Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, in March, I spoke here on the Senate floor about the highest reported gasoline prices ever. At that time, according to AAA, the average price in West Virginia, my home State, was $4.12. Well, today--today--West Virginia's average is up to $4.90 while the national average is $4.96.

Last week, the national average for a gallon of gas was more than $5--more than $5. Think about that. And, worse, these high gas prices hit our hardest working Americans the hardest. As Axios reported, ``Americans who earn less than $50,000 a year are currently spending . . . 10% of their credit card bills on gas, compared with 6% for those households earning . . . $125,000.''

These prices are not sustainable for the American families, especially when you consider not only gas, but with out-of-control inflation, they are battling gas, electricity, groceries, and other necessities.

As the New York Times reported, ``Prices climbed 8.6 percent in the year through May, a reacceleration of inflation that makes it increasingly difficult for consumers to afford everyday purchases.''

So people ask me: How did we get here? Unfortunately, we shouldn't be surprised, even if it is hard to imagine that things would get this bad. From the earliest days of his Presidential campaign, President Biden promised to be anti-American-energy. As President, his policies and personnel choices have delivered on his campaign promises, and high prices are just part of the bargain, as they would say.

The administration has canceled pipelines, rescinded previously issued approvals for other pipelines, and raised barriers to building new ones. They have frozen oil and gas leasing and proposed raising royalties--costs that are passed on to every consumer and, remember, those hardest working Americans who are now paying 10 percent of their income.

They are revising the NEPA process, which is the environmental review process, undoing the streamlining that was done during 2020 to speed up project delivery. That means faster pipelines, faster infrastructure development of all kinds. Biden's EPA has hammered small refineries, including the one in my State, by denying hardship relief that could immediately help lower fuel prices. And Biden's EPA has also recently announced a proposal under section 401 of the Clean Water Act to make it easier for activists to work to prevent infrastructure projects.

Then there is the regulation on the power sector. The EPA has publicly announced plans to slam the electricity sector--already the most regulated sector by EPA--with a fresh new slate of new requirements.

The damaging policies I have laid out today have led to the energy crisis and skyrocketing energy and electricity prices that we face today. These policies are going to continue to fan the flames of this crisis, making it worse and not better. As costs continue to climb and energy production gets more expensive--thanks to this regulatory assault--utility operators are already warning of blackouts this summer. Operators are under tremendous strain, thanks to the Biden administration's policies.

So what has the White House done to address this crisis? Well, I think GasBuddy petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan said it well:

White House begs all companies to improve situation. Can we drill? We'd rather you not. Can we build a refinery? We'd rather you not. Can we build a pipeline? We'd rather you not. Just make it better.

So it is no wonder that all of these mixed messages have industry and investors confused. I am confused. The American public is confused why nobody woke up to what was going on here--and the President in the White House. The administration made releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. What good did that do? It hasn't started to abate the steady rise in gas prices. They have pointed fingers at energy producers and refiners with claims of price-gouging. They have pointed fingers at Vladimir Putin, despite the fact that gas prices were steadily rising months before the invasion of Ukraine.

The White House is content to keep finger-pointing while refusing to take responsibility for their own actions. They know their actions are causing pain. They know, with these policies and pledges from our climate czar John Kerry to stop using our own American fuels, they are chilling investments that we need today. For example, who would make a billion-dollar, 40-year investment in the refining capacity we desperately need today when John Kerry promises that oil and gas investments will be ``stranded assets.''

Nothing the White House has promised will fix these kinds of issues. The President himself says energy producers should take immediate action to increase the supply of gas. Yet his advisers in the White House are counseling everyone otherwise. In effect and in the messages they send, this is going to make things worse.

This administration is fiercely determined to kill the oil and gas industry and baseload power sector in this country rule by rule, Executive action by Executive action. And the hard-working Americans are paying for it at the pump.

The American people are really smart. They see what is happening here. The Democrats want to layer on more regulations and legislation that will keep passing more and more costs on to those consumers, those hard-working Americans who are paying 10 percent monthly from their monthly earnings. All the while, the Biden administration is working as hard as it can to shutter coal and natural gas energy production and electricity.

Do you know what? Without a 180-degree turn on several actions I have laid out, we can expect costs to stay high and blackouts and brownouts to occur.

Americans deserve better. I am an optimist. Americans deserve better.

I ask the administration to reverse course on some of these policies I have outlined and to put the livelihoods and the quality of life of our constituents first.

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