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Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3986 Publication: Congressional Record Date: 14 June 2022 
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Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, this past Saturday, I got to spend the whole morning with the East Central Kansas Model T Club back home. I even got to take a joy ride in a 1921 Model T. Among many stories, I learned Americans were paying only 21 cents a gallon when this car was made. And it wasn't until 1975, 54 years later, that gas had doubled from that price, jumping from 39 to 53 cents--54 years it took to double. I don't have to remind anyone that, thanks to our President's energy policies and his reckless spending, he accomplished a doubling in less than 2 years. As we all know, gas is now over $5 a gallon, if you can believe it or not. We are seeing record prices that have gone now 16 days in a row without a single downtick. And this is why I am here today to ask for unanimous consent to pass the Gas Prices Relief Act, which would bar any Federal agency from finalizing any rule or regulation that would make it harder to produce American fuels. My legislation would send the right signal to American producers and investors. It would show them that the Congress sees the problem and that we are ready to address it. It would set us on a course to bring down prices at the pump, not with more reckless spending and more regulations, but by getting out of the way of American production and allowing them to power the world without more needlessly restrictive rules. With this more than doubling of price, many families back home are telling me they are paying $50, up to $100 a week more for gasoline. And that is $2- to $400 a month, in case you are adding it up. And on top of that, their monthly utility bills have doubled. I am sure this administration will propose more reckless spending to fix that problem, too. Unfortunately, Biden-flation is impacting many Kansas families to the tune of $6- to $700 a month. That is over $7,000 a year. Now, why the increase, you might ask. Now, I am not an economist, but it looks to me like if you increase the regulations on a process, on a business, that is a surefire way to decrease the [[Page S2928]] supply. And as we all know, our President and his policies are ramping up regulations at every step of the American oil and gas business, all the while begging for help from other nations. Indeed, he is fulfilling his campaign promises to destroy American oil and gas. Now, one more thought. As history teaches us, along with reckless spending, energy is always a leading indicator of inflation. If we don't get our arms around this energy crisis and reckless spending, we will never slow down inflation. But it appears our President and his party disagree with this, or else, simply stated, they don't care. Or maybe they want these high prices. It just seems like yesterday I was filling my truck up back home for less than $2 a gallon, and now, again, it is over $5 a gallon across most of the Nation. Rising energy prices add inflationary pressure to everything. It is like a game of dominoes. When the diesel fuel powering our 18-wheelers are costing truckers 80 percent more than it did last year, they are going to have to pass on that rate to their consumers. When businesses are paying 30 percent more for their gas utilities, they are going to have to raise their prices to make up the difference. And Kansans, already paying more just to get to the store, are continually finding that what money they have left is getting them less and less every week. You don't fix a supply-and-demand problem of this nature with price controls or artificial subsidies or more reckless spending. In reality, this is not very complicated. You could fix it by decreasing demand or increasing supply. Now, demand, unfortunately, is not decreasing, which is why we need this regulatory holiday in order to set American energy free. On some level, the administration knows this and, hence, their knee- jerk decision to release a million barrels of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve every day, reportedly without initially coordinating in a meaningful way with our partners overseas. Obviously, 1 million barrels a day won't cut it. In 2021, the United States consumed roughly nearly 20 million barrels a day. This release is truly a drop in the bucket. The administration knows that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases are purely cosmetic, to try to convince the American people that they have solutions while they run off to beg foreign dictators and terrorists to produce more oil. Instead of looking within, instead of creating more Americans jobs, high-paying jobs, producing the cleanest fuel in the world, they continue their full frontal assault on American production and seek to enrich our enemies, like Venezuela and Iran. But there has been a lot of talk on the left that they are not interfering with oil and gas production in the United States. These claims are simply untrue. On the campaign trail, President Biden promised to end the leasing of oil and gas production on Federal lands, and his climate czar recently said the administration ``remains absolutely committed to not moving forward with additional drilling on public lands.'' Most Presidents brag when they fulfill a campaign promise but apparently not when the results are this bad. It is hard to imagine that this is not all by design. This administration is getting exactly what they want. In the President's own words, the world is currently going through an ``incredible transition,'' and he thinks we will ``be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.'' Well, the obvious question then is this: When--when will it be over? The Department of Energy has estimated that demand for oil