Government Spending

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, over the last couple of years, our Democratic colleagues have suggested a range of unrealistic and downright harmful policies in our shared goal--and I emphasize the words ``shared goal''--to reduce carbon emissions. But it is not just a question of what you are doing; it is a question of how you are going about doing it. The way they are going about doing it is going to raise the prices of electricity, gasoline, and all forms of energy on people on fixed incomes, people who are seniors living on Social Security, and others. They have proposed everything from the socialist agenda that is the Green New Deal to more targeted, but no more realistic, zero net emission mandates.

Now, we all know that energy transition occurs at all times. I have traveled to India--perhaps the Presiding Officer has--and to other countries where people literally cook their food using cow manure patties, dried cow manure. I remember Prime Minister Modi coming to Houston, TX, during an event that we called ``Howdy, Modi!'' when he heralded the use of increased access to cooking gas so that his constituents, Indians, wouldn't have to use dried cow dung to cook their food--that represents progress--or wouldn't have to use wood chips anymore.

Then the transition was to coal, then to natural gas, nuclear, and other forms of energy. So energy transition occurs at all times. The only question is how it comes about, whether it is as a result of higher taxes and forced government mandates or whether it is which form of energy competes favorably for consumers because of its cost and availability.

Well, of all of the dangerous policy proposals, I think the reckless tax-and-spending-spree bill takes the cake. This is the so-called reconciliation bill that is now pending over in the House, or is being negotiated. Nobody has actually seen it yet, but we keep hearing what is in it, and we keep hearing that the left is negotiating with the far left. This is what happens when our Democratic colleagues don't include people in the opposing political party to try to build consensus. It is pretty hard, particularly when you only have 50 votes.

This isn't like FDR's New Deal after the Great Depression, wherein he had huge majorities. I think what our Democratic colleagues are finding out is that, when they try to go it alone, passing these radical policies is really, really hard to do because you have no room for error.

This reminds me of the yellow jackets protests in France, starting back in 2018, as to what is happening now with some of these mandates and these higher taxes. This was, as you may recall, a social movement of French working-class families who felt disenfranchised from the urban elite, who ``can focus on the end of the world,'' they said, ``while we're worrying about the end of the month.'' I think it is pretty apt to where we are today. This reckless tax-and-spending spree not only compiles the most irresponsible policies into one massive bill, as I said, but our Democratic colleagues, along with the White House, are trying to pass it in a 50-50 Senate, on a party-line vote.

Well, talk about bad timing. This comes at a time when Texans and other Americans are already being pummeled by rising costs, especially at the gas pump. Inflation is rearing its ugly head everywhere in terms of energy costs, groceries, commodities, and with things like a washing machine or a new refrigerator. Try buying a new house, and you will see the cost has just jumped dramatically.

It is a demonstrable fact that, in the last year, gasoline costs have gone up 55 percent. The average price today is about $3.33 a gallon. A year ago, it was $2.16 a gallon. For somebody who drives a pickup truck--and we have a lot of pickup trucks in Texas--it would have cost $56 for a tank of gas a year ago, but, today, it is $87--a $31 increase.

Unfortunately, sky-high gasoline prices aren't the only growing drain on family budgets. As I mentioned, electricity, groceries, clothing, eating out occasionally at a restaurant, and countless other expenses are on the rise. Prices are so high that inflation is outpacing wage growth, essentially giving workers a pay cut. Let me say that again. If you are earning, let's say, $10,000 a year--just to pick a number--and inflation rises like it does with gasoline costs, you are effectively getting a pay cut because of the rising costs of goods and services.

But that doesn't seem to deter our Democratic colleagues from moving full steam ahead on legislation that would drive these costs even higher. After spending nearly $2 billion earlier this year on a party- line vote, our colleagues are back for round 2, and this time they are prepared to take a wrecking ball to one of our crown jewels in this country, which is our energy sector. By drowning the energy sector in tax hikes or in increased regulations and costs, our Democratic colleagues think that they can achieve their green energy dreams with no consequences, but, of course, that is just a dangerous fantasy.

It sort of reminds me of what I saw reported today by NPR. NPR reports: ``Despite climate change promises, governments plan to ramp up fossil fuel production.'' Indeed, the President and members of this body are going to be heading to a climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, starting on October 31. As you know, usually what happens at those conferences, just like at the Paris climate conference in 2015, is that governments make extravagant promises to reduce emissions and to eliminate fossil fuels, including coal and oil and gas, in favor of clean energy.

