Strategic Production Response Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Chair, American gas prices are too high. The pressure is on this Congress to do something about it. President Biden has done something about it by releasing oil at a strategic time from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and gas prices are down from their peak.

But Americans want more. They want real action, and instead, they get what is nothing more than a 2-day fraud on this House floor: a bill that would do absolutely nothing to reduce oil prices or gas prices.

Yet, by spending 2 days on the floor and by making this the bill of the week, we fool the American people into thinking that Congress is doing something.

Now, how utterly meaningless is this bill?

It would do nothing to increase oil production in the United States for it calls only for a plan to be created but not necessarily implemented. It implies that it would do something to increase oil production but not for well more than a year after the crisis began any spike in oil prices. Finally, even if more oil is produced in the United States, it will be exported and will lower the world price perhaps by a penny.

This is a messaging bill. Its message is to attack President Biden, who is the only one who has actually done something to reduce oil prices.

So let's look at what this bill does. It calls for a plan. If the administration wants to give us a plan, then give us a plan. Washington is filled with plans. The American Petroleum Institute has a plan. Everybody has a plan. So we draft another plan.

What does that do?

Now, it forces the administration to write a plan about leasing more land for oil drilling. They are free to list parcels where everybody knows there is no oil and nobody wants to bid. If they don't want to do a plan, then that is the plan they will give us.

But let's say they give us the plan that the majority seems to want. They can write the plan, accompany it with a letter explaining that they think it won't reduce oil prices and that it is bad for the environment, and therefore they are not going to implement it. So now we have a plan that is similar to what they want and a letter saying why it won't be implemented.

This is what we offer the American people?

If we are going to have a bill that requires a plan, then we ought to adopt this amendment that offers the administration a chance to create a different kind of plan, a plan to prohibit or limit exports.

The illustration of how important this is can be seen just north of our border. Canada produces twice as much oil as they consume, and their consumers are paying $2 a gallon more than we are paying. So producing more oil inside your country doesn't seem to lower oil prices for those living to the north of the United States.

Why?

Because the oil is simply exported at the world price. Now, that guarantees--if we actually produced more oil in the United States and exported it--more profits for oil companies but not a penny of reduction at the pump.

If instead we had a plan to limit or prohibit exports, then we would lower certainly the price of natural gas, and I believe that under many circumstances we would reduce the price of oil and gasoline paid for by the American people.

So the majority comes to this floor with a bill requiring a plan to be added to the hundreds of existing plans that already exist that requires the administration to create a plan that the majority tells us the administration doesn't want to create, allows the administration to create a plan that they wouldn't like, allows the administration to create a plan that they would like and then refuse to implement it, and then tells the American people that they are doing something to lower the price of gasoline now.

Let's point out that we are going to produce more oil in this country in 2023 than any other year in our history. So this is a message bill that is sending a false message. We are going to produce more oil in 2023 than any other year. But even if we did lease more land, and even if they did drill on it, that is a response that might affect us in 2025.

Why don't we have something that will lower gas prices now?

So if we want to engage in this process of telling the American people that we are doing something or that we would do something but it is the other party's fault, then for God's sakes, bring forward a bill that if enacted--which, of course, won't happen--but if enacted, that would actually do something. This bill will not increase oil production in the United States, and oil production in the United States, if exported, will do nothing to help the American consumer.

Mr. Chairman, vote for my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source