Lower Energy Costs Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. STAUBER. Madam Chair, I rise today in opposition to the amendment.
Madam Chair, the whole purpose of passing H.R. 1 is to make it easier to build and move America forward.
Lease awardees, under current law, are subject to extensive delays if the lease sale is protested. These delays could take weeks, months, or even years.
Meanwhile, the prices at the gas pump continue to skyrocket while we have acres of land ready to be put into production.
The current situation makes very little sense. Allowing for practically unfettered protests to lease sales with no timeline is a de facto ban on development--except this way, the administration doesn't have to admit that they actually are trying to ban American energy. It just takes a wink and a nod to the radical, wealthy, activist lawyer class that exists only to ``keep it in the ground.''
Working together, Interior and their friends in the protest class just drag it out, protest after protest, while American workers and families struggle to afford their daily commute.
Section 20103 of H.R. 1 resolves this problem by putting in place a commonsense timeframe that concludes 60 days after the awardee makes the payment.
Striking this section, as my colleague's amendment does, is just another attempt at slowing down any sort of oil and gas development. I urge opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. STAUBER. Madam Chair, I rise today in support of the amendment.
Madam Chair, in recent years, there has been a concerning trend of the Chinese Communist Party purchasing farmland right here in America, including land used for farming, forestry, and other energy production.
In fact, the CCP just tried to purchase almost 400 acres of land right outside of Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, creating a clear and present danger to our national security.
Not only does this jeopardize our national security, but takes valuable land away from our American farmers who toil day in and day out to grow crops used to feed America and provide liquid fuel options for transportation.
As a proud recipient of the Friends of the Farm Bureau award and a member of the Congressional Biofuels Caucus, I hear firsthand from our farming communities of the very real fears about the Chinese-purchased land.
If COVID taught us anything, it is that we cannot depend on adversarial nations for our supply chains, much less let them increase their hold and influence over our land.
Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for offering his amendment, and I urge its support.
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Mr. STAUBER. Madam Chair, I rise in strong support of this amendment, which creates a national strategy for America to reshore our mineral supply chains.
Madam Chair, I want to just reiterate what the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee just said. Yesterday, the Secretary of the Interior of this Nation, who is in charge of millions of acres of Federal land, when asked on a mineral withdrawal in the biggest cooper- nickel find in the world, in northeastern Minnesota, called the Duluth Complex--which has 95 percent of this Nation's nickel reserve, almost 90 percent of the cobalt reserve, 75 percent of the platinum root metals, and a third of our copper--when the Secretary of the Interior yesterday was asked if there is critical minerals in that find, this is her answer: I don't know what kind of minerals were there. I don't think there were critical minerals.
The Secretary of the Interior has no idea that cobalt and nickel are part of the critical minerals, of the 37 critical minerals identified by the Department of Energy. This is her response.
We need a national strategy to reshore these minerals. I want to reiterate: This is offensive to my constituents who are ready and able to mine these critical minerals to secure our supply chain for this Nation. We have to secure our supply chain. We have to hold the dependency of this great Nation in the palm of our own hand, doing it with the best environmental standards and the best labor standards.
We can't allow China to dominate in our critical minerals with zero environmental standards and zero labor standards. The Communist country of China owns 15 of the 19 industrial mines in the Congo that use child slave labor, and this administration just entered into a memorandum of understanding to allow child slaves to mine the minerals that we need.
We can't do this anymore as the United States of America. We should never allow or purchase minerals mined by child slave labor. Again, this is the Secretary of the Interior of the United States of America. She has no idea what is happening with the withdrawal.
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Mr. STAUBER. Madam Chair, I rise today in opposition to the amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Levin), my good friend.
The so-called Inflation Reduction Act actually inflated royalty rates to continue punishing energy developers and all downstream consumers, whether it be diesel used by farmers or gas at the pump for a family going on vacation or even just the daily commute. Therefore, Republicans in Congress again did the right thing by returning the royalty rate to the reasonable place prior to the Inflation Reduction Act.
By striking this provision, the Democrats once again want to increase the cost of energy on American families. This doesn't make sense. For one, it simply makes oil and gas more expensive and, therefore, all uses of oil and gas more expensive.
We think of gasoline and diesel, of course, but how about plastic for everyday use, ranging from eyeglasses to medical instruments or rubber tires for electric vehicles?
How about lubricants for wind turbines?
How about fertilizer?
Should we continue to drive the cost of all of these items through the roof?
It also doesn't make sense because it only punishes producers on Federal lands and waters. I have had the good fortune of being welcomed to southeast New Mexico and west Texas a handful of times to discuss these issues, and what I have learned is that it is significantly easier and cheaper to develop on private lands.
Producers will produce.
Do we want those returns from production to be realized by communities impacted by Federal land ownership at all?
This amendment was soundly defeated in committee. Let's keep energy and oil and gas applications cheap, and let's keep revenues flowing to areas impacted by Federal lands.
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Mr. STAUBER. Madam Chair, I, too, appreciate Mr. Levin's intent, but I rise today in opposition to his amendment. Democrats tout the ``historic investments'' in our agencies by the so-called Inflation Reduction Act and other deficit-ballooning bills passed when they were in complete control.
Madam Chair, I don't understand. How can the agencies be so chronically understaffed after passing all those ``historic investments''?
In fact, Democrats during committee markup touted these funding levels. In a nice little graphic, they had $1 billion from the so- called IRA alone, which includes $30 million for CEQ, $350 million for the Steering Council, and a whopping $625 million for other various agencies.
Madam Chair, have we completed the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line that is going on 7 years of permitting?
The answer is no.
Have we brought any new mines on line?
The answer is no.
Have we finished any water projects in California?
No.
Look at this chart behind me. This broken permitting system is the issue. It takes decades to get anything done. A mining project in my district alone is on year 20, going on year 21 of permitting and litigation.
The need here isn't to turbocharge more Federal bureaucrats in our agencies.
H.R. 1 solves this problem. Let's modernize the permitting process. Let's put time limits on litigation, limit review page numbers, and shorten timelines for America to remain competitive and lead in energy production.
H.R. 1 also allows project sponsors to conduct the review and then submit to the agency, who must give final sign-off. I repeat this. The agency must sign off.
This isn't just a Republican provision. Many Democrats who still serve in this Chamber or in the Senate have voted for that.
Fixing permitting requires real policy solutions, not just throwing money into endless pits of bureaucracy.
I urge opposition to this amendment.
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