Energy Independence, National Security, and Foreign Policy

Floor Speech

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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to address some of the biggest problems facing the United States today and, quite frankly, the world.

As the war between Russia and Ukraine wages on, many Americans have been quickly reminded of just how global our economy really is.

Now, prior to the war, Russia provided the United States with 8 percent of our Nation's oil and refined products. A war involving Russia can suddenly spike fuel prices at your local gas station. Like many nationwide, drivers in my home district of western Pennsylvania have seen gasoline at over $4 a gallon for well over a month.

The interruption of our Nation's oil supply and subsequent skyrocketing prices are just the latest reminder that we need to refocus our energy policies in Washington and produce more energy right here at home in America.

Let's go back to May 2021, when two things happened: the United States imported a record amount of Russian oil, and President Biden waived sanctions on Nord Stream 2. That is the Russian natural gas pipeline set to supply much of Europe with energy.

Now, 4 months earlier the President canceled the Keystone XL pipeline between the United States and Canada. That pipeline would have delivered an additional 830,000 barrels of crude oil a day. That is 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

That would have gone to U.S. refineries, and it would have created thousands and thousands of jobs. That is more oil than the United States imports from Russia each day. This is a no-brainer. Just bring back the pipeline. It is so easy to do and so easy to institute.

Why would we not do that?

Why would we not be energy independent?

We can't depend on bad foreign actors such as Russia, Venezuela, or Iran to help provide our Nation's energy. Above all I applaud the collective effort right here in Washington to stop bankrolling the Russian war machine by buying their products.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, revenue from the energy sector is responsible for more than 40 percent of Russia's federal budget. Some quick, back-of-the-envelope math, the 8 percent of Russian oil we imported equates to 672,000 barrels of oil per day.

But this moment calls for a broader push to end our reliance on foreign energy sources.

To start, President Biden should reverse his executive order banning the Keystone pipeline.

Next, we must return to Trump-era energy policies that made the U.S. energy independent. To amend the former President's famous tag line, let's change it to make North America great again.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 61 percent of U.S. crude oil imports come from Canada. Another 11 percent comes from Mexico. Seventy-two percent comes from our neighbors to the north and our neighbors to the south.

We should be expanding oil imports from our allies and neighbors rather than paying our adversaries who can hold our energy sector hostage. Doing so not only makes economic sense, but it improves relations with those closest to us and further strengthens our national security by becoming less dependent on bullies like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran.

Now, on the other hand, President Biden has single-handedly made Americans poorer and our Nation's security weaker during his first year in office. His anti-fossil fuel, Green New Deal wish list has placed unnecessary burdens on the oil and gas industry.

Even as gas prices are reaching record highs here nationwide, just last month President Biden had announced that he is pausing decisions about new Federal oil and gas drilling as part of his plan to tackle climate change. And that is just the beginning.

So far, President Biden has announced the release of 80 million barrels of oil from the Nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Just last week President Biden announced he will release up to another 180 million barrels of oil over the next 6 months in an effort to drive down gas prices. That doesn't drive down gas prices.

That theory really sounds good, but, Mr. Speaker, I want you to think about where that oil is coming from. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is to be used in times of a national emergency when we don't have a supply. It is not used to just try and rack up some cheap political points by saying: I am doing this so you won't have to pay that much at the pump.

It is not working. It never will work.

Now, on November 23, the administration released 50 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average price of gas dropped by a whopping 2 cents. In following days, by December 6, it dropped another 3 cents. So we saved a nickel, but we attacked our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Now, as of March 25 the reserve supply was 568 million barrels, meaning that President Biden is ready to take one-third of our Nation's reserve and use them for his short-term political gain that has already proven to not lower gas prices for America but has weakened the reserve.

Now, keep in mind, the purpose of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is to counter severe supply chain disruptions and enhance national security. It is not to make your polls look better, Mr. President.

The 80 million barrels the President previously released are worth only about 4 days of U.S. oil consumption. Only the President can decide to withdraw oil from or refill the reserve. What is even more frightening so far is China has hardly tapped their oil reserves. President Biden's shortsighted decision-making is dangerously harming our national security.

