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Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, over the last few decades, globalization has completely reshaped the international economic order. Economies around the world have become interconnected, relying on one another from agricultural products to energy, to manufacturing capabilities.

It seemed to be the rule of thumb that whoever could produce a product at the lowest price got the business and the jobs that went along with it.

But we are increasingly seeing vulnerabilities that this interdependence creates with some of the clearest examples surfacing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The United States, for example, leans heavily on China for masks, gloves, and gowns, personal protective equipment, and for ventilators-- all of which were absolutely necessary during the beginning of the pandemic and continuing on until today. But for a long time, that wasn't a problem, until COVID-19 showed up.

I still remember the phone call I had with the Governor of Texas, my friend Greg Abbott. At the beginning of the pandemic, I said, ``Governor, what do you need?'' He said, ``We need testing and we need PPE,'' personal protective equipment, almost all of which is made overseas in China.

China, as it turns out, held on to most of the supply for its own hospitals and healthcare workers, leaving the rest of the world to compete for the limited supply that remained.

Suddenly, we were unable to provide our healthcare providers with the personal protective equipment they needed to protect themselves while they served others--namely, the rest of us, their patients.

As supply chain struggles grew and expanded, it wasn't just medical equipment that proved to be a problem. Everything from cleaning products to automobiles were impacted.

We began to realize that one of the biggest vulnerabilities is semiconductors, which are critical components for our most used products: things like smart phones, computers, televisions, cars, airplanes, cell towers, and just about everything else with an off-and- on switch.

Again, the source of our chip supply didn't used to be a problem. About three decades ago, the United States manufactured 37 percent of the world's semiconductors. But as our reliance on these chips has gone up, our production has gone down; and today, instead of 37 percent of the world's semiconductors, the United States produces only 12 percent of the global share.

Again, these microcircuits have become invaluable in this technological age because, literally, everything with an off-and-on switch requires semiconductors--and I mean everything.

The lion's share of semiconductor manufacturing--more than 60 percent of the world's supply--is in Taiwan, which, as we know, is being threatened with invasion by the People's Republic of China. But it is not just the threat of armed invasion that risks that supply chain; it is also the possibility of another pandemic or a natural disaster.

This flashing red light has prompted the Senate to take action by passing the CHIPS for America Act, which I introduced along with the senior Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner, which was designed to incentivize U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.

And in the coming weeks, I hope we can finally get a bill to the President's desk that funds these critical programs and puts us on a path to more domestic semiconductor manufacturing because of those risks to the supply chain.

In short, a crisis hit, it exposed our vulnerabilities, and we acted.

That is exactly what we need to do now regarding energy security. Let me explain.

In many ways, the risks we are seeing with the global energy supply today are similar to those risks we experienced with critical components like semiconductors. Much of the world relies on a single country for a critical product, and decisions made by a dictator could lead to that supply being cut off at a moment's notice.

When our allies are looking to adversaries for our most basic needs like heating, electricity, fuel, it creates huge vulnerabilities and sky-high prices at the same time.

This was underscored in January of 2009, when Russia effectively turned the gas off to Ukraine for almost 3 weeks. This affected at least 10 countries in Europe whose natural gas traveled through Ukraine. Russia is still the dominant gas supplier for Europe, including Ukraine. Last year, Russia supplied 40 percent of Europe's natural gas.

In 2020, Russia was the third largest producer of petroleum and other liquid fuels and the second largest producer of natural gas. This gives Vladimir Putin a tremendous amount of not only power but ready cash. And as we are seeing on our TV screens, that money is being used for the most nefarious of purposes: to kill innocent Ukrainian civilians.

After coming under intense pressure by both Democrats and Republicans, I am glad that the administration has finally announced a ban on Russian oil imports into the United States.

We know exactly where the money they get from selling this commodity is going, and we cannot continue to supply Putin with blood money.

I am disappointed it did take a while for the President to see the merits of this action and only after it was clear that Congress, on a bipartisan basis, was prepared to act.

Our colleagues in both Chambers have produced numerous proposals to ban Russian imports, while pushing the administration to take action.

Over the weekend, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee announced a bipartisan bill to do just that, but the press release, once posted on the website, was quickly taken down, strangely enough. Reporting indicates that the White House intervened to get that press release taken down off the House Ways and Means website because it didn't want to look like it was being boxed into taking action on Russian oil imports.

But to his credit, once the President saw the writing on the wall, he decided to take action, but he made it seem like it was his idea, even though we all know his hand was forced by bipartisan support in the Congress.

There has never been a more critical moment to reevaluate our reliance on rogue regimes for our energy supply. If we want to protect ourselves and our allies from the whims of a power-hungry dictator, we need to get serious about energy security.

