[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 7344-7345]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY POLICY

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, last week, as gas prices continued to 
climb, squeezing family budgets and putting more pressure on already

[[Page 7345]]

struggling businesses, Democrats here in Congress sprang into action. 
Instead of actually doing something about high gas prices, our 
Democratic friends staged what one of my Republican colleagues 
accurately described as a dog and pony show. They rounded up what they 
believed were a few unsympathetic villains whom they could blame for 
high gas prices, hoping nobody would notice they do not have a plan of 
their own to deal with those high gas prices.
  That has been the Democratic strategy from the beginning: Blame this 
crisis on somebody else, and see if they can't raise taxes while they 
are at it. They have been so shameless about it, in fact, that they 
have not even pretended they are doing anything to lower gas prices, 
readily admitting the bill we will vote on today will not lower gas 
prices by a penny. As the Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee 
put it last week: ``That's not the issue.''
  Well, I would submit that for most Americans, high gas prices are in 
fact, the issue. This week, Democrats will show once again how little 
they care about it when we take up an energy plan that several more of 
them have admitted will do absolutely nothing to lower the price of gas 
at the pump. One Democratic Senator, a member of their own leadership 
team, called the bill a ``gimmick.'' Another Democratic Senator called 
it ``laughable.''
  I would also argue that with Americans looking for real relief, 
symbolic votes such as this that aim to do nothing but pit people 
against each other will only frustrate the public even more. Americans 
are not interested in scapegoats. They just want to pay less to fill up 
their cars.
  That is why this Democratic bill to tax American energy is an affront 
to the American people, and so is the President's announcement over the 
weekend that he now plans to let these same energy producers lease 
lands throughout the United States that his administration had 
previously blocked off.
  The administration knows perfectly well that leasing--the act of 
leasing--is just the start of the development process, which is why its 
only hope is that the American people do not pay close attention to the 
details of the plan.
  Permits, Madam President--permits--are what matter, and by refusing 
to issue permits in any meaningful way, the administration is showing 
its true colors in this debate. If the administration were serious 
about increasing domestic energy production, it would increase leases 
and, most importantly, it would increase permits.
  In the end, the only thing Democrats will actually achieve this week 
is to make Republican arguments for comprehensive energy legislation 
seem even stronger than they already are. By pretending to want an 
increase in domestic energy production, the President is not only 
acknowledging that the United States has vast energy resources of its 
own waiting to be tapped, he is also acknowledging that tapping these 
resources would at some point help drive down the price of gas at the 
pump.
  That is what Republicans have been saying all along. Now the 
President is acknowledging that: Supply matters. And American supply 
matters even more.
  So the only thing that seems to be standing between Republicans and 
Democrats at this point is the Democrats do not seem to have the 
political will to follow through on their conclusions. And in this, 
today's Democrats are no different from their predecessors. Literally 
for decades, Democrats from Jimmy Carter to President Obama have sought 
to deflect attention from their own complicity in our Nation's 
overdependence on foreign oil. Every time gas prices go up, they pay 
lip service to the need for domestic exploration while quietly 
supporting efforts to suppress it.
  But President Obama's energy policy puts the current administration 
in a whole new category. Over the past 2 years, the President has 
mounted nothing short of a war on American energy, canceling dozens of 
leases, imposing a moratorium off the gulf coast, arbitrarily extending 
public comment periods, and increasing permit fees. On the crucial 
issue of permits, the administration has held them up in Alaska, the 
Rocky Mountain West, and particularly offshore. Every one of those 
decisions has had a major impact on future production--and on future 
jobs, since every permit the administration denies is another job 
creation opportunity denied.
  So the truth of the matter is, the Obama administration has done just 
about everything it can to keep our domestic energy sector down and to 
stifle the jobs that come along with it.
  Until now, the President has stuck to attacking Republicans for being 
stuck in the present without preparing for the future. But this has 
always been a disingenuous argument. It ignores history, since we have 
repeatedly supported alternative fuels and renewable energy, as well as 
comprehensive energy legislation that commits us to the development of 
cleaner technologies. It ignores science, since even if a million 
electric vehicles are sold here by 2015, they would still only account 
for less than one-half of 1 percent of the entire U.S. vehicle fleet. 
However much we desire it, the transition from oil will take decades, 
and serious energy policy must account for that.
  With this latest gambit, the President may have acknowledged the 
wisdom of our approach. But his plan to allow a few lease sales without 
corresponding permits falls short. Energy producers might end up with a 
lot of expensive land, but the rest of us would have nothing to show 
for it. A better approach to this crisis is the Republican alternative 
that we will get a vote on tomorrow.
  Our bill would return American offshore production to where it was 
before this administration locked it up, require Federal bureaucrats to 
process permits--to make a decision one way or the other: process the 
permit, make a decision one way or the other--rather than sitting on 
the permits. And it would improve offshore safety. Our plan not only 
acknowledges the importance of increasing domestic production, it does 
something about it, while ensuring environmental safety.
  If President Obama and his party are serious about lowering gas 
prices, making us less dependent on foreign oil, and creating the 
thousands of jobs that American exploration is proven to produce, they 
would embrace our plan and stop pretending to care about a crisis they 
have done so much to create and, their latest public relations efforts 
notwithstanding, continue to ignore.

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