70 percent who lean Republican in
    their voting.
      Despite this overwhelming opposition, the Justice Department has now
    broadened the scope of President Trump's pardons for January 6 rioters
    to include separate charges stemming from searches conducted during
    those investigations. I will describe a couple of them to you.
      Federal prosecutors recently dropped explosives and firearm crimes
    being pursued against two January 6 defendants pardoned by President
    Trump: Daniel Ball and Elias Costianes.
      Ball and Costianes had both been charged in separate proceedings with
    illegally possessing weapons that law enforcement discovered during the
    January 6-related search.
      Ball had been accused of throwing an ``explosive device that
    detonated upon at least 25 officers'' during the Capitol riot and of
    ``forcefully'' shoving police who were trying to protect the Capitol.
      Ball was barred from possessing firearms because of his prior
    criminal

    [[Page S1382]]

    record. Listen to this prior criminal record of a man who was pardoned
    by Donald Trump: Before January 6, Ball was convicted of domestic
    violence battery by strangulation, resisting law enforcement with
    violence, and battery on a law enforcement officer.
      President Trump says that poor man was assaulted by the police. Does
    it sound like it? Remember, President Trump told us Ball and his fellow
    rioters were the actual victims. No wonder so many of the January 6
    perpetrators have shown a stunning lack of remorse.
      Just last Friday, just a few days ago, a number of these pardoned
    individuals decided to hold their own press conference outside the U.S.
    Capitol to announce their intent to sue the Justice Department for
    prosecuting them for this--dangerous individuals, including former
    Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio, who had been serving a 22-year
    sentence for seditious conspiracy before the Trump pardon; Proud Boy
    Ethan Nordean, who had been serving an 18-year sentence; Dominic
    Pezzola, the first rioter to breach the building on January 6, who was
    serving a 10-year sentence for stealing a police riot shield and using
    it to break a window. I will bet you saw that video. I did.
      The group paraded through the Capitol after the press conference,
    following the same route they took on January 6, 2021. They posed for
    photos, chanting as they did that day:

           Whose house? Our house.

      After the press conference, Mr. Tarrio was even arrested again
    outside the Capitol for assaulting a female counterprotester.
      Tarrio also posted video of himself stalking Michael Fanone and Harry
    Dunn, former police officers who had defended the Capitol on January 6.
    Tarrio was following them through the lobby of a hotel where the
    officers were attending a conference. While Tarrio followed them, he
    was calling out at them that they were ``cowards'' and telling them to
    ``keep walking.''
      Does this sound like a man ashamed of his actions on January 6 and
    full of remorse? Does this sound like an innocent victim of assault?
    No. This sounds like a man who now thinks he is above the law with his
    Trump pardon and expects to be bailed out by President Trump for every
    crime he decides to commit.
      In another horrifying turn, the same hotel that I discussed earlier
    where these rioters were stalking policemen had to be evacuated after
    someone claiming to be MAGA emailed a threat about four bombs--two in
    the hotel and one in Officer Fanone's mother's mailbox. After listing
    the names of several of the conference attendees and singling out
    Officer Fanone, the email said they ``all deserve to die.''
      These are men and women in police forces who risked their lives for
    Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives on January 6.
      The perpetrator of this tweet claimed to be acting ``to honor the
    [January] 6 hostages recently released by Emperor Trump''--his words.
      These are just last week's updates on the January 6 rioters President
    Trump pardoned. The list of crimes committed by these thugs just keeps
    growing longer and longer.
      We must be clear that these individuals are a threat, and the more
    power and freedom they are given, the more danger they pose to our
    democracy and the law enforcement officers and families of those
    officers that they are harassing.
      Just this month, dozens of January 6 offenders joined forces on
    social media to compile and publicize the identities of at least 124
    individuals who had been involved in their convictions, including
    prosecutors, judges, and FBI agents. The post, which has received at
    least 60,000 views, included names, photos, disparaging remarks, and
    demands for accountability.
      In January, another pardoned January 6 defendant who pleaded guilty
    to assaulting police officers, Ryan Nichols, Sr., identified in a
    Twitter post ``officers in the DC Jail who need to be investigated for
    corruption and abuse,'' adding the names and LinkedIn profile photos of
    two DC jail employees.
      This is stalking and harassment of law enforcement men and women who
    were assigned to this Capitol to protect us. The men and women who
    bravely defended the Members of this body deserve better than this, and
    we should honor them for their heroic efforts on that day, not excuse
    the rioters who attacked this Chamber and the ideals it represents.
    Government employees should not fear for their safety or that of their
    families for simply doing their job.
      I hope that all of us, regardless of our political persuasion, will
    finally agree on one thing: Violence has no place in a democracy, and
    Donald Trump's pardon of these 1,600 January 6 attackers is not only an
    insult to the Capitol Police who risked their lives to stop them but
    has emboldened these convicts to harass these officers and their
    families.
      The question for the Senate is simple: Whose side are you on--the
    police or the rioters'?
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.

