Providing for Consideration of S. Joint Consolidation Loan Separation Act; and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Madam Speaker, it is actually pretty nice in North Dakota right now, but we are on our way to winter.

Saying gas prices have lowered 91 days in a row is a whole lot like giving a medal to an arsonist for helping put out a fire he started. Gas prices are not lower than when President Biden took office, and other energy prices are continuing to rise.

And I want to see the report that says inflation has gone down because I have seen it has gone up in the most recent numbers to 8.3 percent. I think there was very great dueling chryons going on as we are celebrating an Inflation Reduction Act that does nothing to reduce inflation while the stock market is tanking, and we get a new report that inflation is actually going up.

But I would urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so we can consider commonsense policy that would reverse the decision by 220 Democrats in this Chamber to tax American energy producers and raise prices on consumers.

Democrats frame their price-increasing $1,500 methane tax as a way to reduce emissions, but the small and medium oil and gas companies in States like mine were already taking steps to reduce pollution in an economically viable way. These small and medium companies are the ones that drive energy production, particularly in North Dakota, and are going to be double-regulated from the wellhead to the market.

The structure of the methane program is unwieldy; it is burdensome, and it will only serve to increase prices for consumers. And we have seen just that.

In New York, a typical customer's electric bill is expected to increase by 29 percent from last year--29 percent.

Ratepayers in New Hampshire saw the price of electricity double over the summer.

With one in six families falling behind on their utility bills, and winter right around the corner, the last thing we need are policies that make it more expensive to produce energy in the United States. We need to take the handcuffs off domestic producers and deliver affordable, clean, and reliable energy.

In any rational place in the world, California's energy policies, where they are demanding electric vehicles by 2035 and, 2 days later, ask people to not charge their electric vehicles, and the energy policies of our allies in Germany and other countries in Europe that are seeing the highest utility rates of any civilized country in the world should be a big, red blinking stop sign.

But we are not in a rational world. We are in Washington, D.C., and instead of taking the time to reflect and take reasonable steps to ensure that our country doesn't go down the same path as these other places, we double down on policies that will not work, and they have the added benefit of not actually doing anything to clean up the environment.

Madam Speaker, I urge everyone to defeat the previous question so we can go back and deal with an energy policy that is based on reality and not ideology.

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