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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from Louisiana (Mr. Graves) for yielding, for his leadership on introducing this amendment, which I support, and especially introducing this bill.

Mr. Chairman, we all ought to be focused on helping low-income families who are struggling. Families all across America are struggling under the weight of high inflation, all the spending that has come out of Washington under President Biden, but especially led and driven by this anti-American energy policy that we have seen from President Biden that has dramatically increased costs on American families.

How are people getting hit by all of President Biden's anti-American energy policies?

You can see it right here. Gas prices, every time you go to the pump, people are paying 50 percent more. That takes money out of families' paychecks every single week when they go to fill up their vehicle.

You look at the utility bills people are paying. They are paying 40 percent more, 25 percent more on their utility bills in some areas of the country, making it harder for them to heat their homes during a cold winter. As we approach summer, people want to turn on their air conditioner. They are going to be paying a lot more. That takes money out of their pocket.

Oh, by the way, when you look at what President Biden passed last year, he passed a $6 billion tax increase on natural gas, which is one of the drivers of higher electricity bills.

The good news is, Mr. Chairman, Republicans have answered the pleas that so many families have been raising by bringing H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act, to the floor.

This is a bill focused on helping those families who have been struggling, who have been saying for the last 2 years: Is anybody in Washington looking out for the families who are living paycheck to paycheck, who cannot make ends meet, who are sick and tired of runaway inflation and higher costs?

The answer is yes. House Republicans are here with an answer to this problem.

I think it is important to understand how we got here. It wasn't by accident. President Biden as a candidate said he was going to go and try to destroy the energy industry, stop drilling in America.

Day one, the day President Biden took office, he started taking immediate action to attack American energy. He canceled the Keystone pipeline. He started putting his bureaucrats in place to put red tape in the way of American production of oil and natural gas.

Now, you may think that is because the President is against pipelines and the President is against oil and natural gas. He is not. In fact, while President Biden was canceling the Keystone pipeline from Canada to the United States, he green-lighted a pipeline from Russia to Germany. He bailed out Putin while he was sticking it to families in America, and they paid a higher price for it here at home.

Then, at the same time, he was making it harder to produce energy in America: Getting agencies to stop issuing permits and canceling lease sales. It wasn't because he was against oil and gas. No.

During the time that he was making it harder to get oil and gas in America, he was calling Vladimir Putin--again there is that name-- calling Russia, asking them to produce more oil for America. Putin said no.

Then he got on Air Force One and begged the Saudis to produce more oil. The Saudis said no, because the Saudis want a high price for gasoline.

Who pays for that? Hardworking families.

All these climate justice warriors who fly all around the world on their private jets, they take jet fuel. The last time I checked, there are no solar panels on the wings of Air Force One.

Again, the President is not against oil. He is just against American oil.

Why don't we ask this question? If the President is not against oil, he is just against American oil, where are we getting our energy from?

Where are we getting our critical minerals from?

They talk about electric vehicles as if everybody is driving electric cars. One day, maybe that is where the world goes. Technology still needs to advance a lot to get to that point. Today, maybe 5-10 percent of the cars on the road are electric.

If you are going to advance it, like, California says they are going to ban fossil fuel cars in California. Of course, ironically, days after the Governor said he was going to ban fossil fuel cars, he told people they cannot plug their electric car into the socket because they are about to have power outages because the grid can't handle it.

Again, where does the energy come from?

You don't plug that electric car into a tree. You have got to actually use baseload energy.

Where does the battery come from, by the way, that you are charging?

We know right now the batteries are coming from China.

President Biden has made it very clear, he wants to make it harder to produce in America, but he is not against the production. He is going to countries like Russia, China, and Venezuela.

Look at the list. Are these the people we want to become dependent on?

The question is no longer do we or do we not get oil. It is where we get it from.

Now, what Republicans have said and what H.R. 1 gets us back to is why don't we get our energy from America?

It is a pretty straightforward answer.

President Biden said no to America. But, again, he was begging Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. He is trying to ease sanctions on Venezuela right now to get more of their oil.

If it is all about carbon emissions and saving the planet, why don't we use the facts?

Let's talk science for a moment.

Where is the cleanest place to make things in the world?

Who has the highest standards?

I know some on the left wake up every day, and they just want to trash America. We have the best standards in the world. If you want to make oil anywhere in the world--and, again, they are not against oil; they just don't want it made in America.

However, look at the countries they are begging to make more oil, countries that emit more carbon to make the same oil. Then they put that oil on a tanker and send it to the United States. Think of the lunacy of that policy.

We would love to make it here and put it in a pipeline, which is the safest way to transport it. They don't even want you to be able to build the pipelines. We eased that in the bill so we can actually build real infrastructure in America.

If you are worried about carbon emissions, there is good news for you: the Lower Energy Costs Act solves that problem because by making it in America, you make it in the best place in the world.

We also address critical minerals.

You want to make computer chips? You want to make electric car batteries?

They are going to be made somewhere in the world.

Where are they going to be made?

Right now, under President Biden's policies, it is almost impossible to get permits to mine for those minerals in America.

They are getting made. The problem is, they are getting made in countries like China. Go look at the environmental standards of China. I know the President's Energy Secretary said, just a few days ago, that we can learn something from China on clean energy.

I am not sure if she has been traveling around America. I know she is traveling around to other countries.

How could you possibly say we could learn from China?

No one does it cleaner than America. Many would argue no one does it dirtier than China.

Why would you want to be making our country more dependent on China? In our bill, we actually say we can make those things in America again. We have them here.

Look at the plaque right above the Speaker's rostrum. ``Let us develop the resources of our land. . . . `'

Well, Mr. Speaker, we actually do fulfill that promise in this bill by letting us develop the resources in our land, not in China.

They can go make stuff in China. We shouldn't be addicted to those products because President Biden shut off our ability to make things in America.

These policies make nothing but common sense. The good thing about it is you don't just get the advantages of lower carbon emissions globally by passing this bill.

For families across America who are sick and tired of the lunacy and hypocrisy of the left's policies, it lowers costs for families.

There is only one free market country in the world that has abundant resources. That is America. If you look at the other countries that we have become dependent on, they want a higher price. They are part of cartels like OPEC.

We can make OPEC irrelevant if we make more energy in America. We have got the resources.

You can go to Port Fourchon in south Louisiana, my district, and see areas where we can produce hundreds of thousands of barrels a day that are being closed off, where it is almost impossible for them to get permits. They can't even move pipelines.

Go to Pennsylvania where they can produce oil and natural gas, but they can't even get it to their neighbors in New York and the New England States because they are abusing Federal laws in all of these different agencies to stop the building of the infrastructure for pipelines.

Their argument is that they don't want oil and natural gas. Well, they are getting the oil and natural gas. They are just getting it from other countries, from tankers coming into the New England States instead of pipelines made in America.

None of this makes any sense. There is an answer. The answer is let's stand up for those families who are sick and tired of paying more when they know we have the ability here to do it ourselves. We can become energy independent again.

It is a national security issue, but it is a bread and butter, kitchen table issue for those families who are struggling.

Stop being dependent on foreign countries like President Biden has made us. Let's get back to the sound principles that have been proven to work, again, in the cleanest place to make things in the world--the United States of America.

Let's stand up for those families who are sick and tired of paying too much. Let's actually get good policy put into law that fights for those families who have been left behind for far too long.

Let's pass the Lower Energy Costs Act. Let's get this country back on track, and let's lower prices for those families who are struggling.

Mr. Chair, I urge passage of this amendment.

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