Motion to Discharge
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about this Joe Biden-caused economic crisis that is impacting our country.
Last week, Joe Biden said his spending is ``changing people's lives.'' Well, for once, I am in complete agreement with Joe Biden because I have been traveling the State of Wyoming this past weekend, talking to a lot of people, and Joe Biden's policies have been changing people's lives. Joe Biden's inflation is changing people's lives for the worst. It is costing American families about $5,000 more this year than it did last year just to break even. Joe Biden's inflation is driving families to the breaking point. Right now, working families all across this country are hoping for a summer break. This year's summer break might just break working families.
Inflation remains at a 40-year high. Prices are going up everywhere-- gas station, grocery store, and even paying rent. Household staples like ground beef and chicken--highest prices ever. Inflation for eating at a restaurant--highest ever recorded. Families are paying $100 a week more than they did just a year ago just to stay afloat.
According to a study from the University of Michigan, this is the biggest decline in disposable income since Herbert Hoover was President--Joe Biden; Herbert Hoover. Families' savings accounts are depleted. We now have the lowest savings rate since the great recession. Household debt is breaking records. Families are being forced to cut back in ways they didn't think possible.
The fastest inflation of all, of course, has been on energy. Overall, inflation has been nearly 9 percent, but inflation for gasoline under Joe Biden is more than double--over 100 percent. The price of a gallon of gas has more than doubled since Joe Biden walked into the Oval Office. High energy costs mean high costs for everything else. High gas prices mean it is harder to get goods to the market. Diesel prices are also at record highs. Americans depend on farmers, and farmers depend on diesel. That is just a fact of life. That is why America needs energy now more than ever, in spite of the policies of Joe Biden.
Rather than producing more energy, what does Joe Biden do? He is producing one excuse after another. He continues to tighten the stranglehold on American energy, making it harder and harder to produce American energy, which is making American energy even more expensive.
Last week, Joe Biden, President of the United States, sent a threatening letter to American energy companies. Now, he claims he wants more energy, but his actions speak much louder than the words he writes or speaks because Joe Biden has done just about everything possible to keep American energy buried in the ground. He has blocked so many different ways to get American energy out of the ground and to refineries and to export or to production. In fact, his Secretary of the Interior explicitly made that a campaign promise when she was running for Congress. The Secretary of the Interior--confirmed by the Democrats, opposed by me--promised to keep American energy in the ground. Well, that is exactly what Joe Biden is doing and having her do.
By one estimate, Joe Biden has taken more than 100 actions, since he has been President, restricting American energy. It all started his first day in office. In the first few hours as President, Joe Biden killed the Keystone XL Pipeline--killed it flat--and then bragged about it. The Keystone Pipeline would have meant 800,000 barrels of oil delivered to this country each and every day, coming in from Canada.
But that wasn't enough, no. A few days later, Joe Biden made another announcement of his anti-American energy policy. He announced he was going to put a pause on all new oil and gas leases on Federal land. Bragging about Keystone, announcing a pause on leases on Federal land, and now here we are after 17 months in office--none. But Barack Obama by this time had done 44 Federal energy leases. Not a single one by Joe Biden--no, not one.
He has also shut down energy exploration near the Arctic. All you need to do is talk to the senior Senator, whom I share time with on the Energy Committee, Senator Murkowski, about what is going on there, and she will tell you how Joe Biden has shut down energy in the Arctic. He has kept more than 4,300 drilling applications collecting dust on his desk.
His energy agenda is far, far to the left of any previous American President. His energy agenda, amazingly, is far to the left of Hillary Clinton's agenda when she was running in 2016--further to the left than Hillary. This is the most anti-American energy agenda in American history, and Joe Biden owns it.
When he says he wants us to produce more, no one believes him. No one believes this President. You look at any poll numbers--people do not believe Joe Biden when he speaks, and people have stopped listening to him. The American people believe with their own two eyes and their empty wallets. They drive by the gas station, look at the price up there, and say: It is only going up.
If you want to know what Joe Biden really thinks, just look at what he does; just listen to the people he has surrounded himself with. His anointed climate spokesman--and I mean anointed--is one John Kerry.
John Kerry said last week: ``We absolutely don't'' need more oil, gas, and coal--``absolutely don't'' need. That is the position of this administration and the President of the United States. He is happy with high prices. John Kerry thinks we can just get rid of fossil fuels immediately.
These people are living a fairy tale. They are in a cocoon of self- delusion. That is what is going on at this White House. Joe Biden's fantasy of ending oil and gas is just that--a fantasy.
He wants every American in an electric vehicle. There are not enough batteries; don't have enough charging stations; don't have enough of these vehicles. Even the Secretary of Transportation--he bought one of these. He bought it from Mexico, according to the news reports, and it got recalled, along with 49,000 other electric vehicles, because the battery didn't work. The battery was not reliable. Pete Buttigieg-- Mayor Pete--went from filling potholes in a small town in Indiana to becoming the world's highest paid salesman of electric vehicles, but yet his own one failed him.
The Biden administration is convinced they are making an ``incredible transition.'' This isn't science; this is science fiction.
Last week, Joe Biden's Press Secretary was asked why the President wasn't going to ``drill more here at home.'' After all, that is what the American people are calling for. That is what the economists say is a problem. Why aren't you drilling more at home? She says: Oh, ``[w]e don't need to do that.'' They don't seem to care how high energy prices go, what the cost of gasoline is, because they live in a pure level of electric vehicles.