Now, I am not deprecating clean energy. In Texas, we believe in an ``all of the above'' energy policy. We produce more electricity from wind turbines than any other State in the Nation. So I am certainly not bad-mouthing clean energy, but it has to play a role and not dominate to the exclusion of other forms of energy.

But, as the NPR article points out, ``despite lofty commitments [made] by governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they are still planning,'' according to this U.N. report that was just issued, ``to extract huge amounts of energy from fossil fuels in the coming years.''

This report was published on Wednesday, today, and it details how the world's largest fossil fuel producers plan to carry on using coal, gas, and oil despite promises made in Paris in 2015. So it really makes you wonder what is going on when these political leaders go to places like Glasgow or Paris, make extravagant promises, and then come back home and break those promises.

Well, I think I know what is happening here because, just like in France in 2018, when the government tried to impose a new fuel tax on consumers, the yellow jackets protested. They said: You are worried about the end of the world. We are worried about how we will pay our bills through the end of the month.

I think a similar phenomenon is occurring now because none of these green energy fantasies come cheap. That is another reason energy costs are going higher. Whether you are talking about energy or agriculture or any other sector of the economy, higher taxes, which are what our colleagues are attempting to assess against the energy sector, always mean higher prices for consumers.

Companies don't absorb those costs. They pass them right along to consumers in the form of increased costs. In fact, many businesses can't absorb increased taxes and keep their prices stable because they simply can't operate in the black, and they will go bankrupt. So businesses just don't take the hits that keep on coming. They will raise prices; they will lay off employees or will implement any combination of cost-cutting measures, and that is exactly what this pie-in-the-sky, green energy fantasy bill contained in the reconciliation legislation would spur.

This year, as I have pointed out, has already given us the highest gas prices since 2014. Now, I just did this year over year, but they are the highest prices we have seen since 2014, and I have no doubt that President Biden's tax hikes will send those prices at the pump even higher just at a time when we are beginning to sound the alarm bells over inflation, including by Democratic-leaning economists like Larry Summers, who sounded the alarm over inflation.

I am old enough to remember when inflation was ranked at about 20 percent, and interest rates were up almost at 20 percent. People had to pay huge amounts of money or borrow huge amounts of money and pay exorbitant interest rates because of inflation.

We are in danger of getting back to those bad old days. The proposal our Democratic colleagues are trying to ram through Congress would increase taxes--already paid by energy companies--on income earned not in the United States but globally. It also adds a new tax, the Superfund excise tax, which was eliminated 25 years ago. They want to add that back on top. The Democrats want to resurrect this tax and force energy companies to pay more on every barrel of crude oil that is used in the United States.

Once again, the burden won't be, ultimately, on the energy and chemical companies. It will fall on consumers, who are already struggling post-COVID to get back on the job and pay the bills and provide for their families--only to be met with a kick in the teeth known as Bidenflation.

The middle class won't just be footing the bill for tax hikes on companies. This is, really, sort of an elitist irony. The Biden reconciliation bill would force middle-class families to subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles for wealthy Americans. Not only are we going to raise prices on you through tax increases, but we are going to take money out of your pocket and give it to rich people who can afford to buy these expensive electric vehicles. This bill provides a tax credit for electric vehicle purchases even if the vehicle is made completely or substantially in China. Won't they love that.

On top of that, you get a bigger tax credit for electric cars built in union shops--some of the greatest political friends of the Democratic Party. Our colleagues haven't provided a very good explanation for this, but I, for one, find it hard to believe that union-built electric vehicles are any greener or cleaner or emit less than nonunion-built vehicles. This is just a big wet kiss for a political constituency.

As a reminder, unlike gas-powered vehicle drivers, EV drivers don't pay any money into the highway trust fund. Now, if you buy a gallon of gasoline, I think it is 18 cents on the gallon that goes into the highway trust fund that is used to build and maintain our bridges and roadways.

Because of more use of electric vehicles that don't pay any money into the highway trust fund, that trust fund is going broke.

So the tax breaks for the rich just keep on coming. They take money from middle-class families, give it to rich folks so they can buy fancy electric vehicles, courtesy of the American taxpayer.

I also have concerns about how the proposal that is being considered by the White House and our Democratic colleagues--how it would impact our energy security.

Over the last several decades, we have made incredible strides. Thanks to great investment, innovation, and expertise in the energy sector, we have made great strides to reduce our dependency on other countries to keep the lights on in the United States.

After all, we don't want a repeat of the 1970s energy crisis.

Now, I know a lot of these young folks who are here serving as pages may not have been around in the 1970s, but they can look it up online.

