Researching Efficient Federal Improvements for Necessary Energy Refining Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 879, I call up the bill (H.R. 3109) to require the Secretary of Energy to direct the National Petroleum Council to issue a report with respect to petrochemical refineries in the United States, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Mr. GUTHRIE. 3109.

Mr. Speaker, the American economy is fueled by petrochemical refineries providing affordable diesel and gasoline to families, critical inputs for our manufacturers, and products imperative for the maintenance of our defense systems.

The national security component of a viable refining industry cannot be overstated, and we must not forfeit these essential supply chains.

Under the previous administration, we saw the impact of an energy retreat: higher prices for families and businesses, emboldened adversaries, sluggish economies, and increasing reliance on other nations.

Unfortunately, this is still the case in States like California, where a hostile regulatory environment has forced refineries to reduce operations. In fact, the Golden State is expected to lose 17 percent of its capacity in the next year. This has led to an average gasoline price of nearly $5 per gallon, an increased fuel dependence on Asian producers, and jeopardizing the fuel supply chain of military installations in their State.

We must not let this become status quo across the country. H.R. 3109 requires the National Petroleum Council to collect and examine information regarding the role of petrochemical refineries in the United States and their contributions to affordability, security, and reliability. The report will assess opportunities to expand capacity as well as current risks to refineries.

H.R. 3109 will provide the Committee on Energy and Commerce the information we need to enact policies to deliver affordable, reliable, and clean energy to all Americans.

I thank Representative Latta, the chairman of the Energy Subcommittee, for his leadership on this issue.

I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 3109, and I reserve the balance of my time.

When I was a young man in the 1970s--when I was a kid, I guess, in the 1970s--I remember gas lines and having to push my father's car to get gasoline. At the time, everybody said we were going to run out of crude oil. That was the thing, running out of crude oil.

I appreciate the gentleman bringing up the crude oil issue. It is actually because of the ingenuity of the American people that we have an abundance of crude oil. The issue isn't crude oil. It is the refining capacity.

Since I was a kid, we found this abundance of crude oil in the Permian Basin, North Dakota, and all the places I can name. We have more oil than they have in the Middle East, which, when I was a kid, a lot of it was coming from the Middle East.

Then, you have this chokepoint of refining capacity. We haven't built a new refinery in the United States since I was a kid, so that is the thing that we want to address. That is the issue we want to address. We do want prices to go down. We don't want it to be $5 a gallon.

I was putting gas in a rental car in California, and I looked over at the guy next to me. I paid probably $2.60 a gallon in Kentucky, and I think it was $4.80 there. I said: Do you guys have any idea what the rest of America is paying for gasoline?

We are here to address it, and we are addressing it by a bill authored by my good friend, the chairman of the Energy Subcommittee, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and a leader in this arena.

It is frustrating that we lost 42 days because our side of the aisle wanted to open the government and wanted to have the government operating. We wanted to sit down and work through the issues before us, not choosing to not fund the government.

I was always embarrassed to even look in the eye--I voted for all of it--to go see a TSA agent at the airport in Nashville in my home State of Tennessee where I fly out of, the FAA people going to work at the airport. I was embarrassed coming here and seeing the people sitting in front of us here, the people guarding the doors of the Capitol building, with no respect, having them come to work without respect and paying them. That was extremely frustrating to me. It is just beyond pale that that happened.

On the Epstein files, the Speaker tried to come and unanimous consent the Epstein files. Remember, last week he came down and said let's pass the Epstein files, and the other side of the aisle objected to it. I don't know why they would object to passing the files.

They held it up for several days. I know there were a few rallies that happened, and then we all voted. It was 427-1. Were they trying to get the Epstein files out, or were they trying to make sure people got in town for their rallies? That is what I would like to know.

The National Petroleum Council that we are referring to in this bill is a part of the Department of Energy. All through government, we have councils of people that are experts in their fields who come to D.C. The Department of Labor has them. People from the labor community come and have councils to give advice on bills.

We know we have ample crude. We know the ingenuity of the American people to have ample crude. What we are talking about today is where 40 refineries in California have gone to 14. If you want affordability, not only do you have to be able to get the crude out of the ground, you have to refine it to where we can use it.

