Legislative Program
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring to the majority leader the schedule for next week.
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the House majority leader.
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, as we look at some of the bills that will be brought up next week, in the price gouging bill, there are a number of concerns with the way it is not really defined in terms of what price gouging would even be. But as we know, the current state of our energy crisis is really because we, through the Biden administration, have shut down energy production in America.
In fact, just the other day, earlier this week, in the midst of dramatically high gas prices, President Biden announced that he is canceling massive oil and gas lease sales. In the Gulf of Mexico, where there are rich reserves of American energy that could be produced, and Alaska, where there are rich reserves of American energy that could be produced, President Biden said no yet again. And this isn't the first time.
In fact, since he became President, on day one, Joe Biden started attacking American energy. He killed not only the Keystone but the ability to produce and make any new pipelines in America to move energy around our country so that we don't have to import it from countries like Russia. President Biden made us dependent on Russian oil. In fact, he was begging Putin to send us more oil while he is canceling the ability for us to produce our own energy.
You have seen other steps that the President has taken all throughout his Presidency to make it almost impossible to produce American energy, to move American energy, to export American energy. LNG permits are sitting on the desk waiting to be signed for over a year, not a single new LNG export permit to help not just America lower our energy prices but to help our friends around the world, especially in Europe, not need to get energy from bad actors like Putin.
As Putin is, hopefully, going to be pushed to the side in terms of energy that we get, the President continues to turn not to American energy but to turn to other dictators, to go to Iran, to go to Venezuela, while shutting down American energy.
So, we have a bill, and I brought this up to the majority leader a number of times, H.R. 6858, with over 130 cosponsors, a bill that would actually open up American energy so that we can lower gas prices. We can actually do something about it, not try to point the finger and blame this person.
The President tried blaming Putin. Nobody in the country bought it because they knew gas prices were going up dramatically well before Putin invaded Ukraine. In fact, President Biden, by shutting down American energy, allowed Putin to make $700 million a day selling his oil to America and Europe, $700 million a day leading up to the war to help fund the war against Ukraine because President Biden said no to American energy over and over again. This bill would actually fix that.
Now, when you look at the price gouging bill, first of all, Secretary Granholm, the Secretary of Energy, was asked in a committee hearing recently, just about 2 weeks ago, if there was price gouging. She said: I am not sure anyone is saying there is wholesale gouging.
Now, if you read the bill, what we have seen of it so far, it doesn't allow the FTC to take action against the President of the United States, who actually is responsible for the gouging prices, high prices, whatever you want to define ``gouging'' as.
Again, the bill itself is very vague. If you just don't like a high price, you can go blame somebody else, or we could actually do something about it. We could actually bring a bill, like H.R. 6858, that would actually allow us to open up American energy that is here-- great technology, lowest carbon emissions in the world, by the way, as we are now forced to rely on energy from other countries that actually emit more carbon to produce their oil.
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Mr. SCALISE. I would yield. Especially if the gentleman would tell me we are bringing this up on the floor, I would be happy to yield right now.
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Mr. SCALISE. Because America has the best standards in the world.
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Mr. SCALISE. America knows how to do it better.
By the way, it is American innovation that has opened up the ability to produce more energy cleaner than anyone else in the world, and the President of the United States is the one saying no to America. He is not saying no to all energy. He is saying no to the cleanest American energy. But then he is begging foreign countries, which actually produce energy without American standards, begging them to give us our oil at a much higher price than just doing it here in the best place to do it in the world.
It perplexes me why the President of the United States says no to American energy while begging dictators to give us our energy at a higher cost, but that is where we are.
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, to say that Joe Biden is not the reason that supply is limited just doesn't match with the facts. Again, just 2 days ago, Joe Biden, not Putin, not the big oil companies, Joe Biden canceled oil and lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.
Joe Biden canceled lease sales in Alaska.
Joe Biden, as a candidate--this isn't just some new development for Joe Biden--Joe Biden as a candidate for President of the United States said: ``No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill. Period.''
That was Joe Biden as a candidate, and he didn't stop there.
When he became President, on day one he started an attack on American energy. It is crystal clear why.
Now, I am glad the gentleman is bragging about high production levels, but let's not think for a minute that Joe Biden is the reason we have production today. If you understand the oil and gas industry--I was just on a rig in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico 2 weeks ago, one of the largest-producing rigs in the Gulf. Do you know that rig got its first lease in 2002? It took about 10 years to get the first oil. They put private money--all private money; over $10 billion of private money--into developing those leases. There were many leases and permits along the way to finally get to the point where they could bring oil out of the ground, making money to pay back the $10-plus billion, to ultimately get to a point where they could produce over 130,000 barrels today.
If Joe Biden wants to try to dare take credit for those 130,000 barrels today, he needs to go check the record at how long it took to get that oil from lease, permits, out of the ground, to ultimately getting it into world markets, not American markets. Oil companies don't set the price of oil, it is world markets. That oil ultimately depletes, which is why the oil companies are always looking for new opportunities.
The gentleman talks--as the White House has talked--about thousands of permits that are out there. It sounds really good. Understandably, I think people recognize it is a misleading number because many of these permits are for wells that were tried where there is no oil. There is not oil everywhere.
You buy leases to go explore. It is called ``exploration'' for a reason. If it was known reserves--if you go drill right under a gas tank you find oil. If you want to find oil out amongst the natural resources that leases are issued for, you do test wells, you do seismic engineering. By the way, that takes years to go through the process of permitting.
Since Joe Biden has been President they have not issued new leases for seismic. So you might have a 3-mile by 3-mile lease in the Gulf of Mexico that you paid millions of dollars to the Federal Government for years ago, and you are continuing to try to explore those 3 miles by 3 miles that the Federal Government was happy to take the money for, but you can't even get a permit from the Federal Government today to explore that lease--to exercise other permits.
You have to get permits for the pipelines. Not a single new pipeline permit has been issued. Even if you get it out of the ground, the Biden administration doesn't want you to have the ability to move it through to refineries and world markets.
What you see is a recognition by the rest of the world that America has taken itself off the shelf in terms of the ability to produce energy. Again, Joe Biden is the one who canceled all these sales. Joe Biden is the one who, as a candidate, said there will be no drilling. Cartels love this policy because they know now they control the supply.
America is producing oil today based on permits and actions that were taken years ago. What we are seeing today is an inability to continue developing these leases, which means ultimately they will dry up, as all of those leases do. That is why you are always exploring for the next round of finds.
Those next rounds of finds are not being explored for in America, they are being explored for in other countries, but it is countries that are cartels, countries that are monopolies, so they can control the price.
It is interesting that the gentleman brought up the last time we saw these kinds of prices was in the 1970s under a similar Democrat President who had the same kind of attitude toward American energy. It made our country dependent on foreign energy and it created lines at the pump where people had to wait days to get gasoline.
When you saw President Trump opening up American energy and allowing a free market to produce energy--we don't put those constraints in place when we are operating under a free market, so the cartels have no leverage, Putin has no leverage. The only reason he has leverage is if you have a President like Joe Biden who says we are not going to produce in America.
He said it. He took the actions to follow up on it, including just a few days ago. Amidst high gas prices, he actually took more American energy off the market, giving the cartels more monopoly power to raise prices. I wish we would address that. We have a bill to address that and reverse those bad policies. Unfortunately, I haven't heard the gentleman commit to bringing those to the floor yet.
So I wish my friend would address that. We have a bill to address that and reverse those bad policies. Unfortunately, I haven't heard the gentleman bring it to the floor yet.
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Mr. SCALISE. We will continue this discussion. I would like to see us bring up the bill that would actually address it. We will see this debate go on next week and beyond.
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