America in Crisis

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PFLUGER. Madam Speaker, thank you to my good friend from Louisiana.

Crisis after crisis after crisis.

Madam Speaker, I rise against the extreme anti-American policies that we see right now that are being discussed in this forum, in this House.

I ask two simple questions of the President: Are you making us more secure? Are you making us more prosperous?

And the answer to that is no. Unequivocally, no.

We have got an anti-American energy movement in this country that is going to devastate every American. It is going to leave us cold, dark, and hungry; it is going to embolden our adversaries; and it is going to harm our environment.

This administration is taking a hard line against American energy by canceling thousands of pipeline jobs, by canceling drilling permits, by kneecapping our energy producers with targeted tax increases and harmful regulations.

Americans are already feeling the pain of the Biden energy crisis at the gas pump, at the grocery store, where we see exorbitant prices that are continuing to skyrocket.

Just today, I had a Democrat colleague who said: In my district, small businesses are feeling the pain everywhere. I said: Well, push back. Stop this madness. Any vote for reconciliation is a vote against the American worker; it is a vote against American energy.

To make matters worse, heating bills are forecasted to be 54 percent higher in 2021. Under this administration, make no mistake about it, middle-class families will pay the price, and they will be forced to think twice before turning the heat on this winter.

We are nearing an all-out energy emergency that is eerily close to where our neighbors in Europe are feeling, at $25 for gas--$25 in Europe. It is only going to get worse.

Instead of unleashing the producers in the Permian Basin, where I represent, people who have done more to innovate and bring emissions down to levels that the Paris climate accords could never have dreamed of, we are cutting them off at the knees. The American family, our mothers and fathers, the working-class American, is who is paying for this.

Adversaries whose energy is nowhere near as clean as ours are going to benefit from this.

You see that today, on average, $3.30 per gallon, over a dollar more at the pump than what we saw last year. It is only going to get worse.

I am urging my colleagues to oppose this radical agenda, to stand up for American energy producers, and to provide every American household with affordable, reliable energy that has come from this country that has allowed us to lift a billion people out of poverty in this world.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source