As we are shrinking refining capacity in this country and increasing demand, if we don't increase supply, we are not going to have affordability. You can talk about affordability all you want, but you have got to have the supply to address it. That is what we are focused on doing today.

We want the experts to give us their information. We don't have to do what they say. We want to take their information, take the good ideas and try to implement them into where we can provide lower prices.

If you think this doesn't work, come buy gas in Kentucky. Then go to my good friends who are sitting here from California and buy gas in their State, then tell us what does efficient energy policy do for affordability. I will challenge them to do that. I will say you can buy the most expensive gas in Kentucky, and we will compare that to what is going on in California.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from California, and I actually do love going to California. I haven't been in the bay area in a couple of years, and we will figure out an opportunity to come there. My family tries to go to California as much as we can. I know he is from the beautiful bay area. Actually, when I was talking about the high price of gas, it was down in southern California, which has its own beauty, as well.

I am a fan of California. Other than Kentucky, I think California is one of the prettiest States we have in the Union. From the redwoods to the Yosemite Valley, it is absolutely stunning. I absolutely would love to come back out to the bay area because it is beautiful, as well.

In this bill, we are talking about electricity prices. China is building the electric car industry, but they are also building the power generation, like a coal plant a week, I think, to provide the energy for that.

This bill we are talking about is on gasoline and diesel. Remember, everything that arrives to a store comes on a truck. Sometimes they come on a train, but the last mile is almost always or is always a truck. Diesel prices, fuel prices, matter in terms of food prices and about everything else that we consume.

This is important to do. Electric affordability is also important to do, and we are committed. We will work together to get our prices down, but we have to produce more.

That is what we are wondering. How do we efficiently, effectively, safely, and cleanly produce more gasoline and diesel? You can't do it without more refining capacity unless you decrease demand for it. That is not the avenue we have to go, either.
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Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, other than the Commonwealth of Kentucky, California is one of those beautiful States in our--they are all beautiful, actually. We live in a wonderful country. There is nothing prettier than the tunnel view from Yosemite Valley.

I don't know, with your lines changing so much, but I know my good friend from California used to represent our beautiful natural resources in the National Park of Yosemite Valley. He still does.

Mr. Speaker, we are all concerned about rising prices. My friend from New Jersey talked about since 2022, and he said the emphasis is on what has happened in the first few months of this year.

The decisions were made prior to the present Trump administration to take power offline. I know in my community down in Bowling Green, Kentucky, a few years ago with the polar vortex, we actually had blackouts, we had to have rolling blackouts because of taking power offline.

We all want to address it. The way we address this is not taking power offline, not building new, safer--my good friend from California talked about what they are doing in California to make refineries cleaner and safer, and that is what we want. We want refineries to refine in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. We can work together to do that.

On the LNG we are going to talk about in just a few minutes, we do have the gas in our country. We have people who can develop, particularly in your home State, Mr. Speaker. The problem is, can we move it to where it needs to go. We know the challenge isn't the access to gas, it is actually moving it to where it needs to be.

We need to work together. I think Natural Resources today had a markup, T&I is working on a markup, and we hopefully can work together as Members across the aisle in the Energy and Commerce Committee to do our share to make sure this explosive growth of energy is not just in gas and diesel but also in electricity. We need every electron we can produce to beat China.

Talking about China, China is struggling and working as hard as they can to beat us to control the data that flows around the world through AI. It is our job on this committee to see that that doesn't happen for this country, and that is because we have to have enough energy.

Again, this is a Department of Energy council, made up of people in the industry, to give us a report to see where we should go in making sure that America has proper refining. It is not a report that is going to produce what we do. It is the kind of report that informs us in what we do. I know on our side of the aisle--I think on both sides of the aisle--we try to take as much information as we can to make a reasonable decision to make sure we have clean, sustainable, but ample and safe fuel for this country in order to get groceries to the grocery store, either through diesel or gasoline.

Prices matter. It hurts families when their electric bills are high and when their grocery bills are high because people have to eat and they have to have a safe and clean place to live. This is what this is about. This is what our struggle is over, and this is what we are going to accomplish as a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage a ``yes'' vote on H.R. 3109, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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