In recent years, conversations about energy policy have been consumed by debates about the environmental impact of fossil fuels, which are important, but often, they are not well informed.

Some of our colleagues have proposed everything from fracking bans in the Green New Deal to net-zero carbon deadlines.

Well, those efforts may bring down America's share of global emissions, but it would come at a grave cost to global energy security. And the truth is, whether it is the Russians or the Chinese or India, developing nations with growing economies, they may pay lip service to some of the goals of a carbon-free future; but this is at the same time that China is building more coal-fired powerplants than any other nation on Earth.

So they really say one thing and do another, for fairly obvious reasons. They understand that constraining your own energy supply will have a negative impact on their economy and job growth and stability in each of those countries.

But I want to be clear: I support efforts to diversify our energy sources and reduce emissions. That is why in Texas we embraced what is called ``all of the above'' as an energy strategy that includes oil and gas, nuclear, wind, solar, you name it. We embrace all of it.

But we have learned a long time ago that solar and wind energy are dependent on the weather, for example, or the time of day, because the Sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. That is why you need a reliable base load of electricity and energy, primarily fuel from natural gas, some from nuclear and the like.

On top of that diversification of your energy supply which has proven to be so important and so successful in reducing emissions yet maintaining energy security, Texas companies are also making serious strides in energy innovation. We are finding new ways to sequester carbon emissions, for example, and other ways to make our most available and affordable energy sources cleaner.

I believe we need to do more to encourage innovation and diversification of our energy sources, but those efforts must not come at the cost of security.

Our top priority must be to ensure that the United States and our allies have reliable access to energy needed to keep the lights on and their economy running. And we need to stop Putin and other dictators from getting rich off of our dependence and holding democracies like Ukraine hostage.

Suffice it to say that the Biden administration has not addressed a plan to do that. From day one, the administration has taken actions that undermine America's energy security and send even more business to Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Only hours after being sworn in, President Biden cancelled the permit to the Keystone XL Pipeline and halted all new energy leasing and permitting on public lands and waters.

His administration has effectively discouraged investments in new production here at home, and the U.S. is producing significantly less oil. It is now down by 1.2 million barrels per day from pre-Biden administration days.

Without question, the most logical response to the current global energy crisis is to boost production of U.S. energy sources. We can reap the economic benefits of strong production here at home and supply our friends and allies with reliable energy around the world and, in the process, enhancing their energy security, making them less dependent on people like Vladimir Putin.

But producers aren't able to turn on a dime. They are not able to increase their capacity overnight; but it is important for us to begin to take the steps now to strengthen our domestic energy production in light of the developments in Ukraine and in Europe.

The sooner the Biden administration views oil and gas producers as necessary rather than expendable, the better off we will all be.

That is not what the White House has suggested, by the way. In fact, they seem to be suggesting a completely different route.

The Biden administration doesn't want to supply Europe with more American energy; he wants to help them shift their reliance from one oil-rich dictator to another. Good-bye, Russia; hello, Iran; hello, Venezuela. The administration is looking to other rogue regimes to supply the energy that should be produced here in America.

The White House is trying to revive the ill-considered Iran nuclear deal, and the White House press secretary acknowledged that a new deal would mean more oil from Iran for global markets.

It is reportedly considering a trip to Saudi Arabia to ask the Kingdom to pump more oil--not here in America, but go to Saudi Arabia, hat in hand, and say: Will you please produce more oil to help us bring down the price of gasoline?

We even hear that the Biden administration is trying to ease sanctions on Venezuela and funnel Putin's profits to Maduro.

The fact the Biden administration is beating down the doors of the Ayatollah, the Crown Prince, and Maduro rather than easing burdens on American producers is a bad joke. It is absurd. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Now, ideologues may oppose American fossil fuels, but the administration's reflexive opposition to U.S. producers is creating serious risks for our security, not to mention the high prices that consumers pay at the pump.

We are blessed to live in a resource-rich country, and there is no reason to put the energy security of the United States and our allies at risk because President Biden worries about angering the progressive radical left of his own political party.

If the Biden administration continues to wage war on American fossil fuels, it will create huge vulnerabilities for the United States and our allies.

Now, I am not suggesting we revive the 1970s oil export ban and implement isolationist energy policies, but we do need to take decisive action to reduce the world's reliance on authoritarian regimes.

Just as the pandemic led us to reevaluate vulnerable supply chains, this war in Ukraine has opened our eyes and, hopefully, given us the opportunity to reevaluate global energy security.

I hope this crisis will serve as a reset button for those energy security efforts, and I hope we can find some common ground between Democrats and Republicans to reconsider the ideological and reflexive opposition to American fossil fuels because the consequences in terms of world peace and energy security are too serious not to revisit those preconceived notions before the Ukrainian invasion.

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