The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S8831-S8832 on Nov. 30.
The Department oversees more than 500 million acres of land. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the department has contributed to a growing water crisis and holds many lands which could be better managed.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. BARRASSO (for himself, Mr. Daines, Mr. Risch, Mr. Cramer,
Mr. Hoeven, Mr. Lankford, Mr. Cassidy, Mr. Marshall, Mrs. Hyde-
Smith, Mr. Lee, and Ms. Murkowski):
S. 3287. A bill to provide for the development and issuance of a plan to increase oil and gas production on Federal land in conjunction with a drawdown of petroleum reserves from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the need for more American energy, not energy that the President is begging to OPEC or Russia to produce for America but American energy.
Last week, President Biden ordered the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The President, by doing that, in my opinion, is just pretending to show concern about the high cost of energy in this country. I will get into why I think he is only pretending to show it because the amount he released is so very little. In reality, this President's call to release energy oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was an admission of failure of this President and this administration.
Releasing oil from the Reserve is something that Presidents did in the past during times of war, the Iraq war, after Hurricane Katrina, and during the Arab Spring. In other words, it is something Presidents do in times of crisis.
Well, President Biden doesn't want to admit that he has created an emergency crisis in our country, but his actions of calling on the release from the Strategic Reserve--the actions speak louder than his words. By releasing oil from the Reserve now, the President is admitting what every American knows, that America has an energy crisis and it is not for lack of the fact that we have plenty of energy reserves here in the United States.
Last week, an estimated 50 million people over Thanksgiving weekend took to the roads. Those who drove paid the most for gasoline that they have in 7 years. Gasoline and diesel fuel prices are sky-high, and they have increased more than a dollar a gallon since Joe Biden took office just in January.
Why is it happening? Well, it is economics 101, really. You have demand; you have supply. Demand is up; supply is down. With the end of the lockdown, demand for gasoline has increased as people took to the roads. Yet domestic supply is still below the peak that we reached under President Trump.
The Biden administration wants us to believe that releasing oil will solve the problem when he taps the Strategic Reserve, but I don't even think President Biden believes it. I am not sure they actually know what they are doing. If you watched that press conference with the Secretary of Energy last week, she was asked how much oil the American people use. She admitted she didn't know. She said: I don't have a number in front of me. She didn't know how much oil, how much energy Americans use. The Nation's top energy official doesn't know how much oil the American people use so how can she then know that the amount to call for the release is the right amount or not? She is President Biden's top lieutenant in the war on American energy. She doesn't know how much we use.
Well, the media has broadly reported that the total amount that Joe Biden is releasing from the Petroleum Reserve is what the American people use every 2\1/2\ days--every 2\1/2\ days. That is the total amount that is being released. It is the amount that we in the United States use every 2\1/2\ days. This is a drop in the bucket when it comes to oil prices and energy prices and what people are paying at the pump.
It is not a long-term solution. It is not even a short-term solution. It is just a carefully created sound bite. Oil production is down by nearly 2 million barrels a day compared to the peak under President Trump. It is not a surprise when you take a look at the attack on American energy that President Biden and this administration have continued to do since day 1, when he killed the Keystone XL Pipeline.
The administration also announced last week, without any fanfare, without the President making a statement at the White House--the Department of the Interior said: Oh, by the way, American people, we are going to do this the day after Thanksgiving, when you are busy doing other things, maybe going shopping, doing other things and not paying attention to the news of the day. This administration called for additional fees, more taxes, more expenses on oil and gas leases on Federal land. That impacts my State dramatically. This is in addition to the fees that the President is also including in this massive tax-
and-spending bill that the Senate is going to be considering.
This is also economics 101. Higher fees on the cost of producing oil means higher prices for people at the pump--astonishing--making it harder to produce and more expensive to produce American energy. Begging OPEC and Russia to produce more to sell to us is a jackpot for Vladimir Putin. So if President Biden and his Department of the Interior get their way, the prices will go up even higher. Inflation is here to stay under the Democrats.
The American people deserve better. They deserve real solutions in this energy crisis that this administration has created. Higher fees are only going to get passed on to consumers. Instead of spending our savings, we should be producing more American energy. Why are we sending this money to Vladimir Putin and begging him to produce more so we can send him even more money? That is the policy of this administration.
Today, I am introducing legislation that says an administration needs to develop a plan to increase oil and gas production anytime an administration taps the Reserve unless there is an energy supply emergency like Katrina, like a war. Those are the things that are legitimate reasons to release energy from the Strategic Reserve. The Reserve is for emergencies, not for sound bites. It is not supposed to be a bandaid for bad policies.
If the President is tapping the Reserve, he also ought to increase American energy production. So I urge my colleagues to return to the policies that gave us the best economic times in my lifetime, return to the policies that made us energy-independent as a nation for the first time in 70 years, return to the policies that made us the No. 1 producer of petroleum in the world. We are much stronger and better as a nation if we are selling American energy to our friends than if we have to buy it from our enemies. Apparently, the President does not fully grasp that or believe in that or he would not be begging Vladimir Putin to produce more energy; he would be encouraging America to produce more energy, which we have here.
It is time to stop the restrictions on energy production, time to stop the rush to raise billions in taxes, time to stop the President and the Democrats' declared war on American energy.
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