Protecting America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve From China Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and my dear friend, for yielding and for bringing this legislation, H.R. 22, to the floor. It is such an important piece of legislation to start standing up for America's national security.

If you think about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, just think of the first word in that name, ``strategic.'' It is there for America's national security.

First of all, raiding SPR, as it is referred to, President Biden has done over and over again, depleting 40 percent of our national security strategic reserve, not to move world oil prices.

As you can see, Mr. Speaker, multiple times, starting in November 2021, President Biden has raided SPR because he has attacked American energy. As he attacked American energy, starting on his first day in office, the price of oil and gasoline at the pump subsequently has risen dramatically, crushing middle-class families. So, he started feeling the heat.

His answer should have been to reverse the failed policies that are dramatically increasing gas prices by crushing American energy. That is not what President Biden did because the extremists on the left don't want that. They won't allow him to do it.

Then, he turned to SPR, and he said, well, maybe we can just try to trick the American people by raiding SPR. So, he did. When he raided it, what happened? You got a sugar high for about a week, and, boom, the price started going back up again because the world markets recognized President Biden has taken American energy off the market.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, we are the only country in the world that can produce massive quantities of oil that is a free-market country. The rest of the countries that have an abundant supply are cartels: OPEC, Russia, Iran, Venezuela. They want a high price. The only check- and-balance to high prices of oil is a free-market, producing America.

By the way, if you want to hide behind the Green New Deal and global warming and whatever other names they attach to it, climate change-- they change the name every couple of years because the American people figure out that all it is is an attack on American energy.

The price keeps going up because we are shutting off the cleanest producing country in the world.

Do you want to lower carbon emissions in the world? Produce more oil in America. It is not just about creating more jobs. It is not just about our national security, Mr. Speaker. It is about actually reducing global emissions.

This bill addresses President Biden selling our strategic reserves to China. China is building about a new coal plant every week, dramatically increasing carbon emissions, while President Biden shuts down American manufacturing and production, shuts down oil, which, by the way, we were reducing emissions during those times when we were producing energy.

Over and over again, raided SPR, raided SPR, raided SPR. The price kept going up. What went down is America's national security. That is what we are getting to the heart of here, 40 percent of our reserves.

We have two different ways to get energy. We can actually produce it. As the moniker right above the Speaker's rostrum says, let us develop our natural resources. We have natural resources. We have the best technology in the world. We can produce it cleaner than anybody else in the world. As long as we are producing energy, it actually can lower the cost.

We don't just produce enough for ourselves because, by the way, if we weren't allowed to export energy, then you would see a decrease in production. You would see a decrease in exploration. It is like a farmer. If a farmer can only produce and sell in America, they are going to plant a lot less because they can't have access to world markets.

You want to have access to world markets, but you want to also have a reserve in case--not in case you have a failed policy, as is what we are seeing with President Biden. You want to reserve in case there is a natural disaster. If a hurricane hits the Gulf of Mexico, as we have seen, it actually spikes the price, so you have a brief disruption, and you want a reserve to fill that need. If you have some kind of national security emergency, like they did in the 1970s--by the way, that is when SPR was created.

That is when we created this reserve for our country, when cartels controlled world oil markets, because we didn't have the technology to access like we do today. We didn't have fracking technology. We didn't have the ability to go 5,000 feet in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico to find billion-barrel reserves like we do today.

The cartels controlled everything. There were lines at the pump. You had to have an even-numbered license plate to get gasoline on a certain day. That was the 1970s. So, Congress created SPR for our national security.

I understand a little history lesson might help people recognize how we got here. It is not by accident that we got here. We should want, as Congress, to be able to work together to fix this problem, to address the fact that prices have gone up not just for gasoline at the pump but also when people are heating their homes in a cold winter. The price shouldn't be that high.

By the way, we were also, by exporting energy, helping our friends around the world so we don't have to be dependent on oil or natural gas from other places.

As was the case in the buildup to Afghanistan, Putin was making about $700 million a day, Mr. Speaker, selling his oil to America and Europe because President Biden shut off the American supply. No reason that should have happened, but that is what got us here.

What can get us out? First, let me remind you what else got us here because they are trying to blame everybody else under the Sun. It is Putin's fault. It is the oil companies' fault. It is the weather's fault.

It is President Biden's fault. Day one, he started mountains of rules and regulations. These aren't laws passed by Congress, by the way. These are rules and regulations that have come out of the Biden administration just in the last 2 years attacking American energy, not foreign countries. President Biden was okay with pipelines from Russia to Europe, but he said ``no'' on day one to a pipeline from Canada to America.

All of these actions had a cost. The cost is dramatic prices at the pump for hardworking families, crushing the lowest income families amongst us.

What agencies, by the way, are represented here? The Department of Energy went after American energy, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Securities and Exchange Commission, through woke policies, went after American energy. The Department of Agriculture, yes, went after American energy in these rules and regs. The Council on Environmental Quality, the Department of State--that gets to the Keystone pipeline. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice, and, yes, the Department of the Interior all represented right here in rules and regulations that crushed American energy, making us more dependent on foreign countries and leading to President Biden raiding our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 40 percent, making our country less safe.

This foolishness has to end. We can solve this problem.

Now, Mrs. McMorris Rodgers in her committee, they actually have real ideas about how to solve this problem. The good news is, Mr. Speaker, under this majority we are going to be bringing bills through committee to the floor to fix this problem.

Now, on the other side today you hear them talking about this magic bill. They have got a bill. Boy, if we just killed this bill--because they want to keep selling our strategic reserves to China; 950,000 barrels already that President Biden has sold to China--they have some magic answer.

My question would be: Where was that magic answer 2 years ago, 2 months ago, 2 weeks ago when they were in the majority?

They had the House, Senate, and White House, and, I guess, in the last 2 weeks they finally figured out the answer because they surely didn't pass that to the President 2 weeks ago, 2 months ago, or 2 years ago.

What they did do is they brought mountains and mountains of regulations to crush American energy. Then Biden gets on a plane called Air Force One. We have checked it, there are no solar panels on the wings of Air Force One. It actually uses jet fuel.

He flies to Saudi Arabia and begs Saudi princes to produce more energy because he shut down America's energy production. No leases, no pipelines, no permits. He has done all those things, and it led to higher prices. He didn't have to get on Air Force One and fly thousands of miles back and forth.

Who knows what the carbon footprint of that is?

I would love to see the press dig into that because they love talking about carbon footprints for other things.

He didn't have to get on Air Force One at all. He could have picked up the phone and called Port Fourchon in Louisiana and said: Will you produce more energy in America? It is cleaner, more efficient, and there are better jobs than anywhere else in the world. He didn't do that.

It is time we get smart policies. It is time we have some common sense in our energy policy, so we stop crushing those middle-class families.

To sell our oil to China?

Not just our oil, our reserves. This is our piggy bank in case there is a disaster. He has depleted 40 percent of it, and he keeps reducing it to mask his failed policies.

Let's get the policy right and start fighting for those hardworking families who are suffering because of this.

Let's pass this legislation. Let's keep going to work for those families.

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