Biden's Assault on American Energy

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for doing this tonight. This is extremely important, and I appreciate his leadership on that.

Madam Speaker, the Biden administration has been waging a war on American energy and energy jobs since his first day in office. Of course, on President Biden's first day in office, he killed over 11,000 American jobs, which were created by the Keystone pipeline.

Then the administration banned new energy leases that will cost 500,000 American jobs by 2040. Then he reentered the U.S. into the Paris Agreement that will destroy our competitiveness and reduce employment in the U.S. by 2.7 million jobs in 2025.

If that wasn't bad enough, the administration will destroy what high- paying jobs are remaining in our energy sector with this reconciliation package. It includes a devastating tax on natural gas. By taxing it more, we will disincentivize the continued transition away from dirtier fuels.

It will increase global emissions by giving foreign adversaries a competitive advantage exporting energy. This will also jeopardize American energy security. Taxing natural gas is designed to push us to use more wind and solar energy.

But just this week it was reported that energy prices in Europe are hitting record highs as their increased dependence on wind power has failed to be consistently reliable. It would be a cold and dark winter in places like Europe and California if there was not natural gas available this year. This again demonstrates how we must continue to pursue an all-of-the-above energy strategy.

Then there are the giveaways to the richest in America. The President's massive socialist wish list subsidizes electric vehicles, despite the fact that the average owner of an electric vehicle makes well over six figures.

Perhaps worst of all is the pursuit of all of these policies with the absolute and arrogant certainty that it will reduce emissions. However, it will likely reverse the progress we have already made reducing emissions.

The Paris Agreement allows for the world's worst polluters to continue polluting well into the future. The use of lower emission natural gas instead of other fossil fuels is largely responsible for the enormous reduction of American emissions over the past couple of decades.

But instead of embracing that success, the President proposes taxing it into oblivion and picking his winners and losers. We saw how that worked out with Solyndra. We are sacrificing growth and prosperity for American families in the name of political posturing.

This is too heavy of a price for a policy that will not better our environment or make us energy independent. Democratic proposals will lead to higher energy prices, reduce the reliability of electricity for many communities, and take away good paying jobs.

We had a witness on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis make an excellent point. Killing jobs connected to fossil fuels, like coal and gas, has already destroyed communities years ago and they have never recovered. The very same may happen to healthy, thriving communities that have relied on good paying oil and gas jobs for generations.

These are good jobs. Often these are the only jobs in rural areas. Destroying these jobs will only further the disparity between urban and rural America.

Madam Speaker, I urge this President to support all Americans and stop his war on American energy, and I thank the gentleman for sponsoring this tonight.

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