ENERGY Speaker: Senator Tom Barrasso Publication: Congressional Record Date: 14 June 2022

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor as I see my 
colleagues debating issues related to energy, and I come to the floor 
to also debate and discuss the issue of energy and, specifically, the 
need of the American people for more energy.
  Because right now, America, in terms of energy, is running on empty. 
Gas prices have broken records day after day after day over the last 
several months. Inflation increased again last month to a new record 
40-year high. Just this morning, we found out that inflation from 
producers is even higher than inflation for consumers. Wholesale prices 
are up by nearly 11 percent in the last year.
  That means higher prices for people who grow our food, who build our 
buildings, and who work so hard to keep the lights on.
  Inflation for producers means inflation for consumers tomorrow. After 
13 months of this inflation crisis, there is still no light at the end 
of the tunnel. The average price of gasoline across the United States 
today is over $5 a gallon.
  That is a big number. We just heard colleagues discussing big 
numbers. Five dollars a gallon is a big number for anyone who is 
driving a gas-powered car or a diesel-powered car or truck in America.
  Gas prices are at an alltime high in all 50 States, and there is no 
end in sight. Experts tell us that the price of gas is going to 
continue to go higher. We may actually see $6 a gallon this summer 
across the country, and today, gas is already $6 a gallon in a number 
of locations.
  Now, for most Americans, this is unthinkable. So what are families 
doing? Well, they are kind of buckling up for what may be a summer of 
financial suffering for the American people. For many, it means a 
summer of staying home. People are having to change the way they drive, 
the way they eat, the way they live. Family vacations are being 
canceled left and right. People are cutting back on shopping to the 
point that retail jobs disappeared last month, thousands and thousands 
of retail jobs.
  Coronavirus caused one lockdown. Now we are headed into a new 
lockdown because people don't have the money to get out--get out to go 
to dinner, get out to go to a movie, get out to go on vacation. People 
are staying home because they can't afford to do anything else.
  Many working families are being pushed to the breaking point. Savings 
have melted away. Household debt is now at a record high. More and more 
people are having to borrow money just to get through the end of the 
month. The purchasing power of the American people keeps going lower 
and lower and lower. That is providing very little relief--even for 
people who are getting raises, they are having a hard time keeping up 
and feel they are falling further behind.
  Home energy costs are up and will continue to go up this summer. We 
hear that our energy grid is vulnerable for blackouts this summer. 
Democrats have been in power for over 17 months. They continue to do 
nothing to help the American people with this Biden-caused energy 
crisis.
  Now, Joe Biden's Cabinet has been on tour, talking and trying to 
mislead the American people about the energy crisis. We saw Pete 
Buttigieg and Gina Raimondo. They said that Joe Biden is just an 
innocent bystander, just standing there, watching the world go by. 
Nothing he could do about it.
  The Commerce Secretary last week said--and this was on a national 
news show--she said there isn't much that can be done to produce more 
energy. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Joe Biden has ``done 
everything he can to bring down energy prices.'' Everything he can? 
This is a blatant, boldfaced lie to the American people.
  Joe Biden and the Democrats have caused this American energy crisis. 
Joe Biden seemed to brag about it at first when, on his first day in 
office, he killed the Keystone XL Pipeline, killing 800,000 barrels of 
oil a day to the United States--more than we would have ever gotten 
from Putin. Joe Biden bragged about it, proud of himself. Stopped those 
oil and gas leases as well. What the President has done with the oil 
and gas leases was blatantly illegal and brutally punished working 
families in my home State of Wyoming.
  You know, after 16 months in office, President Obama had held 44 oil 
and gas lease sales. Joe Biden? Not a single one.
  If the Senator from Alaska were here, she would say that Joe Biden 
shut down oil and gas production in the Arctic. For leases that were 
out there, drilling applications, thousands and thousands are in limbo 
because the administration just wants them to sit there.
  Now Joe Biden is furthering his attack on American energy. He is not 
just blocking new leases, he is even going after thousands of existing 
leases that were sold during previous administrations, the Obama and 
the Trump administrations.
  After just 16 months in office--and the American people know this; I 
am not making any news here--Joe Biden is already the most anti-
American energy President in American history. He has kept our energy 
production on lockdown, he has kept workers on the sideline, and he has 
kept energy buried in the ground. As a result, today, we are still 
producing 1 million fewer barrels of oil today and every single day 
than we were producing in America before the pandemic.

