War on American Energy Producers

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROSE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to shed light on the ongoing war against American energy producers.

The Biden administration recently announced a pause on all pending non-free trade agreement export permit applications for liquefied natural gas export projects. This policy will no doubt have a negative impact on job growth, economic development, and energy exploration, but it will also empower America's adversaries.

By curtailing our energy dominance in the natural gas sector, we are making our economy and the world more dependent on countries like Russia and Iran for energy production. For obvious reasons, we should want to do everything within our power to hinder, not help, their cash flow.

This is more than a strategic failure. It is also contrary to the goal of reducing carbon emissions.

We know that American natural gas is cleaner than that of many other producers, especially Russia. In fact, our natural gas is 41 percent cleaner. The benefit of exporting more, not less, energy would remove hundreds of tons of emissions from entering the atmosphere. It would also pose an economic benefit here at home.

This isn't a problem just for the natural gas industry. All of America's energy producers, putting aside the renewable sector, have taken negative regulatory hits from the Biden administration. We have seen energy prices soar as a result.

On the campaign trail in 2019, then-candidate Biden vowed to end fossil fuels. This helps explain why he killed the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office. It also explains why he went on to put a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on public lands and raise taxes by nearly $150 billion on oil and gas producers. For those who don't remember, this anti-energy agenda resulted in the President of the United States begging OPEC to increase their supply.

It is important to note that we were not just energy independent during the Trump administration, Mr. Speaker. We were energy dominant and a net oil exporter.

Gas prices averaged $2.39 per gallon the day President Biden was inaugurated. Today, the average price per gallon of gas is $3.15. Let's not forget, as a direct result of this anti-American energy agenda, gas prices reached an all-time high of $5 per gallon in June 2022.

The President is also responsible for the largest-ever drawdown from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 180 million barrels of oil over 6 months. Our reserve is supposed to be used for adverse events like weather or national security emergencies, not to combat bad policy and harmful regulations from a misguided White House. That reserve, which is now depleted by more than 40 percent, is at its lowest level since the early 1980s, when I was in high school.

In addition to the pause on natural gas permits during his administration, the President announced he would no longer hold court- ordered offshore oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. This assault on domestic energy producers destroys any incentive for investment and growth and is going to continue to lead to price volatility at home and around the world.

House Republicans see the pinch this causes working families, like the families in my home district in Tennessee, which is why one of the first things we did after taking the majority in 2023 was to pass H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Cost Act.

H.R. 1 makes sense to most people. It is not radical or extreme. It would unleash American energy and get government out of the way by reforming our permitting system and removing red tape. It fosters more economic growth and job creation while lowering prices for American families.

Yet this administration seems committed to doing the opposite. Since President Biden's inauguration, his administration has finalized 812 new regulations costing the U.S. economy about $451 billion in compliance costs annually and requiring 283 million hours of additional compliance paperwork by American workers.

I continue to support an all-of-the-above energy approach to fueling our economy. In a time when prices are still hurting families and despots around the world are looking for our weak spots, we should be unleashing, not overregulating and kneecapping, American energy production.

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