Strategic Production Response Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and for the great job she is doing as chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee to bring forward important bills that will increase America's national security and energy security.

There is absolutely no reason that we have to be reliant on foreign countries for our energy. We have actually got the energy here in America.

In fact, for those people that are concerned about carbon emissions, for all those carbon footprint warriors that got on their private jets and flew to Davos last week to lecture the rest of the world about not using fossil fuels--they didn't take commercial flights. They had to take their private charters, not with solar panels on the wings of those airplanes, using jet fuel.

They lecture the whole world about getting rid of fossil fuels in America, not in other countries.

You saw President Biden himself get on Air Force One and fly to Saudi and beg Saudi princes to produce more energy as he is shutting down production in America, limiting leases, limiting pipelines, killing Keystone and other pipelines, limiting the ability to get permits to do basic exploration in America.

He is green-lighting pipelines in Russia, green-lighting pipelines and drilling in other places, urging and begging drilling in other places.

By the way, if you are concerned about the carbon footprint, no country in the world that produces energy does it better than America. We should want to be doing more in America.

As production goes up and goes down based on good or bad policies, as we are seeing today with bad policies, the Nation back in the 1970s said that we are going to have a Strategic Petroleum Reserve--in essence, an American piggy bank to protect our country in case there is some major disruption in world markets, in energy production in America.

Maybe there is a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico that limits our ability to produce energy for a brief period of time. That is why we have a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It is not there to go mask your bad policies.

Yet, that is what we have seen from this President. As you can see, this President has raided more than 40 percent of America's strategic reserve; our piggy bank. He has just taken it away. In some cases, he actually sold that oil to China.

We came together last week, Republicans and Democrats. The press actually said it was going to be a partisan exercise, so why even waste the time. What they found out is not only did a Republican say it is wrong to raid our piggy bank in America and sell it to China, a majority of Democrats actually agreed with us and sent that bill to the Senate.

I urge the Senate to take up that bill that is important to America's national security.

But then, today we go even further and say, Mr. President, with this bill, H.R. 21, if you are going to raid our reserves, won't you at least put forward a plan to show how you will replace it.

Don't worry. I know the White House gets nervous when you tell them that you have got to produce energy in America. They don't have a problem, again, with foreign countries producing energy. They just don't want it made in America. They use the tagline a lot. You hear it all the time, made in America; except when it comes to making energy, they don't want to make it in America. They make it harder to make it in America. They beg foreign countries to make our energy.

This bill says--gives an exemption--except in the case of a severe energy supply interruption. So the President's still got the ability, if there is some actual emergency, to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve the way it was intended in the 1970s.

All this bill says is if your bad policy is leading to higher gas prices--and people are getting angry about that, as they should--you can't go and raid it unless you show a plan, as the bill says, the development of a plan to increase oil and gas production under oil and gas leases of Federal lands here.

So this would make a lot of sense, except if you are at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In fact, yesterday, the President actually issued a veto threat on this bill. Now, a veto threat should be a rare exercise that you reserve for policy that might hurt the country.

Well, let's read why the President issued the veto threat. In his veto threat he said, the administration's use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been essential to protecting our energy security and to lowering gas prices for Americans.

I hope I am not the one that breaks this news to the White House, but Mr. President, your policies have not lowered gas prices for Americans. Maybe the calculator is broken at the White House, but we did the math.

Let's do some fact-checking. Since Joe Biden took the oath of office, gas prices have not lowered; they have increased 50 percent.

Then the veto threat says, we don't want to do this because our policies have lowered gas prices. Maybe the President, when he realizes that gas prices have gone up 50 percent--they have not lowered for families--he might reverse the veto threat. So we will wait during this debate.

Maybe we will get a reversal of this veto threat once he realizes that gas prices have actually gone up, not a little, but a lot, 50 percent increase for a low-income family who is struggling already under the weight of President Biden's spending that has led to inflation and higher prices everywhere you go, the grocery store, supply chain increases.

This is crushing middle-class families. It is crushing lower-income families. So what we say is, let's just use our resources.

The President actually goes on to say--and this might be the most perplexing part of the President's veto threat; probably explains the most why the President is so misguided on energy policy.

He says, because H.R. 21 will jeopardize our energy security and increase gas prices for working families, the administration strongly opposes the bill.

So, somehow, some of the energy experts at the White House, again, some of the same people that fly around on private planes to Davos telling you not to use fossil fuels, they think that by increasing American energy production that will somehow raise gas prices.

Well, guess what? We have checked the record. These are the same experts whose policies have increased gas prices, not a little, 50 percent. So the White House has been wrong on this issue over and over again, to the point where we had such a strong bipartisan vote last week.

Let's put up another strong bipartisan vote and maybe wake the people up at the White House as to what is happening in the real world. When families who are struggling go to fill up their gas tanks, they are not paying less, as the President suggests.

Again, the President actually thinks, in his veto threat, that his policies have lowered gas prices. A 50 percent increase is not a lower gas price. It is actually a kick to the gut of those families who are struggling; and we have got to stop having Washington kick them in the gut.

So if you look at the moniker right above the Speaker's rostrum, there is a plaque that says, let us develop the natural resources of our land.

Why don't we actually do that? Why don't we actually do what has proven to work over and over again?

If we open up American energy, it is the cleanest in the world. Don't beg foreign dictators to do it. They don't do it as clean as us, by the way; and it also lowers prices. It also creates good American jobs.

Let's actually make it in America again and, if you are going to raid the piggy bank, at minimum, show the country your plan for how you plan to replace it. That is the least this President should do.

Let's pass this bill with a strong vote over to the Senate and then get this on the President's desk, and maybe he will reconsider and recognize just what his policies have done to hurt families over these last 2 years.

Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of H.R. 21.

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