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  So, despite what the administration claims, Joe Biden could do things 
right now to actually produce more energy. First, instead of blocking 
all Federal land, he needs to hold Federal oil and gas lease sales. He 
should approve the 4,300 drilling applications that he is holding in 
limbo. Finally, instead of shutting down pipelines, he should approve 
more pipelines so we can transmit energy. He should speed up the 
pipeline approval process. Right now, it takes a lot longer to get 
approval to build a pipeline than it does to actually build a pipeline. 
But Joe Biden refuses to change his policies. That is why I say that 
Joe Biden actually wants high gas prices.
  Democrats keep bragging about the so-called incredible transition. It 
is a transition that is strangling the American people. Joe Biden went 
on a late-night comedy show last week. He was asked about climate 
change. He said right now ``there's an opportunity to move more rapidly 
. . . to alternative energy.'' He seems to think everything is going 
according to plan.
  The climate elitists want prices so high that people can't afford to 
buy gas. The economists call this demand destruction. Democrats are 
working to achieve demand destruction through supply destruction, and 
the result is economic destruction--a destruction of the standard of 
living for the American people--all because they want their climate 
ideology.
  So Democrats have kept supply slow and low. They have driven up 
prices. Now the American people are forced to stay home.
  Well, the Transportation Secretary continues to say: Just get an 
electric vehicle. Gas prices are no big deal.
  The average electric vehicle costs over $55,000. The American people 
can barely afford groceries right now, let alone an electric vehicle. 
CNN ran a story recently about single mothers skipping meals so their 
kids can eat. I would say to the Secretary of Transportation: How are 
they going to afford the electric vehicle, let alone find a place to 
charge it?

  Astonishing stories have been written in the press recently. People 
trying to drive electric vehicles from point A to point B said: Never 
again. Oh, no.
  I have heard stories of someone renting an electric vehicle in 
Wyoming, driving it from one place to another, using a regular plug-in, 
coming back an hour later, and it had charged the battery enough extra 
in that full hour that they could go an additional 4 miles. That is 
what Joe Biden wants for America. That is his view of America--``stay 
at home'' Joe.
  The Transportation Secretary refuses to admit that gas prices drive 
up the cost of other things like food, the cost of retail, the cost of 
almost everything.
  Democrats tell us that we just need a little more wind energy, a 
little more solar power, and things would be great. So what is Joe 
Biden doing? He listens to them, and he uses wartime Executive powers 
to demand that we make more solar panels.
  This is another dangerous Democrat delusion. We don't have high gas 
prices and high food prices because of a lack of solar panels; we have 
high gas prices and high food prices because of a lack of American 
gasoline, oil, energy.
  Democrats keep repeating the talking points about renewable energy. 
Yet they never do the math. The most affordable and most reliable 
energy known to man is traditional energy--oil, natural gas, coal. 
Electric vehicles still use energy. This energy comes mostly, in this 
country, from natural gas and coal.
  The only way to bring the price of gas down is to bring the supply of 
gas up. It is the one thing the Democrats refuse to do.
  It is interesting to listen to some of Joe Biden's allies in the 
Senate who are threatening to make the Biden energy crisis even worse. 
They want to talk about bringing back their reckless tax-and-spending 
bill. This bill is more reckless today than it was last year. You put 
that kind of additional spending on the economy, that kind of 
additional debt--inflation today is a lot higher than it was the last 
time they forced this kind of money onto the economy. This will be 
adding fuel to the fire.
  Then the Democrats are talking about raising taxes and specifically 
raising taxes on American energy. More taxes on American energy means 
higher prices at the pump. It is as simple as that. Higher prices at 
the pump means higher prices at the grocery store. Now isn't the time 
to raise taxes on the American people.
  Janet Yellen was surprised. She said it last week. She talked to the 
New York Times. She said she was surprised at how negative people's 
opinion was of the economy. She said she was amazed at how pessimistic 
people were about the economy. How out of touch can one be for the 
Secretary of Treasury to say that at a time when there are the highest 
gas prices in the history of the country, food prices at an alltime 
high, and inflation at a 40-year high?
  Over three out of four Americans think the country is heading in the 
wrong direction under Joe Biden and the Democrats. The American people 
have seen what 16 months of Democrat rule has done to them, and Janet 
Yellen is surprised at the pessimism and the negativity.
  Record inflation, record gas prices, record debt, disappearing 
savings, empty shelves, labor shortages, a looming recession--it is 
long past time to change course. It is time to stop this reckless 
spending, unleash American energy. The American public cannot afford to 
pay the price, but they will make the Democrats pay the price come 
November.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  (Mr. MURPHY assumed the Chair.)
  (Mr. DURBIN assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.