Earlier today, the President requested a pause on the gas tax until right before the election. This is the tax that funds our Federal roads and bridges. As a former member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I know how important the highway trust fund is. It helps repair roads, bridges, and builds highways. Joe Biden doesn't seem to care about that part of it. He said: Oh, let's just call a pause of 18\1/2\ cents a gallon. It is a gimmick. It is a gimmick that won't have very much effect on gas prices because gas prices would still be double what they were when Joe Biden took office even if you take off 18\1/2\ cents.
Let me remind the American public that today gasoline prices on average are $4.95 a gallon. It is more than double what it was the day he took office. We are up about $2.50 for each and every gallon, and Joe Biden thinks: Well, you remove 18 cents, and we will call it good. What a fantasy.
Democrat economist Larry Summers has called this idea by the President of the United States--and let me point out that Larry Summers was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Treasury, economic adviser to Barack Obama, and president of Harvard University, and he says that what Joe Biden is doing--he called it ``shortsighted, ineffective, goofy and gimmicky.'' That is about what we are getting from this President of the United States--goofiness and gimmicks.
Back in 2008, even President Obama said the idea was a gimmick. He ought to have credibility with the Democrats. You would think Joe Biden might have listened to him; he was his Vice President. President Obama said: This idea isn't ``designed to get you through the summer, it's designed to get them through an election.''
What about the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi? She is a big Joe Biden fan. This is what she said of the idea. The thing the President proposed today, she said, is ``very showbiz''--``very showbiz.'' She said: It looks like you are doing something, ``[b]ut it is not necessarily landing in the pocket of the consumer.''
So Joe Biden wants to look busy. It is not what the American people are seeing, and in so many ways, they have tuned him out. The American people see the price of gasoline. They see it every time they drive by a gas station. At the same time, Senate Democrats want to raise taxes on American energy. That is what we hear from the Senate Democrats.
What is your solution?
Well, we are going to raise taxes on American energy.
Oh, sounds good.
Higher taxes mean higher prices--it is that simple. Higher taxes on producers of oil and gas ultimately get passed on to the consumers. I am not sure what people don't understand about that.
Nancy Pelosi admitted that as well. A few months ago, she admitted that ``a tax on production . . . the consumers [will] pay for that.''
Look, Democrats are so desperate to try to do something, throwing one Hail Mary pass after another, they are now denying the laws of supply and demand. The Senate Democrats act like these prices come out of thin air. Prices are the result of supply and demand. Right now, the supply is too low to meet the demand of the American people. If you want lower prices, you have to increase the supply, and we can do that by producing American energy.
High energy costs are driving up inflation all across the country. It is triggering a cascade of crises. The stock market is down 20 percent. Seniors and retirees are watching their savings evaporate, melt away.
Last week, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the third time since March. Each increase has been larger than the last one. This latest increase is the largest increase in the Fed rate in 30 years.
Oh, there is no question this is going to slow down the economy. So why is the Federal Reserve doing something that is going to slow down the economy? Well, there is one reason: inflation under Joe Biden and the big-spending Democrats. That is the reason inflation is running rampant. There were trillions of dollars thrown onto the fire of inflation--inflation denied by the President, ignored by the President, dismissed by the President for month after month after month, and now the American people are living with inflation they cannot escape.
So the Federal Reserve has only one choice. It is throwing on the emergency brake. It may still be too late to prevent a crash. The economy is barreling toward recession. Economists on both sides of the aisle say that, and Joe Biden the other day said, oh, he wasn't worried about that coming along.
A recession is a complete halt to economic growth for half a year. If you have a recession, you still have higher prices with lower economic growth. We would still have higher prices, and people won't have the money to pay them.
Right now, the Federal Reserve is taking desperate measures to counteract what Democrats have done. As a result, mortgage rates have already doubled this year. Mortgage applications have been cut dramatically. Older Americans are delaying their dreams of retirement. Younger Americans are giving up on their dreams of owning a home.
It is no wonder consumer confidence in Joe Biden in the Nation right now is at an alltime low. Joe Biden, who earlier had been compared to Herbert Hoover in terms of what people are saying about both of them, has an even lower approval rating on inflation than did Jimmy Carter.
Joe Biden wants to blame everybody but himself. Yet the American people are right when they point the finger and blame Joe Biden. With record inflation, record debt, and looming recession, now is not the time to do what the Democrats want to do, which is raise taxes. Democrats need to reverse course, stop the reckless spending, and above all, unleash American energy.
Joe Biden should rip up his letter to energy companies and get to work: hold energy lease sales, approve the 4,300 drilling applications still sitting in limbo in the Biden White House, approve more pipelines, speed up the approval process. The American people, right now, are feeling stuck and stressed and squeezed, and the best this President can do is say: Let's take a holiday from gas taxes for 3 months--when prices are up over $2.60 a gallon from the day he took office. And he wants to alleviate 18 cents of the pain.
It is time for the Democrats to reverse course. We will see if Joe Biden listens. The Democrats are refusing to listen. Americans are paying a very high price today, and the Democrats, across the board, are going to pay a very high price in November when people go to the polls.
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