Now, I am proud to represent the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a place once deemed and called the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Pennsylvania produces 21 percent of the natural gas extracted in the United States. That is second only to Texas, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In 2020, the Energy Information Administration adds that U.S. dry natural gas production was about 10 percent greater than U.S. total natural gas consumption. That means we can export natural gas that we produce creating energy security for other nations, notably our European allies who are currently dependent on Russia for their natural gas, and it forges a stronger foreign policy in the process.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the spike in fuel costs go hand in hand with American foreign policy. If we are dependent on bad actors for energy, then we are subjecting ourselves to their demands. But if we can supply the world with affordable energy, then we can strengthen our international ties and reinforce relationships instead of falling behind. Most importantly, we give the American people a greater sense of security that Russia so desperately seeks to have only for itself.

On the topic of foreign policy, Mr. Speaker, I want to quote a great fellow Pennsylvanian, Benjamin Franklin, who said: ``By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.''

Now, I have thought an awful lot about our Founding Father's words as we watched current events unfold around the world. So much of what we are seeing right now mirrors itself in history.

Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a stark reminder that bullies like Vladimir Putin will stop at nothing to achieve their end game to upend democracy and freedom while chilling all the opposition in the process.

This type of takeover carries a precedent. Putin's quest to conquer Ukraine should remind all of us of what happened in the 1930s and 1940s when Adolph Hitler began a similar pursuit across Europe. Now, for far too long the free world watched from the sidelines hoping that European forces could prevent further escalation only to find that Hitler and the Axis Powers were relentless. Thankfully, the Allied forces defeated the global bullies of that era.

Now, over 80 years later, we can consult history for potential answers to modern power struggles. As Russia's military assault on Ukraine continues, the United States and NATO allies must respond together. After all, NATO, which is a collection of over 30 nations, was formed in 1949 after World War II to prevent what?

Soviet aggression.

NATO has a responsibility to step up. Those member countries have a responsibility to step in. All in all, hand in hand, the United States--which is also the first responder to anything that goes wrong in the world--needs to have help from other people, not America alone, but America with our allies.

NATO's purpose remains as important today as it was back then. A powerful, unified response has served the free world well throughout history.

Now, much like World War II, we have existing or looming conflicts in multiple regions or theaters of the world including Asia. Today, China is threatening Taiwan. Now, as we are deflected from watching what is going to happen in Taiwan and watching the dangerous situation in Taiwan by what is going on in Ukraine--and I don't say we should take our eyes off of what is going on in Ukraine--we should just not think that that is the only theater that we have to be concerned with.

Taiwan is one of our major allies, and in recent months multiple reports indicate that China has been quietly conducting combat readiness drills near Taiwan, an island territory that China still claims to own. This matters for two reasons: First, the Chinese are watching the world's response to Putin's attempt at a land grab in Ukraine because China is threatening to take over their own neighbor as well.

Secondly, this could directly impact the American consumer. Ninety- two percent of the world's supply of advanced semiconductor chips--used in everything from automobiles to cellphones--are made in Taiwan.

If we have learned nothing from the COVID pandemic, it is that we cannot depend on other people around the world to supply us with those things that we need the most. It is a fool's errand to think that somehow this ends well. It does not. It ends terribly for us, and it ends terribly for the free world.

Any large-scale attack on Taiwan means these chips would likely become very scarce as almost everything else in the world is right now, and in some cases probably unavailable altogether. That is why I am cosponsoring the Facilitating American-Built Semiconductors, or the FABS Act, with Congressman Mike McCaul.

This piece of legislation allows for a new tax credit through 2032 for investment in any semiconductor manufacturing facility and semiconductor-designed expenditures right here at home.

What an unusual concept: to invest in American technology with American workers to make America safer and stronger, not somebody a world away from us. Let's do it right here at home. Let's do it right here at home.

