Strategic Production Response Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SOTO. Mr. Chairman, I am amazed to see, for hours, Republicans arguing against President Biden lowering gas prices. That is simply fascinating to me.
President Biden was well within his authority and the law he utilized to draw down oil from our strategic reserve. The law is there to help prevent disruption.
There is a war in Ukraine. We rightfully banned Russian oil together. That is a disruption, and President Biden acted.
Maybe you all didn't like that, but he acted. That resulted in savings for American families of $1.69 per gallon since the peak price. So what are you all talking about?
Now, compare President Trump, who used the strategic reserve to help pay for the GOP tax scam for the rich.
So let me get this straight. Republicans think saving American families on gas during a war in Europe is wrong, but financing tax cuts for fat cat billionaires is okay. That makes no sense.
Even more incredible, President Biden sold the oil on an open market, at a high price, and then he replenished it at a lower price, earning $4 billion in profit for American taxpayers. You cannot make this up.
Then my colleagues across the aisle--how do you like them apples, huh?
Another thing, oil companies already hold leases on 12.6 million acres of public lands already, and they are using just about half of them.
So you can spend hours talking about how you oppose Biden's successful effort to prevent a disruption in a time of war in Europe that we are helping to support to lower gas prices for the American people.
I stand with the President on this, and so do millions of Americans.
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Mr. SOTO. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 44.
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Mr. SOTO. Mr. Chairman, this amendment ensures that this bill, H.R. 21, will not go into effect until the Department of Energy can certify that gas prices won't increase as it develops a plan to expand oil and gas drilling on Federal lands by the same percentage that it releases oil from the SPR.
Essentially, if we are going to get more or equal savings from using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve then we would not be expanding drilling on public lands and sell off more lands needlessly.
In addition, I know I spoke before about some of the issues we had with the underlying legislation, but I did want to bring a few more facts to bear.
When President Trump and the Republicans financed the GOP tax scam for the rich with similar strategic oil reserves, some of that gas was bought by China, by the way. You don't hear about that much, but under President Trump and under President Biden, we saw China buy some of this gas because it was sold to the overall market.
Now, we came together, Mr. Chairman, in a bipartisan fashion to limit that. You don't hear a lot in the debate today that Trump sold gas to China or that Trump sold oil to China as so much is talked about President Biden.
Fact number two is President Trump had used the strategic reserve when the Saudis and their refineries were attacked. Again, disruption, just like we see with us banning Russian oil in a bipartisan fashion and just like we see with the oil reserve.
There is a lot of amnesia here in the Chamber about the historic use under two administrations to try to steady out the price of gas for everyday Americans.
Lastly, we opposed for many years eliminating the ability to export America's gas and oil abroad. There was a bipartisan deal a few years ago where we got the ability to continue the tax credits for solar and wind and other renewables, and the Republicans asked us to include an elimination of this ban on exporting fuel abroad. That is a big part of how this all happened, and that is certainly not an America First policy when we hear so much about the debate on the amount of gas and the price of gas here.
I will end where I began, which is President Biden helped lower gas prices, and now we are hearing a multihour debate about how they oppose that.
I certainly stand with the President, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SOTO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
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