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.
“ENERGY POLICIES” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S1077-S1078 on March 10.
The Department oversees energy policies and is involved in how the US handles nuclear programs. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the Department's misguided energy regulations have caused large losses to consumers for decades.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ENERGY POLICIES
Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I want to talk about gas prices.
The people in West Virginia woke up this morning, and according to AAA, the average gas price in West Virginia is $4.12 per gallon. Some parts of the country are paying--probably the part that is the Presiding Officer's country--more than $5 or even more than $6 per gallon of regular gas. Just up the street here in Washington, DC, at the gas station close to the Senate office buildings, it is $5.19 per gallon. We have surpassed the highest recorded average gas prices ever, and that is quite alarming. