Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on March 2020

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise today to decry yet again Putin's horrific actions against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

As we bear witness to this deadly war and the consequences of this fossil fuel-funded invasion, I stand here again to denounce our own addiction to fossil fuels, along with Big Oil's relentless attempts to sabotage clean and renewable energy with the support of the Republican Party.

We can see in the coverage on television that the corporate profiteering by Big Oil and the American Petroleum Institute--the American Prevarication Institute--has once again played a part in war and destruction. And all are enabled by the GOP's fealty to oil, gas, and the fallacy of American energy independence. It is a tale of Republican hypocrisy, all funded by the fossil fuel industry. It would be absurdly comic if it weren't so horribly tragic.

Oil profits are the engine of Russia's economy, and natural gas is the geopolitical weapon it wields to threaten Europe's energy security. Nearly 40 percent of Russia's entire revenue is derived from oil and gas exports. Russia's tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery are funded by dirty fossil fuels purchased by other countries, including the United States of America. We are part of the funding of Vladimir Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine. We import oil from Russia. That oil goes to Putin and his cronies.

We have a moral moment here to provide all possible humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian people. We have a moral moment here to cut off the money pipeline that is funding the missiles and the tanks that are destroying the homes of the Ukrainian people. And we have a moral moment here to reject the bad-faith arguments that are using this horrifying invasion to push for more drilling and money to fossil fuel companies, more lands and waters lost to the extraction of oil and gas, and more profit for Big Oil at the expense of American pocketbooks as our consumers are tipped upside down at the gasoline pumps all across our country, shaking money out of those pockets and sending it to Big Oil and sending it to Russia.

During 2021, Russia supplanted Mexico as the second largest exporter of crude oil and petroleum in the United States. On average, we bought more than 600,000 barrels of oil from Russia every single day of 2021. That is more than $17 billion in American money going to Putin and his oil-soaked oligarchs.

We need to shut that money pipeline to Putin off before it does any more damage. That is why I announced my Severing Putin's Immense Gains from Oil Transfers, or the SPIGOT, Act this week. This bill would conclusively lift the veil on the Russian fossil fuel industry's corrupt dealings, while requiring the United States to eliminate carbon-polluting imports from Russia, moving the United States toward a future that is no longer dependent upon Russian oil but dependent upon our own renewable resources.

Global oil markets will adjust in the short term and long term to our import ban on oil. In the short term, we can actually supplant any supply disruptions with an additional release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A 10-percent release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would backfill all of our Russian imports for 100 days or, to put it another way, we have a Strategic Petroleum Reserve of 600 million barrels. If we deploy 600,000 barrels a day, we can do it for 1,000 days in a row in order to make sure the Russians understand that we are dead serious about this.

Putin's $630 billion central bank reserve that he thinks is going to protect him and his economy--well, that chest is filled with the spoils of oil and natural gas. A lot of it is money from American consumers. It is not just the sales to the United States or Europe but the interconnected dirty energy markets that feed off this fuel-soaked firestorm.

If we want to truly dial-up the pressure on Putin and his oligarchs, we need to end our deadly addiction to Russian fossil fuels and help our allies to do the very same thing. If we want to truly say no more to fossil-fueled war, we need to pursue the pathway to peace that is powered by domestic clean energy--international clean energy revolution led by the United States.

But instead what I hear from Republicans and on FOX News and from the American Petroleum Institute is the same classic refrain of: ``Drill, baby, drill.'' Their insidious answer to war, to rising prices, to any crisis that they can use for their own purpose is more drilling and more leases.

Well, where has the ``American Prevarication Institute'' argument gotten us so far? One, skyrocketing exports, which hike up our prices to American consumers and feed into the global fossil fuel addiction; public lands and waters the size of Indiana that are locked down by unused fossil fuel leases, which companies squat upon to pad their own asset base and prevent renewable development; wars and national security threats, driven and paid for by Big Oil's craving for more profits; climate chaos with more than $700 billion worth of damages caused by extreme weather disasters in the United States over the last 5 years alone--$700 billion worth of damage to us, to the United States, from climate in the last 5 years.

In 2015, Congress repealed the crude oil and gas export ban that had been in place for 40 years in our country so that we would keep our oil here. It was repealed with unanimous support of the Republican Party, on the other side of the aisle, and it allowed for the sale of U.S. crude and natural gas on the global markets.