Now, currently we make just 12 percent of the world's semiconductor chip supply. That is hard for me to imagine that we knew at the time how necessary the semiconductor chips were, but we had kind of a blind eye and a deaf ear to what it was that manufacturers were talking about. We said: Do you know what? For a couple of pennies we can save, let's send them over to Taiwan and have them make it. And we walked away from what is so critical to us.

Now, the scary thing is that these are just the crises before us right now. History reflects how a robust American foreign policy has significantly shaped the world, specifically the Western Hemisphere. So when we talk about the Western Hemisphere, this is one of the things I think that is probably going more unnoticed than anything: In the 1800s President Monroe knew that in its infancy the United States was developing at a very quick rate, and it really looked like something that other places around the world would look at with envy and say: Do you know what? They are getting stronger every day, and they are getting better every day. Maybe we need to get over there and colonize. Maybe we need to get involved there.

So the Monroe Doctrine came into effect, and the whole idea behind that was, let's make sure that people around the world cannot make an effort to come in and get into our Western Hemisphere and cause us great danger.

So the Monroe Doctrine came out. But then as things went on and we got more powerful and we had more and more going for us, all of a sudden, the world looked to us, and they just didn't take a slight glance at us, but they looked at us with covetousness. They looked at us with who we were and what we were becoming and all the valuable things that were right here in our hemisphere.

So Teddy Roosevelt says: You know what? I am going to put together the Roosevelt Corollary that really establishes guidelines for any intervention in the United States or our Western Hemisphere.

The content within these policies largely addressed actions by European nations or the inactions of Latin American nations. But I believe they are relevant, once again, and are worth further review, and here is why.

If you were to take a look at the Western Hemisphere and just take a real broad look at it and say: Okay, fine, let's take a close look. South America, Central America, up into the triangle, the deepwater ports in Cuba, and both ends of the Panama Canal all have significant foreign countries--and they are mainly China.

People tell me: You don't need to worry about that Panama Canal; China is not really taking it over. I say: You know what? If you don't read history, you don't study history, you are doomed to repeat it.

Why would we not look at what is going on right now in our Western Hemisphere and say, we have put things into place to protect us from foreign intervention.

I want to tell you, you look at the Western Hemisphere, South America, Central America, the triangle, the deepwater ports in Cuba, that would be ideal for heavy military use, and both ends of the Panama Canal. If you don't think that is a threat to American security, then you need to wake up. We are in great danger right now and not knowing it.

First of all, the Chinese are not very quiet about what they are trying to do. They have a theory that they want to take over the world. They don't whisper about it; they don't sneak around about it; they just do what they want to do. Their presence in Africa should be a great awakening for us.

We have crippled ourselves with regulations and sanctions on so many things that we need, and I don't know for what reason, other than somehow we think that we are smarter than everybody else and we know that we can protect ourselves. And the question is: Really, how? And the answer is: Well, we really can't.

I guess our answer will be what it always is: We will write a strong letter, and Jinping will get it. We will tell them: Please, stay out of our hemisphere and please stop trying to influence the rest of the world for evil. And we will tell Putin: You need to stop doing what you are doing in Ukraine.

At some point, we will actually read history and say we have been down this road before, but we failed to take action at a time that was absolutely critical and pushed it on and pushed it out of sight, and the price we paid was incredible. Let's not do that again.

There is an old saying that is: To be foretold is to be forewarned. With everything going on in the world today, we hear a lot of people using the term ``world war III.'' I am not here tonight telling you that that is what is going to happen. I am here telling you tonight that America and the free world have to understand that we have seen this action before. We know what lies ahead of us, and we know the cost of not addressing it early. We can do it through policy, but peace always comes through strength, not through weakness.

Diplomacy is one thing, as Teddy Roosevelt said: ``Walk softly, but carry a big stick.''

I would just suggest to you that if you go back to the year 2016-- actually 2017, when our 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, came into office, please tell me why for the 4 years Mr. Trump was in office, the rest of the world stayed at bay? The bad actors of the world didn't attempt to do any of the things that they are doing today.