Here is what happened: When the U.S. supported Israel in the Yom Kippur war in 1973, the Arab members of OPEC--the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries--they weren't happy.

What did they do?

They banned the sale of crude oil to the United States--cut us off-- and it sent shock waves throughout our country. As you might imagine, such was our dependency on imported oil from the Middle East. Despite some strong domestic oil production, we were still relying at that time heavily on imports, and once the supply was cut off, prices quadrupled.

Many gas stations simply couldn't serve the demand, and when they could, they basically made you get an appointment to come fill up your gas tank.

Some States banned neon signs to cut down on energy use, and a number of towns asked their citizens not to put up Christmas lights because of the drain on the grid.

It was a slap across the face, a hard dose of reality that brought America's energy dependence to light and underscored the need to increase our domestic production and resources and wean ourselves off of this dependency--this dangerous dependency on imports.

And that is what we did. Thanks to incredible investment and innovation in the energy sector and something that has come to be known as the shale revolution--named for a way to basically get oil and gas out of a rock--the tide of the energy landscape geopolitically turned in our favor.

These efforts were so successful that in 2015, the U.S. lifted the crude oil export ban that was put in place in the seventies. Back when we were dependent on imports, we said: You can't export it because we need not only what we can produce, but what we can import.

We lifted that in 2015 because American energy producers were producing so much oil and gas.

And, in fact, rather than import energy, including natural gas, we turned around what were built originally as LNG--liquefied natural gas--import terminals and created export terminals so we could send that low-cost energy to our friends and allies around the world.

But our Democratic colleagues seem to have a short-term memory problem. They seem to have forgotten about our history.

After years of building our energy independence and strengthening our energy security, they want to turn back the clock. The tax hikes they are trying to impose on energy producers would ensure that the United States, once again, is reliant on other countries, like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, for our energy needs. The dangers ought to be obvious.

We should never ever put ourselves in a position where we are reliant on any other country for us to keep our lights on, to operate our vehicles, for our small businesses to be able to operate, for us to be able to get electricity from a wall socket when we plug in an appliance.

So we shouldn't be dependent on our adversaries or any other country for our energy needs when we can produce it here in America; and by exporting it to friends and allies around the world, we can actually liberate them.

Recently, I was in on a trip with some Senate colleagues to the Balkins, in a number of countries that used to be part of the old Soviet Union but which are now independent countries, many of which are part of NATO and the European Union.

And one of the things they brought up time and time again is their desire to have a diverse source of energy because they know--they know--that if they depend on Russian gas, that Mr. Putin could turn off the spigot and put them in mortal jeopardy. And that is why it is important for us to be able to continue to export and not be dependent on imported energy ourselves.

President Biden unintentionally demonstrated the hypocrisy of some of his policies earlier this year when he literally begged OPEC to increase production to bring down these prices.

An American President basically shutting down American energy production and begging Russia and Saudi Arabia to please sell us the oil and gas we need so we can bring down prices at the pump--it is unbelievable.

If the President is worried about affordable energy, he needs to stop pushing policies that will drive up these prices.

And it is not just gasoline. It is electricity, you name it.

Well, Texans are already facing high gas prices. Household energy bills, your utility bill, is on the rise. This is not the time to make it more expensive for families to pay for the energy they need.

As I mentioned, Texas has always been a proud supporter of an all-of- the-above energy strategy. We are recognized for the might of our oil and gas sector for sure, but a lot of folks don't realize we are a leader in renewable energy as well. In fact, we produce one-quarter of all of the wind energy in the United States. If we were a country--and we were once--we would be the fifth largest wind energy producer in the world.

And we have no plans of stopping there. We are also making serious strides in energy innovation through cutting-edge carbon capture and storage projects. That is the answer. It is called innovation. Not more taxes, not more regulations that raise prices, but innovation, things that literally suck carbon out of the environment, deposit it in the ground in some of these injection sites so we can actually produce more oil and gas, and keep the carbon sequestered in the ground permanently.

So we need to find a balance--something that is too often missing here in Washington, DC--between conservation, production, and economic power. That balance will not be found by imposing heavy-handed regulations or taxes that drive up the cost for consumers and that benefit our adversaries.

Like the rest of the reckless tax-and-spending spree, the cost of this energy proposal far, far exceeds its benefits. There is a better way to do this.

The Biden administration has managed to compound the already unprecedented challenges facing our energy sector here in America. American energy keeps America and much of the rest of the world running, and the administration and Congress need to take action to support a strong, post-pandemic recovery, and not get in the way.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source