-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I come to the floor today, along with my colleagues, because Americans are continuing to take a financial hit with more expensive, less reliable energy resulting from the Biden administration's harmful energy agenda.

In the middle of the summer travel season, drivers are paying record- high prices at the gas pump. Gas is now $4.63 a gallon nationwide and an average of $4.57 per gallon in my home State of North Dakota. Sky-high energy prices are fueling record inflation, driving up the cost of goods across the entire economy.

The current CPI rate came out this morning--9.1 percent--9.1 percent, the highest in over 40 years. And it hurts every single American--at the gas pump, at the grocery store, everything they buy. Unbelievable.

Of course, energy is a big part of that inflation. There is an energy component in every good and service that you get. Electricity prices have risen 13.7 percent. Natural gas and heating oil prices have ballooned by 38.4 percent and 98.5 percent, respectively, over the last year.

In addition to higher prices, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, or NERC, warned that homes and businesses across much of the country are facing higher risk of blackouts and brownouts this summer. President Biden's energy policies are threatening the economic well-being of Americans and our national security.

Just a few years ago, our country was producing almost 13 million barrels per day of oil and consumers benefited from historically low energy prices. Production has remained down under this administration at about 11\1/2\ million barrels of production per day. American families are paying record prices because the Biden administration is continuing its regulatory onslaught on domestic energy production.

President Biden's energy crisis began with the administration's moratorium on new energy leases, closing off access to our abundant taxpayer-owned energy reserves on Federal lands. And for leases that the energy companies have on Federal lands, they are being held up either by the administration's bureaucratic redtape that doesn't allow them to get drilling permits or held up by litigation in the courts. And this administration continues to hold up our ability to move more oil and gas across the country by blocking pipelines like the Keystone XL Pipeline. In 2015, I led a bipartisan effort in Congress to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. If the Obama-Biden administration hadn't vetoed our bill which passed both Houses of Congress, this pipeline would be operating today and bringing almost a million barrels of oil a day to our country from our closest friend and ally Canada.

We need to unleash more of our vast energy, our oil and natural gas reserves, all the energy that this Nation produces--our most critical, economic, and national security assets. And if we want to truly cut off the Russian war machine and support our allies, we need to cut off Putin's ability to sell Russian energy.

A good start would be by passing legislation like my American Energy Independence From Russia Act, bicameral legislation that I introduced with nine of my colleagues in the Senate. Our commonsense approach takes immediate action to encourage more U.S. energy production, including things like increasing access to taxpayer-owned energy reserves on Federal land, authorizing the construction and operation of the Keystone XL Pipeline--vital infrastructure to move energy safely around the country--and removing regulatory hurdles to increase liquefied natural gas facilities and exports.

Each additional barrel of oil we produce here at home replaces production from Russia and other adversaries, countries that also have little to no environmental standards. Each additional barrel we produce at home helps reduce prices and lower inflation for the American people.

Instead of asking Saudi Arabia for help--and as you know, the President is on a trip to do that right now--or going to places or asking for help from adversaries like Iran or for energy from Venezuela, President Biden should be empowering our domestic producers to restore and grow our supply of energy here at home.

The solution is simple. The Biden administration needs to take the handcuffs off domestic energy production because more supply is needed to bring down prices. That is just common sense, and the American people know it. The American people need that relief now.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source