I warned at that time it would be a huge mistake for our country to take that action. It was the worst of all worlds. It led to recordbreaking amounts of U.S. oil going to foreign nations without benefiting U.S. consumers. Pain at the pump was not eased and neither was our dangerous dependence on illicit foreign oil. And every time-- every time--the Republicans call for more leasing, for more pipelines, for deepening our addiction to fossil fuels, they cry crocodile tears. They said we need to plunder our own lands and waters in order to lower prices for Americans, in order to ensure national independence from foreign oil sources, and then they exported that oil overseas. That was their plan all along. It wasn't so secret. It was obvious because that is how the American Petroleum Institute--the American Prevarication Institute--works.

But that argument is now leakier than an old oil tanker, and it has been proven again and again. Every bill that came up approving the Keystone XL Pipeline--drilling for oil off our coast, selling off our public lands to whatever bidder showed up--I just asked the same thing every single time. In 2011, in 2012, in 2015, every time, I asked Republicans if they would agree to ban any exports from these projects and keep Americans from bearing the environmental and health burden from projects that provide no benefit to their own families, to their own States. And every time, the Republicans blocked or rejected my amendments--every time. That proved their arguments won't hold water.

The Big Oil-backed push to extract more and more from American lands and waters was never about helping Americans at the pump. It was about pumping up the profits of Big Oil by getting a higher price out on the international marketplace for American oil, for American natural gas. That was their plan.

I am sick of the hypocrisy. I am sick of letting the American Petroleum Institute's prevarication triumph over the truth. I am sick of watching Americans deal with the climate crisis with dirty air, with dirty water, with high gas prices just to help the oil companies make a buck by getting the highest price they can on the international market exporting American oil.

The Republicans' push to use the crisis in Ukraine to line Big Oil's pockets isn't about addressing inflation at home. It is about inflating fossil fuel profits for Big Oil and big gas. In 2021, as gasoline prices increased by over 50 percent, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total Energies recorded their biggest profits that they had seen in 8 years.

In 2015, before the Republicans lifted the export ban--before the American Petroleum Institute got the Congress to vote to lift the ban on the export of American oil--China imported 191,000 barrels of oil from the United States. Now we send four times as much oil to China as we did back in the beginning of 2016 after the ban was lifted. To put it another way, we now import from Russia 600,000 barrels of oil a day, and we export to China 600,000 barrels of oil a day. What is wrong with that picture?

Our natural resources go to China, which they then use to fabricate products, which then they sell back to us undermining our own industries. And meanwhile, to make up for it, we import 600,000 barrels of oil from Russia and line the pockets of Putin, which allows him to buy the tanks, the planes, the infantry to assault and destroy a democracy in Ukraine.

This is a formula for failure of historic magnitude. And it was all so clear in that debate in 2015 when the Republicans led the effort to lift the ban on the export of our oil. It was oh-so clear what was going to happen, which is why I led the fight here on the Senate floor to block the lifting of that ban.

But I don't want to hear from the Republicans with their crocodile tears how much they care about importation of oil from Russia because the bottom line is, we now import 8.6 million barrels of oil a day into the United States. We now have a crisis on our hands that we have to ultimately deal with. We export 8.6 million barrels of oil a day. We export out of our country 8.6 million barrels of oil a day.

So I hear from Republicans, ``Oh, we need energy independence.'' Well, what are we doing exporting 8.6 million barrels of oil a day? What is that all about? We know what it is all about. It is about the American Petroleum Institute. It is about Big Oil and Big Gas getting a higher price on the international market than they get on the domestic market. That is what it was all about from the very beginning. We have an opportunity here to stop, finally, Big Oil's relentless quest for profit, which is funding Putin's war at the same time it undermines our competitiveness with China.

More leases are not going to help our allies in Europe. We are already sending our oil to the highest bidder. Oil and gas companies already have leases the size of Indiana. Let me say that again. The oil and gas industry has bid for, over the last two decades, leases to drill on the property owned by the American people. And 53 percent of those leases have yet to be drilled upon. That is the truth. If they are serious--which they are not--they should start drilling. If their crocodile tears are real, in fact, they should just start drilling.

But, of course, they are not going to because they--by squatting on those lands--keep the price of oil high. They keep the price of natural gas high. And Japan and South Korea and China right now get more of our imports than any other country. If oil companies really wanted to help Europe get off Russian gas, they could do that right now with the resources they have. Let me say that again. Oil companies could help Europe get off Russian natural gas right now with the resources they have, but that is not what they want. They want unfettered profit, more public lands, and more power on the global market. And that profit-- that oil-soaked power--has directly fueled Putin's war on Ukraine.

