SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, today the President is heading to Philadelphia to talk about energy. Well, the President talks a good game but, unlike energy, talk is cheap.

The President plans to host a townhall meeting about his new energy policy. I think it is time the rhetoric face the reality of what the country is seeing, experiencing, and dealing with. If the President truly wants to get a handle on energy costs, he needs to start by immediately stopping his Environmental Protection Agency from attempting to enact backdoor cap-and-trade regulation.

That is exactly what the EPA is doing. The only effect that can have is to increase energy costs on American families. The President himself admitted as much in 2008. At that time, in an interview with a San Francisco newspaper, he said: ``Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.''

Is the President serious about decreasing U.S. dependency on foreign oil? If so, he should then rescind his veto threat against today's congressional legislation regarding the policies of the EPA.

That is why I am here in support of the McConnell amendment. The McConnell amendment keeps energy prices low. It prevents the EPA from blocking the development of domestic energy. It restores the Clean Air Act to its original congressional intent. I support the McConnell commonsense amendment.

Most likely, today we will hear more of the same from the President in his speech and townhall meeting in Philadelphia, and more of the same is the last thing the American people need right now. American families are facing increasing gas prices. Our national security is being jeopardized by dependence on foreign sources of energy. Unrest in the Middle East and North Africa is driving high prices even higher.

The Department of Energy has made an estimate that families all across this country will spend $700 more on gasoline this year than they did last year. Meanwhile, the President will most likely deliver another speech with great goals but limited action.

With gasoline at over $3.50 a gallon, the President fails to appreciate the effect his administration's policies have on families with bills, with kids, and with mortgages to pay.

In 2008, President Obama, then a candidate for President, said that the problem wasn't that gas prices were too high but that they had risen too fast. In his words, he said he ``would have preferred a more gradual adjustment.'' This may explain why the President spent his first 2 years in the White House undermining and abandoning an all-of-the-above approach to energy. It is no wonder that he is now trying to cast blame on those who are offering a responsible alternative.

The President says he wants to cut our imports of foreign oil by a third by 2025. Well, to me, he doesn't appear to have the right vision or political will to get there. The United States has the most combined energy resources on Earth, but when faced with new sources of U.S. energy, the administration's automatic response has been to regulate, delay, or to shut down.

The President's ``say one thing, do another'' policy is making the pain at the pump even worse. His approach is long on making promises, short on taking responsibility. He talks of his concern for the people affected by the gulf oilspill. Yet his drilling shutdown in the Gulf of Mexico killed their jobs and strangles energy production even today. U.S. offshore oil production is expected to drop 15 percent this year thanks to the policies of this administration.

The President's claim that blaming his administration for ``shutting down oil production''--he says it doesn't track with reality. But I will tell you that the administration's stalling on gulf oil and gas drilling permits is so antibusiness that even former President Bill Clinton called it ``ridiculous.'' Even as the President says he wants to cut oil imports, he told an audience in Brazil a week or two ago that he wants the United States to become ``one of Brazil's best customers'' for oil. He said he would expedite new drilling permits. He claims oil companies are ``sitting on supplies of American energy just waiting to be tapped.'' But the biggest thing standing in the way is redtape from his own Interior Department and EPA. While ``use it or lose it'' makes for a nice sound bite, it ignores the reality that the Obama administration's own policies are the most significant roadblock we have to drilling and exploring for American energy.

The President also claims to support alternative fuels. Yet he didn't once mention converting coal into fuel or tapping oil shale. Oil shale production could produce an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. That is three times the amount of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves.

The way we can address our economic and national security needs is by producing more American energy. We can't afford to pick and choose our energy at a time of uncertainty. We do need it all. This means allowing more U.S. exploration and lifting the burdensome regulations that make it harder for Americans to produce more energy.

Renewable energy is part of it, it is important, but there is no way green energy and green jobs can replace the red, white, and blue energy and jobs that have continued to power our country for over a century. Until the administration acknowledges this, the administration's policies will continue to make the pain at the pump even worse. That is why I urge the Members of this body to adopt the McConnell amendment.

With that, I yield the floor.

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