Calling Attention to the Energy Crisis

Floor Speech

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Mr. BURCHETT. Madam Speaker, I was leaving here when I met some of your family members on swearing-in day, and I know there is probably some proud chests stuck out and buttons busting everywhere, as my granddad used to say. So we welcome you in this new role.

Madam Speaker, Biden's woke environmental agenda is forcing many of my fellow East Tennesseans to pay more to heat their homes and to commute to work. How have these high energy prices increased in Tennessee over the last year, you may ask?

Gasoline costs $3.96 per gallon, a 35 percent increase--not as much as California, but that is, hopefully, never within our range.

Residential natural gas costs $12.40 per thousand cubic feet, a 23 percent increase. This is just working folks trying to heat their homes.

Electricity costs $10.27 per kilowatt hour; that is a 9 percent increase.

Madam Speaker, these higher energy costs are an additional expense for our businesses, too, and they are just going to pass it on to us. That means that businesses must raise all their prices to offset the increased energy rates. That is why this inflation is crippling our economy under President Biden.

Some of these arrogant folks suggest Americans work from home or ``go green'' to offset rising energy costs. Well, that disgusts me. That is an all-time arrogant low for some of these folks. They must assume that all my constituents have a job that allows them to work from home or can afford an electric car or solar panels.

Madam Speaker, I have spent many an hour in factories around my district, and those folks cannot work from home, and this country would fall off the edges of the Earth if we did that. And there is a reason that oil and natural gas and coal are preferred energy sources. They are cheap and they are reliable, and we get them from homegrown energy.

Now, how do we fix this energy mess? We return to energy independence, of course. It has been said many times, let's roll back some of these environmental regulations. Let's turn the spigots back on and let's lower the energy costs for the American people.

Madam Speaker, I thank Dr. Joyce for his more-than-lackluster attempt at righting a horrible wrong, and I appreciate his leadership.

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