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Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, first I would like to associate myself with the remarks from the distinguished senior Senator from North Dakota who spoke so well about the issues that are facing the American people, both in terms of inflation and in terms of energy.

So I join my colleagues today on the floor to talk about this crisis that we are facing under the Presidency of Joe Biden and the Democrats in this body.

We found out this morning that inflation hit another record high, a 40-year high, and we are now entering a summer of suffering by the American people, suffering brought on by the Democrats and their reckless spending and policies.

The inflation numbers themselves are shocking. The impact on families is so, so disturbing. In my home State of Wyoming, the people that normally volunteer to drive meals to shut-ins on Meals on Wheels--who run some of those rural routes and drive around and drop off meals-- these are volunteers with time on their hands, senior citizens who do the driving. They are no longer able to do it because they cannot afford the gas under Joe Biden and the Democratic policies.

The day Joe Biden came into office, gas was $2.38 per gallon--plenty of volunteers paying their own gas. Today, the price has almost doubled what it was when Joe Biden came into office.

That is what the American people are seeing: pain at the pump and pain at the grocery store. And the numbers are disturbing, and people are falling further and further behind. Inflation is up 9 percent, but wages are only up 5 percent, so that gap is growing and people are hurting.

It doesn't seem the President even understands it or can conceive of it, but that is who we have representing the people in the White House today.

Over the last 4 months, working families have paid the highest gas prices in American history. The price of natural gas has also tripled since the day Joe Biden took office. In total, the average American family paid an additional $1,000 last year just for energy compared to the year before, and this year it is going to be a lot worse.

Now, it is the summer. Most Americans are facing the real possibility of blackouts. Two-thirds of Americans are likely to face energy blackouts. That is not me saying it; it is the energy specialists who analyze where the energy is coming from, how much is needed, and where it is going.

During a summer heat wave, blackouts threaten people's lives. To the climate purists and elitists and extremists who are running the administration, they don't seem to care. So why is it happening? America still has plenty of energy--the best energy in the world--and the most. We have some of the largest energy reserves anywhere. States like Wyoming, where I am from, are sitting on a gold mine of energy. The Biden energy crisis is a direct result of the administration's energy policies.

From the day Joe Biden took office, he has waged an all-out war on American energy. He killed the Keystone XL Pipeline--actually bragged about the fact that he did that on his first day in office. He stopped the exploration of oil in Alaska and bragged about it. It wasn't something he was trying to hide. No, he bragged about the fact that he was going to war with America. American energy was in his targets.

Joe Biden has raised the cost to produce energy on Federal land by 50 percent. This is the largest increase in what they call the royalty rate in 100 years--100 years. Does Joe Biden understand that? Does he know that? Does he care that people are suffering all around the country? No wonder we are still producing 1.1 million fewer barrels of oil today than we were at the beginning of the pandemic.

Joe Biden refuses to do the things that would work. He refuses to produce more American energy.

What did the administration say about it? What did the economists say? This is the cost of the liberal world order. This is the price we have to pay for the liberal world order. That is the White House's statement. I don't even know people who talk that way anymore, but that is what we got coming out of this White House and this President who today, at this very moment, is heading to Saudi Arabia to beg for oil when we have it right here. It is more than disturbing. It is disgraceful. That is what we have with the President of the United States today.

So now what is happening? Joe Biden throwing another Hail Mary pass, hoping something will happen. His Hail Mary passes are uncatchable.

Since November, Joe Biden has released more oil from our strategic reserve than any President in American history. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is designed to be there for emergencies. He is releasing it because he is trying to bring down the cost of oil and the cost of gas. And he caused the problem. It is not an emergency. This was a Joe Biden-caused problem. Previous Presidents only used the Strategic Reserve during wartime or after natural disasters. But Joe Biden is spending down our savings to pay for his anti-American energy policy. He seems to be proud of it. Well, gas prices are still near record highs.

Let's recount: the day Joe Biden came into the White House, $2.38 a gallon; today, in many places, over $5 a gallon and on average, $4.60 a gallon. And the peak summer driving season isn't even here yet.

Today, the Strategic Reserve is at the lowest level since 1986. So what if there is a real emergency? Then what do we do? This last week, we found out that some of this energy, the oil he has reserved--a million barrels of oil--went to an energy company owned by the Chinese Government. Thank you, Mr. President. Surrender to China. Give it to them. Joe Biden is sending our oil to China in the middle of an energy crisis that he created.

So, on Monday, Joe Biden's National Security Advisor practically admitted that Joe Biden is going to beg the Saudis to sell us more oil. He left for Saudi Arabia last night, and he is going as a weakened President.

He wrote an editorial in the Washington Post about why he was going. I will tell you how he is going: He is going as a weakened President, weakened at home and weakened in the eyes of the world.

Rather than send oil to China and money to the Saudis, let us use the energy we have right here in the United States in the ground, where we do it in the finest environmental ways compared to the rest of the world and we have the energy workers who know how to do it.

What is he thinking?

At the same time, astonishingly, Joe Biden decided to spend the time around the Fourth of July tweeting threats to gas stations. For the moms and pops who are running little gas stations in our communities and our neighborhoods, this is basic economic illiteracy. Prices aren't set by the local gas stations; prices are set by supply and demand. If you want low prices, you need more supply, more American energy.

The prices may have ticked back a little bit now because people cannot afford to drive. They can't afford to fill their tanks. They cannot afford to fill their tanks.

I was at a gas station the other day in Casper, WY, and I talked to a couple.

One of them said: I have $100. That is as far as I can go. I can only fill it with $100 worth. I can't fill the tank. I will see how much gas I get.

What have we come to?

Joe Biden brags about killing the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have brought over 800,000 barrels of oil a day to the United States. He killed it on day 1 in office and bragged about it.

The Democrats in the Senate are now proposing to make the Biden energy crisis even worse. Senate Democrats in this very body, in this very room, are talking about raising taxes on energy production. This is going to raise energy prices for half of the households in America. It will raise prices for thousands and thousands of businesses. Higher prices will get passed on to customers.

If Democrats pass another reckless tax-and-spending bill--and it looks like they are all lined up to do it, save one or two--inflation is going to get much worse, and working families will be paying more. If I were one of those Democratic Senators and were on the ballot this November, I would be shaking in my boots, knowing that the people of my State are mad at me for adopting policies that are hurting them directly in their wallets.

What they are talking about is $300 billion for more of the old Green New Deal. It is going to give more power to the climate alarmists, to the climate elitists, and to the climate extremists, who run the Democratic Party and are running it into the ground. The professional climate activists will never be satisfied. The activists will never stop. You can never go far enough for them. They weren't satisfied a year ago when they started this inflation crisis, and with the liberal world order, they will never be satisfied. The professional activists want energy prices to remain high. They are happy with $5 gas. They want to punish us for using fossil fuels.

Joe Biden's advisers keep telling us about this incredible transition. They call it an incredible transition. Well, ask people around the country and in your home State. It has been a transition to a crisis: a transition to higher prices, a transition to a lower quality of life, to pain at the pump, and to pain at the grocery store. It has been a transition to stress for working people and families who feel stuck and squeezed. If Democrats don't change their energy policies, there is going to be an incredible transition. It is going to be a transition of power right here in Washington this November.

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