and gas will increase through 2050. That is a simple fact. Yet we have a President who is perfectly willing to inflict pain on the people who elected him to force his climate policies--his costly climate policies--and ignore the economic reality that the American people are facing. Now, why else would he propose a budget that gets rid of key tax provisions for the oil and gas industry? Why else would he promote policies that will make it more difficult and more expensive to drill? Does anyone think these policies are going to help the American people? Let's talk about the stream of bad policies causing the crippling uncertainty that is making American producers hesitant to increase drilling. Last November, the EPA started the process of updating methane regulations. While the proposed rule they put forward was criminally devoid of any details, their intent was clear: an increase in costly regulations that will harm the oil and national gas industry, run small businesses out of business, and further increase energy costs. On February 18, by a completely partisan vote, FERC issued and made immediately effective two new policy statements that would have had disastrous implications for pipeline development in the U.S., pipelines critical to getting that oil to American consumers. Their off-the-deep- end proposal would have potentially put pipeline operators on the hook for mitigating the emissions of the end user of the product they transport. In other words, to get approval to build a pipeline, operators could have been forced to develop and pay for a way to mitigate the emissions caused by Americans driving to work every day or perhaps by Americans heating their homes or cooking their breakfast. Thankfully, in the face of fierce outcry from opponents on both sides of the aisle, they have temporarily pulled these changes back for further consideration. Though, that likely has more to do with the upcoming nomination process--the renomination process--for FERC Chairman Glick than it does with good energy policy. On March 21, the SEC followed suit and proposed a rule that would require companies to disclose climate emission data, including greenhouse emissions, caused by their suppliers and their customers. This would require companies to calculate and disclose the emissions for how everyday Americans use their products, all in an effort to make doing business with American oil and gas producers seem even more risky and less deserving of financing. And, finally, an issue that is at the top of mind of many producers in Kansas right now, the Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to list the lesser prairie-chicken as a threatened species. This is despite the incredible work being done by conservationists that have made the lesser prairie-chicken better protected now than ever. If the Fish and Wildlife Service goes through with this classification, it would have serious consequences for oil and gas producers in Kansas and severely limit their ability to increase production, not to mention the impact it will have on our utilities. Once again, let me state, these reasons and more are why I am here today to ask unanimous consent to pass the Gas Prices Relief Act, which would bar any Federal agency from finalizing any rule regulation that would make it harder to produce American fuels. Our legislation would send the right signal to American producers and investors. It would show them that Congress sees the problem and that we are ready to address it. It would set us on course to bring down prices at the pump by getting out of the way and releasing American production and allowing them to power the world without more needlessly restrictive rules and regulations. Good energy policy will fix the current crisis, not more reckless spending. Before I yield, I would like to turn the floor over to the Senator from Montana for his thoughts on the record gas prices we are facing and the need to pass our Gas Price Relief Act. Mr. DAINES. I want to thank the Senator from Kansas for his work on this bill. Madam President, the price at the pump has skyrocketed. Let's do a quick trip down memory lane. When President Biden was inaugurated, the weekly average price for gas was about $2.30 a gallon. In fact, when we introduced the bill that we are trying to pass today, the Gas Price Relief Act, that was on March 31 of this year, the weekly average was $4.02 a gallon. The weekly average today is $4.84. In fact, other studies show it is now at $5 and climbing. We think these numbers will keep going up. Most analysts agree. We may be facing $6-a-gallon gas by this summer. I filled up my pickup in Belgrade, MT, Friday night. My wife and I pulled into a gas station. And when the tank was full, the price tag was $138. The pain at the pump that Montana families are feeling today is because of [[Page S2929]] the Democrats' anti-American energy policies. When President Biden killed the Keystone Pipeline 6 hours after being sworn in--by the way, that had tremendous benefits for the State of Montana. They help our impoverished Eastern Montana counties with tax revenues, not to mention providing nearly a million barrels of oil a day for the United States. By stopping and eliminating oil and gas leases, removing essential relief for small refiners, and then building an administration of, frankly, some far-left anti--anti--oil and natural gas ideologues, this administration has gone above and beyond to hinder traditional American energy development. And what is the solution that we are hearing from President Biden? Turn to foreign dictators for more oil, tap into our oil reserves, beg OPEC to increase production, and perhaps the most out-of-touch solution I have heard, simply suggest families buy electric vehicles. I can tell you that won't work in a State like Montana. The real solution is to unleash American energy and encourage American energy investment. This bill I have with Senator Marshall is simple. It prevents the Biden administration from imposing any new rules or regulations that would decrease oil, gas, or renewable fuel production, which would, therefore, increase gas prices of hard-working Montanans. I am urging my colleagues across the aisle to think about hard- working families across this country, how are they trying to make ends meet, to think about their constituents who depend on affordable gas prices to get to work or drop kids off at school. I am urging my colleagues across the aisle who say they support American energy development, and they want to lower gas costs, to support this bill. We need to pass this bill for American families. I yield back my time to the Senator from Kansas. Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, I would like to ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be discharged from further consideration of S. 3986 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, reserving the right to object. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island. Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I have been listening with interest to my two distinguished colleagues discuss this measure, referring to it repeatedly as ``governing American energy.'' But, of course, what it really governs is fossil fuel energy. That is the intention here, and that is the result. Let's start with a basic factual proposition, which is that the price of oil is set by oil companies. In a market economy, the producer of a product chooses the price. And what has happened in this instance is that the oil industry has chosen to depart from market economics, to depart from the costs that were the same just a few years ago, and instead to follow upward the international cartel that our oil industry is a part of. This international cartel has driven world oil prices extremely high. And American oil companies have chosen--have chosen--to follow that price, raise the prices at the pump, punish American drivers, in order to blow out their profits. We know that this is true because the companies themselves are reporting unprecedented profits--massive profits. We know they are not tracking the cost of production at a reasonable profit because their profits have soared as they have chosen--chosen--to pursue this international cartel price and punish American drivers. It is their choice. And then they have the colossal nerve to take their choice, what they have done to American drivers, and then start using that for leverage to try to get other fossil fuel industry prerogatives accomplished politically. And let me say, don't be mad at the gas station owner. The gas station owner is not the one who is jacking up the prices. For a lot of gas station owners, they don't even make money on the gas. You have got to go in and buy a coffee or snacks to have them make money. Your local gas station is not the problem with these prices. The problem is Chevron, Exxon, Marathon, all of the big oil companies that have chosen to drive gas prices through the roof so they can fill their pockets with profit, so they can prepare for the fact that their product has got an end point. We can't keep polluting the Earth the way we are with the emissions of fossil fuel. I noticed that neither of my colleagues mentioned that this fossil fuel actually gets burned. We don't eat it; we burn it. And when we burn it, it emits CO2 and other gases, and we are seeing the effect of that all over the planet. Pollution increases. CO2 levels continue to increase. We constantly set new records for CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Heat increases. We are heating the ocean so fast--there is a new term that we have, a new term of measurement, a ``zettajoule.'' Do you know what a zettajoule is? A joule is a unit of heat energy measurement. A zettajoule is that unit with 21 zeros after it. It is an enormous number. All of the fossil fuel burned by all of the people across this entire planet amounts to less than half of a zettajoule of energy--all of it, less than half. And for the price of that--because of the emissions, because of the pollution, because of the CO2, because of the methane--we are heating up the planet so fast that every year 14 zettajoules of excess heat go into the ocean, where my fishermen in Rhode Island see their catches disappear, see their lives turned upside down, see fisheries that their fathers and their grandfathers fished completely upturned. This comes home in Rhode Island. Our Coastal Resources Management Council predicts that all that ocean warming is going to raise sea levels so that in my lifetime we are going to start to see flooding. Things that are now part of our State are going to become islands. Warwick Neck becomes Warwick Neck Island. Bristol becomes Bristol Island. Poppasquash Point becomes Poppasquash Island. Newport divides into a mainland and an island. We become the Rhode Island archipelago. We lose enormous amounts of our shoreline to sea level rise. Never mention--never mention that harm. So when you come here and say, we want to help more fossil fuel get burned, remember that on the other end of that are places like Rhode Island. And if we want to have a conversation about how we solve price now and how we protect against emissions later, that is a conversation I am more than willing to have. But a one-sided conversation that is only about more burning, more pollution, more emissions, more of that for Rhode Island, I don't think so. And it is not, of course, just Rhode Island. Other States are having unprecedented wildfires. They are having unprecedented droughts. We are seeing a planet whose basic operating systems are being changed by fossil fuel emissions. And until we grapple with that seriously, you can bet I will object--which I do. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.