Certainly, last summer, in our demonstration of how we would leave a country high and dry, that we would take out our military first and leave our military equipment and citizens to face what was going on in Afghanistan was a warning to the rest of the world that you better be careful with the United States, because if you are not, they will pack up their bags in the middle of the night and leave. That is not who we are, that is not who we have ever been, and that is not who we can be in a free world.

If our friends and allies in the free world take a look at what our actions have been later--because actions always speak louder than words--but we continue to use words, thinking that somehow bad actors will cower and walk away from us, that is not the America that we know. That is not the America that 1.4 million of our men and women in uniform have died to protect and to send a message to the bad actors of the world, we will always be here, we will always be on guard, and we will never walk away from our responsibilities.

I don't know what has happened to America in a little bit over a year. People always say: I think it is better to be respected than feared. I think both have a great effect on everybody. I want both those to be in effect.

I will tell you this: When Donald Trump was our President, nobody but nobody messed with the U.S.A.

Mr. Speaker, we have so many things going on right now. We wonder: What is the future? What is the future not only for America but for America's friends and allies? We look at energy as one of the key issues that we are talking about today, and we know that in America we have endless supplies of energy. What is holding us back now are our own regulations.

I heard the administration say: We have thousands of permits; why don't you just go ahead and use them? Which really shows that they have absolutely no idea that having a permit isn't the same as extracting energy. Somehow, I guess, if you say it long enough and loud enough and to the right crowd, they will nod their heads and say: I know. You are right.

You know what? Get out into the field and see the people that actually do it. Talk to the people that know how to extract energy. Talk to the people that can go offshore. Talk to the people that go deep down into the Earth. Talk to all of those people and tell them: Don't worry. You have a permit. Just go ahead and use it. And by the way, if you don't use it, we will start taxing you on your nonuse. How upside down is this thinking? Pro-Life Information

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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, the last thing I am going to address tonight is probably the most important issue of all, because everything we talk about right now, everything we have addressed already, is about life.

There was a tradition here that on Wednesdays people would wear red, and they would wear red to remind people of the girls that had been kidnapped by Boko Haram. We wanted those girls back, so we would wear red and would walk around here and say: We have got red on today because we want those girls back; Boko Haram has got to return those girls.

So I started wearing red on Wednesdays. Friends on the other side would say to me: So you are in concert with us; you believe the same things we do? I would say: I absolutely do. I absolutely do. They said: You want those girls back? I said: Yes, I do. But I don't want just the girls that Boko Haram took; I want the girls back that have been aborted. I want those girls back whose lives were ended. I want you to really face the truth of what is going on in America today.

The wordsmithing that takes place here in the people's House, on the floor, people talk about abortion as healthcare, taking the life of a little boy or a little girl is healthcare.

Every night, we see pictures of what Russia is doing to Ukraine. Yet, we have a deaf ear to the cries of the unborn, and we don't look at all to those who are being lost every day. Because if you don't see them, I guess they don't count.

Congress has long required that taxpayer dollars are not to be used for abortions, and President Biden has actively tried to circumvent this requirement. In April of 2021, under President Biden's leadership, the NIH announced it would no longer require fetal tissue research projects funded by the agency to go through an ethics advisory board.

So the question then becomes: Why do we have an ethics advisory board, if we are not going to go to them to find out what it is that we are talking about?

Then in September of 2021, we began hearing the horrific allegations of illegal abortions being performed at the University of Pittsburgh for harvesting fetal tissue.

I can tell you, me being on the floor tonight will resonate in Pittsburgh and, unfortunately, it won't be by those who are pro-life; it will be by those that think that somehow this is an attack on Pitt and not an attack on little unborn boys and girls.

For all of those who do not like what I am saying tonight, please take off your blinders and understand what is taking place.

We began hearing all of these horrible allegations of illegal abortions being performed at the University of Pittsburgh for harvesting fetal tissue. These abortions were performed as part of Pitt's participation in an NIH program for the university to operate as a fetal tissue repository for research happening around the country.