So there is a different pathway, and we have to commit to destroying demand for Putin's dirty energy business model by powering our country with clean, American-made renewable energy. And we can power our way to peace. An additional 16 million electric vehicles on the road in the United States would replace all of the oil that we import from Russia on a daily basis.

By passing the $555 billion investment in clean energy and climate justice, we can build a ``made in America'' clean energy economy that delivers real energy independence. We can unlock a safe, healthy future and untether ourselves from Putin's dirty profits. With tax credits and rebates in wind and solar, offshore wind, transmission, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and advanced domestic manufacturing, we can cut costs at home while cutting off Putin's money pipeline. These investments would reduce our dependence on global oil markets and instead power our country through localized clean energy.

Our Federal climate policies, our Federal energy policies are exactly what we need in this moment--this national security, moral, and economic moment. We don't need to power our Nation on Russian oil and sell off our forest and seas for an unnecessary Big Oil land grab when they already have an area the size of Indiana that they are not drilling on because that increases their profits right now. We don't need to pay for Russia's invasion of Ukraine through Russian imports while paying higher prices at the pump to support profiteering and exports.

Let's wake up and win the renewable race to the future. Let's reject fossil-fueled greed for what that is--just greed. Let's protect our allies by destroying Putin's business model and delivering a future powered by domestic clean energy. That is the promise of peace. That is the promise to the whole world, to live on a safe planet. This is the promise we must make to the next generation of American young people and young people of the world, that we are going to power a clean energy revolution of wind and solar and all-electric vehicles and battery storage technologies, and we are going to destroy the business model of Russia and destroy the business models of other petrostates around the world with American innovation.

That is what the young people of our country and the world should expect from this generation and this Senate in 2022 on the floor of the United States Senate. That is the debate which we should have this year on behalf of a safer, more peaceful, more healthy, and more moral world.

This push to put every square inch of Federal land up for sale is not a new one. It has been the plan of the American Petroleum Institute from the beginning of recorded time. It is not helping the Ukrainians in their fight, and it is not helping our European allies. It is helping inflate the profits of big oil and big gas companies.

In 2021 and 2020, we exported more crude oil and petroleum than we imported. Since 2015, when every Republican on their side lifted the ban on the exportation of American oil--that is what they wanted is their plan, that of the American Petroleum Institute--we now export 8.6 million barrels of oil out of our country every single day. Without question, whenever I have heard anything about energy independence, well, that was the natural consequence of lifting the ban on the exportation of our oil, and now, it is up to 8.6 million barrels a day.

As a matter of fact, in 2021, we actually exported 650,000 barrels of oil a day to China as we were importing 600,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia because that is what the American Petroleum Institute wanted--a globalization of this oil market--with the American consumer and the American economy just caught, ultimately, in an economic crossfire, which is where we are right now. We give China our natural resources so that they can produce a finished product. Meanwhile, we have to import 600,000 barrels of oil from Russia to make up for that, which they then use to pay for the planes for the navy and for the infantry, right now, working to destroy the democracy of Ukraine.

So the answer is for the United States to chart a new course. In 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018, we exported more natural gas than we imported. We don't have a fossil fuel supply problem in the United States at all. We are supplying fossil fuels all around the world right now. We are sending our fuel to Japan, to China, to South Korea. Fossil fuel companies are sending their products anywhere they can get the highest price--raising costs for all of us at home.

By the way, again, understand that that is the key. Once they get it out of the United States and put it on a ship--natural gas or oil--they then get the highest price in the world for it, but they leave behind less oil and natural gas in the United States. With that diminished supply, that leads to an increase in prices for consumers for home heating oil, for gasoline, and for the natural gas to heat their homes. That has been their plan since 2015, to lift the ban on the exportation of American oil and natural gas.

Still, they are unfinished, and they want to be able to drill and frack every single inch of our national forests, our public lands, our coastlines. They want to add to their stockpiles of leases that they are squatting on already. Here are the numbers. It is absolutely astounding. Again, it is all part of the American Petroleum Institute's control of our domestic and foreign policy.

Right now, onshore, in our forests and fields and plains, 53 percent of all of the leases that the American Petroleum Institute--Exxon, Chevron, you name it--already has one. By the way, it is 2 bucks an acre--2 bucks an acre. They are not drilling on them, and they have had their leases for 5 years, for 10 years, for 15 years, for 20 years.