                                  S.J. Res. 10

      Mr. KELLY. Mr. President, I want to state the obvious: The United
    States has real energy needs. We have to produce enough reliable energy
    to make utility bills affordable for families and to bring online the
    advanced manufacturing and data centers that are powering our economy
    and will power our economy into the future.
      We are seeing this in Arizona. The demand for energy keeps going up.
    It is going up rather quickly.
      Now, here is the good news: The United States is producing more
    energy than ever before.
      We are using everything at our disposal. We are finally bringing the
    manufacturing of solar panels and batteries and wind turbines back to
    America. Now, that creates great-paying jobs across the country, jobs
    that you can actually raise a family on, jobs that are in places like
    Arizona and Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas. We are investing to develop
    new technologies to produce even more energy.
      Now, for years, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have
    raised very legitimate concerns about the need to reform our permitting
    processes to cut redtape and unleash American manufacturing.
      Well, Mr. President, here is the bad news: President Trump is now
    throwing redtape around our energy production, which will raise utility
    bills and send American manufacturing back overseas. One of his first
    actions as President--one of the first things he did--was to block
    approvals of new wind projects on Federal land and then freeze loans
    and freeze grants for clean energy projects. He is making permitting
    harder or impossible. That is the opposite of what my Republican
    colleagues--your colleagues--wanted done.
      Now, he also wants to change the definition of energy to only include
    fossil fuels.
      Mr. President, it is 2025. We all need to live in the real world.
    More than 90 percent--get this: 90 percent--of new energy production
    connected to the grid last year was renewable energy. And it takes 3 or
    4 years just to build a natural gas powerplant.
      There is no good reason to block wind projects, to block solar
    projects that, by the way, are already underway to bring more energy to
    American homes and businesses.
      President Trump, what he is doing is he is trying to pick winners and
    losers. When it comes to energy, he wants to decide, and the winners
    are fossil fuel companies and China. And the losers, Mr. President--the
    losers--that is everybody else. That is you. That is your family. That
    is your business.
      And families especially--families--are going to face higher utility
    bills. And manufacturers, they are going to lose the support that they
    were relying on. And workers are just going to see their jobs go back
    overseas.
      You think China doesn't want to make more of this stuff and sell it
    to us? Of course, they do. They will be happy to do that, and we will
    pay the price. They would love to see President Trump drive clean
    energy manufacturers that are in America out of business.
      China would want us to cancel our manufacturing plants and cancel
    these energy projects. We should not let this happen.
      We have got an opportunity this week to turn this around. So I am
    going to be voting for Senator Kaine and Senator Heinrich's effort so
    that we can focus on our energy future.
      Now, fortunately, there is so much that we agree on: the need to
    modernize our power grid, to bring manufacturing back to America, to
    create

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    jobs and reduce our reliance on imports, and to develop the energy
    technologies of the future right here in the United States of America,
    not in another country, not in China. And all of this supports American
    jobs, and, at the same time, it keeps utility bills low for American
    families.
      Now, some of it will require us to cut some redtape and make things
    more predictable and efficient for utilities and for energy producers.
    Me and many of my colleagues, we have shown that we are willing to work
    on these reforms on a bipartisan basis. So let's do it.
      And Mr. President--not you, but the President of the United States--
    let's reverse the shortsighted targeted attacks on our energy supply.
    If we do that, I know that we can work together and continue to expand
    the amount of energy this country has at its disposal and bring down
    the prices for American families and American businesses.
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schmitt). The Senator from Colorado.

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