The types of abortions Pitt is accused of performing are horrific. Babies that survived the abortion would be born alive and then killed. This was to preserve--this is really hard to understand--this is to preserve the fetal cells longer, a process known as maximizing warm ischemia time.

When you say: Well, what is that? When you talk to the scientists, well, the idea is the warm tissue is actually more valuable for our studies. So a baby boy or girl that survives this abortion, that is the tissue that is the most valuable to us.

Now, I think if any of us came upon some kind of accident or saw somebody who was in grave danger, we would want to save them. Somebody who has endured an unbelievable process and survived it, we would save them; we would not take advantage of that.

This program was supported by taxpayer funding through the NIH program. So congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, for all the things that you hate, you are helping to fund it.

This isn't the only abortion project that the National Institutes of Health is funding, though. The NIH expects to spend $88 million on human fetal tissue research in this year alone.

When these allegations began coming out--which I thought was a real good move by the university--they hired a law firm to conduct an independent review of Pitt's abortion process. Somebody is questioning the process you do, so you say: Here is what I will do. I want to participate with you, so I will provide the funding to an independent research group. That law firm was a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that employs Pitt grads. What a surprise.

The review determined that Pitt was totally in compliance with the law. They didn't say what Pitt was doing was right; they said they were in compliance with the law, even though that report completely failed to look into Planned Parenthood or UPMC, who were partners with this NIH program.

When all of this came out, we sent a letter, along with Representative Morgan Griffith and over 50 of our colleagues, asking the NIH for answers on how it funds and oversees these abortions programs. It took them months to respond to me, which is not unusual for any letter you send to any agency here in Washington, D.C.

When they finally did reply to us, they simply pointed out to me and to the rest of us: Please, look at Pitt's independent review.

Now, this level of accountability to Congress is completely unacceptable, and it shouldn't take months for a government agency to respond to letters from any of us here in the House of Representatives. We are here representing the people who voted us in office. And when they do respond, they should respond with a substantive answer. I don't need to be horsed around and told something and told: Well, you just don't understand.

Which is absolutely correct. I don't understand. In the United States of America, why are we doing things and then covering them up and saying, we did an independent review. We paid for it, and these guys actually came up with an answer that we were looking for. So they followed the money.

A few weeks ago, Congress finally passed a budget, the first since President Biden has been in office. It was far from perfect, but it included strong protections for the unborn, protections which have been in place since the 1970s.

Less than 2 weeks later, President Biden released his 2023 budget proposal, which included a full wish list of Democrat anti-life priorities.

Here are some examples from his recent budget: Number 1, it eliminates the Hyde amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortions. It became law in 1976. The Hyde amendment has saved over 2.4 million lives.

It also wants to eliminate the Dornan amendment. The Dornan amendment prevents taxpayer dollars from being used to pay for abortion in the District of Columbia. Without this protection, D.C. taxpayer dollars could pay for an estimated 1,400 to 1,500 abortions every year. Every year.

It increased Title X family planning funding by $113 million. Title X is a prime funding source for Planned Parenthood, providing it with $56 million taxpayer dollars annually. Now, on January 21, 2022, the Biden administration awarded $6.6 million in Title X funds from the American Rescue Plan to abortion providers. $6.6 million in American taxpayer money to provide funds for abortion providers.

Now, I am Catholic, and oftentimes I have gone to my priest and I have said, ``Father, is there some reason you cannot go into the pulpit and talk about the horrendous things that are going on in our country today?'' You know what the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said? ``The USCCB remains gravely concerned about the continued efforts to expand taxpayer funding of abortion, which would occur if the Hyde amendment or any other lifesaving appropriations riders were to be removed from the annual appropriations bill.''

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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. ``We take this stand because abortion is not healthcare. It is the antithesis of healthcare.''

Now, I know I am out of time, but me being out of time here on the floor does not take this country from being out of time to address the most egregious actions that are taking place.

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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Now, I just tell you, I am going to use up some time, and you can keep hammering me, but you know what? In the time we have been talking, so far, as of April 5----

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