Then we hear from the American Petroleum Institute that we need more land that you will lease to us on public lands that we can buy for a couple of bucks, and we promise--we promise--we will start drilling on it, but just give us more land--even though they already have an area the size of Indiana that they have bid for and now, from the American people, on public lands, have the right to drill. But they are not doing it.

Offshore is even worse. On our pristine coasts from Maine to Florida, 77 percent of the existing leases which the American Petroleum Institute has, they haven't even drilled on them yet. They are sitting there. Yet they are coming here and saying: We need even more that we can get at this bargain basement price of a couple of bucks an acre.

That is their business plan, and it is just so disingenuous for the American Petroleum Institute to just continue to try to exploit crises while they, themselves, are not doing their own job, because it is inconsistent with the huge profit-making goals which they have.

Using the crisis in Ukraine and rising oil prices to push for more pro-oil policies doesn't make sense. Our oil addiction is what added more than $17 billion to Putin's pockets last year. Let me just say that again. We in the United States, at the gas pump, sent $17 billion to Putin for his war machine just in 2021.

So let's just not pretend that we need to plunder every inch of our country in order to protect our allies or to lower gas prices. Oil and gas companies want to frack and extract so they can continue to send American fuel abroad while they plead energy independence and send that to China as the highest bidder.

That is not our plan. It can't be our plan. We have to have a true, clean energy independence that helps rid the world of Putin's business model and leads the way to an American-led, international clean energy revolution. The Republicans right now are blocking the clean energy package that we have in the U.S. Senate.

For every 16 million all-electric vehicles we deploy, we back out the equivalent of all the oil we import from Russia. With the next 16 million, we back out all of the oil we import from Saudi Arabia. That is the plan for young people in our country and for young people around the world. If we do that in coordination with our allies, that destroys, in the long term, the business model of Russia and of the Middle Eastern nations that have us addicted to their oil.

I just think that we are at a critical time, and we need big plans; but one of them cannot be that we are saying to the oil industry that you can exploit this crisis, because if they are serious--and I will just finish on this note.

When we debated in January of 2015 the Keystone Pipeline, I made the amendment here on the Senate floor, saying, if we build this Keystone Pipeline, that we have to keep all of the oil here in the United States--it is the dirtiest oil in the world, the tar sands of Canada. In a straw that they wanted to build right through the United States, with all the environmental risks taken by the American people, they would then export it. So my amendment said, if we build this pipeline and take all of the environmental risks, that the oil should stay here.

Every single Republican voted not to keep it here. They all said that that oil can be exported to any country in the world.

Secondly, back when I was in the House of Representatives, I would make the amendment each year. If you want to drill off the coastlines of the United States, then any oil which is found has to stay here in America; otherwise, the beaches and the fishing industries of the United States take all the risks, and the oil companies reap all of the profits by putting that oil and natural gas on the international markets.

Every Republican voted no. We are not going to have a ban on the exportation of that oil and gas even though it endangers the drilling and would endanger the beaches and the fishing industries of the United States.

So it has always been about an export strategy, and that is all this is as well. It is an attempt to get more leases that they would then hoard--squat on--wait for the price to go higher, and then in their own good time, they would begin to drill, but it would only be in their interests, not our national interests.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, just in response to the Senator, we have never had an ``all of the above'' strategy, truly. We have had an ``oil above all'' strategy. That is the problem that we have. That is the hole that we have dug for ourselves.

It is time for the United States to finally put a plan in place that backs out the imported oil from Russia, backs out the imported oil from the Middle East, and the only way we can do it is if we pass the climate provisions in President Biden's plan.

By 2030, the goal is to have 40 percent of all of our vehicles being all electric--no oil, no gasoline. Do you know what that does? It destroys the business model of Russia. It destroys the business model of the countries in the Middle East that need that petrol dollar from the American consumer in order to fund all of their nefarious activities.

Germany is going 65 percent all-electric vehicles by the year 2030--9 years from now, 65 percent all electric.

So if we put this together and we are serious about it right now, we will destroy the long-term threat fueled by our own addiction to energy, Europe's addiction to fossil fuels, and it will just send us on a clean energy future.

But in order to do it, we need a true ``all of the above'' strategy, not ``oil above all.'' That is how we got here. And if we are going to do it, we have to pass that comprehensive clean energy package out of the Senate this year and put it on President Biden's desk.

That will scare Putin and his cronies vacationing in Sochi. That will put a fear into the hearts of the oil monarchs of the Middle East because they will know once and for all that we are serious about not allowing our American consumer dollars to fuel conflicts around the world.

Again, I appreciate the time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source