Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. PFLUGER. Mr. Chairman, it is unfortunate that we have to be here to talk about this. As a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, as the Representative of one of the most important energy production areas in the country, this is a national security issue.

The Biden administration's assault on our baseload, dispatchable generation of electricity has resulted in record-high prices for consumers and looming resource inadequacies throughout the country, and it has threatened our grid reliability.

Just a few weeks ago, the Department of Energy's Assistant Secretary for Electricity, Mr. Rodrigues, testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee regarding policies to enhance the reliability and efficiency in powering American homes. I am sad to say that at this hearing, Mr. Rodrigues, who is the head of electricity at the Department of Energy, had no idea how much electricity the United States uses each year. He stated that the reason he was chosen for this position was not because he was a subject matter expert.

It saddens me to be standing here, but that is just not an acceptable position, and this glaring lack of knowledge is not okay. It is unacceptable from the head of the Department of Energy's electricity division.

This administration has worked every day to transform energy industries and to push a green agenda that doesn't work, that is not reliable, that doesn't take into account reliability. Their own named Assistant Secretary doesn't know how much electricity we use.

When you look at examples of what they have pushed for--a substantial increase in electric vehicles and other policies--you have to ask the question: If they don't know how much electricity we currently use, then will they know how much electricity we would require with their mandates for electric vehicles?

In Texas alone, if all of our cars were electrified today, just as an example, the State would need approximately an additional 110 terawatt- hours of electricity per year, the average annual electricity consumption of 11 million homes. The added electricity demand would result in a 30 percent increase over current consumption. That is the kind of example that I expect Mr. Rodrigues and others within the Department of Energy to know.

This is a gigantic increase in demand. This administration continues to put American producers and consumers in a bad situation. It is critical that we have good leadership at DOE.

Let me make this clear: I want the Assistant Secretary to be successful. We should all want these people in leadership positions to be successful. If he succeeds, our country wins. However, when you are the Assistant Secretary for Electricity and don't know every detail about electricity in the United States, then you are not succeeding.

It is for that reason that I recommend this amendment to reduce his salary to $1 and remind DOE of their core mission, which is to help Americans with reliable and affordable energy.

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Mr. PFLUGER. Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Fleischmann).

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Mr. PFLUGER. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PFLUGER. Mr. Chair, the most important tool our country has is energy. It is the underpinning of our economy. It forms a foundational piece of our national security. We see this playing out in all parts of the world right now.

The prosperity of our country rests on the abundant natural resources that we have that no other country has. We are blessed to have those natural resources.

This has been reaffirmed as Americans have seen the events unfold in places like Ukraine. Make no mistake, the single biggest important impetus for Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine was the belief that Vladimir Putin would not weaponize energy, and he did.

We recognize the critical importance of secure, abundant, affordable resources and affordable energy better than anywhere else. Because we know what it takes to produce it, we understand how devastating it would be to lose it, and we see the potential before us if we had the opportunity to unleash our full energy capabilities.

Our Nation is blessed with natural resources and a strong, innovative spirit that encapsulates the American character. Nowhere is this more evident than in my own district with the Permian Basin, which produces over 40 percent of the country's oil production.

While climate alarmists scream that oil and gas are bad, I feel confident in saying that if they were serious about reducing carbon emissions, we would actually produce it here, where we do it much cleaner, much better, more efficiently, and with higher labor standards than anywhere else. Don't export that to our adversaries.

Unfortunately, this administration has done just that. They would rather look to our adversaries for energy than embrace the innovation that is being done right here at home.

When looking to supply the energy needs for Americans, I respectfully ask that the President call the mayor of Midland, Texas, not OPEC, for our energy needs.

At a time when our world is increasingly destabilized, our Nation needs us to lead from the front. Our domestic energy production is too important an asset to be left out of our national security toolkit, and we must use this unique asset not only for our benefit here domestically but around the world.

LNG, much of which is produced in the Permian Basin--10 percent, by the way, worldwide--will play the leading role in helping reach developing nations to provide them with clean, affordable, reliable energy to power their economies.

Global demand for LNG will continue to increase, with estimates nearly double what it is now in the next 20 years.

This is a massive opportunity for our country to lead, and if we don't have advisers in this administration who think critically about American energy as a national security tool, the consequences will be severe.

Under this administration, senior advisers have praised China as a leader in clean energy, begged OPEC to produce more oil than doing it here domestically and tried to sabotage the credibility of American producers here.

That is why I am leading an amendment to reduce the salary of Andrew Light, the Department of Energy's Assistant Secretary for International Affairs, to $1. We need the administration to focus on our own strength, our own inventions, and our own capabilities.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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