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Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Madam President, thank you for the opportunity to address you and my colleagues here on the Senate floor this afternoon.

While Kansans are dealing, Americans are dealing every day with skyrocketing gas prices, record-high inflation, and supply chain shortages, President Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia to make a plea for greater oil production availability. What he should be doing is asking Americans and giving them the opportunity to unleash the potential of our own ability to supply oil. We have seen days and we enjoyed the days in which America was generally energy independent, and it would be a wonderful day to return to.

My State of Kansas is an energy-producing State, and we could help increase supply and cut costs at the pump, but instead President Biden chooses our foreign adversaries for assistance. Kansas ranks 11th in oil production and 14th in the production of natural gas. Kansas is also the ninth largest ethanol-producing State. That industry supports over 115,000 oil and gas jobs in Kansas.

Our producers and our refiners stand ready to meet the growing demand for American energy. But since the first day in office and really before assuming office, the President has sought to constrain the oil and gas sectors' access to capital. I don't know how many times in the Banking Committee we were dealing with this issue of whether or not a regulator could regulate financial institutions, with the goal of eliminating their ability to finance oil and gas production.

In addition to trying to limit access to capital, he blocked construction of pipelines and has proposed burdensome new regulations on oil and gas producers.

My guess is that this is done for the purposes of reducing the use of fossil fuels, the environment-climate agenda. But it is so hypocritical for us, as Americans, for President Biden to be asking others who produce oil to increase their production. If it is about the environment and about climate, you wouldn't ask anybody to increase their production. And I have no doubt that here in the United States, we do it right as far as refining oil and gas into other products in a way that is the most environmentally sound way of doing it compared to places like Venezuela, Libya, where the President also asked that they increase their production for the benefit of American consumers.

The thing to do for us to increase our energy production and reduce the price at the pump--and we talk about prices at the pump so easily. The cost of oil and natural gas has a consequence on things way beyond the price at the pump. It is not just about gasoline. Natural gas, for example, is used in the production of fertilizer for our farmers who struggle today, with the cost of production being astronomically higher than it was before, but almost every product that we buy that is more expensive today than it was previously has an oil and gas component to it.

The request by President Biden to reach out to our adversaries for oil on the world stage, appealing to our adversaries for increased production, not only singles out our weakness but is also unnecessary. The United States has the resources, the expertise, and the domestic demand to be an energy-independent nation, and Kansas has the opportunity to be a participant in that, with additional jobs and a better America.

We should see the impending energy crisis in Europe as a case study for why domestic energy production ought to be supported to the fullest extent in the United States. Additionally, our dependence upon energy from someplace else has huge consequences in our foreign relations, our military preparedness, and our national security.

A far more enduring solution than wandering around the world with a tin cup out--far more stable and affordable energy prices to fill our vehicles, power our homes, or to operate our farms--is for the President to support an all-out, ``all of the above'' domestic energy strategy. This includes investments in new and existing energy infrastructure like refineries; expanding oil, biofuels, and ethanol production; and new EV manufacturing--incidentally, although certainly not an incidental thing, like the $4 billion Panasonic EV manufacturing plant we announced last week for Kansas. We ought to be interested, again, in solar and wind energy. Kansas is the third highest producer of wind energy, wind power, in the United States.

The Biden administration must--I asked them to shift course and promote an ``all of the above'' strategy that produces more U.S. energy from all sources. It benefits America; it benefits the world; and it especially benefits the consumers who are hurting so much at the grocery store and the gas pump and utility bills.

We need to weaken our reliance on foreign adversaries, and we need to increase the production of energy in the United States.

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