Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. VALADAO. Mr. Chair, I request support from my colleagues on a very simple amendment.

This amendment would prohibit the Department of Energy from sending America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China. Supporting this language is common sense, especially since we need to focus on increasing energy production and not supporting our adversaries while Americans are still suffering from outrageously high fuel prices here at home.

These reserves are meant to be used for emergencies only. They are not meant to be used when our leadership has failed us by unnecessarily restricting domestic energy production.

What is even more concerning is that under the Biden administration, our Strategic Petroleum Reserve supplies have been severely diminished. It does not make sense that we are using our already depleted energy supplies to help China build up their own strategic reserves.

It is irresponsible and dangerous for the United States to provide our foreign adversary with fuel that we desperately need to keep here in the United States in case of an emergency. It seems the Biden administration is helping to support China's national security at the expense of our own.

It has been suggested that selling resources from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will help reduce fuel prices here at home. That is simply not true.

What we should be doing instead is supporting our energy producers here in the United States. We have abundant resources here that can and should be used. We are deliberately holding our country back by overregulating and stifling our domestic energy producers. The very last thing we should be doing is sending our precious resources from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China. I urge all of my colleagues to support the United States national security by supporting this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record the text of this amendment.

At the end of division C (before the short title), insert the following:

Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to draw down and sell petroleum products from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to any entity that does not certify to the Secretary of Energy that--

(1) it is not under the ownership, control, or influence of the Chinese Communist Party; and

(2) such petroleum products will not be exported to the People's Republic of China.

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Mr. VALADAO. Mr. Chair, thank you for allowing me this time to talk about the importance of the three amendments I submitted to this bill that, unfortunately, we won't be voting on today.

The severe drought throughout the American West has been negatively impacting my constituents and local community for years.

In the Central Valley, our farmers have had to turn to pumping groundwater to protect their high-value crops. Towns have been forced to pump more and more groundwater to meet their communities' needs. As a result, these communities have experienced land subsidence at the expense of critical water infrastructure.

In the worst cases, farmers are forced to fallow their fields and dry out valuable orchards due to access to little or no water.

My constituents are farmers who feed the world, and with record-high food prices, the inability for our domestic farmers to grow food is going to impact the entire country. The situation is dire and only getting worse.

We can't produce more water, but we can work with the water we already have and apply commonsense solutions to make this water available to our agricultural communities.

My first amendment would have addressed water storage capacity issues by extending the storage provision of subtitle J of the WIIN Act. It would have also created a program to assist in funding the repairs to damaged canal facilities.

Unless these canals are completely restored, the issue of subsidence and resulting unnecessary water loss will continue and conditions will worsen.

My second amendment would codify the 2019 biological opinions that were independently peer-reviewed and informed by the most accurate and best-available science.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration's Bureau of Reclamation has ignored science and reinitiated consultation with the BiOps with no explanation. Codifying the 2019 BiOps would put an end to senseless litigation and provide operational certainty for Valley farmers.

My third amendment was one focused on transparency and would direct the Bureau of Reclamation to provide the Committee on Appropriations with a justification on their decision to reinitiate consultation of 2019 biological opinions. We need to stop playing politics with a resource that the Central Valley is so reliant on.

It is extremely disappointing that the majority rejected each one of these amendments that would bring more water to the communities throughout the Central Valley who are doing everything they possibly can to survive these conditions and provide food for our Nation.

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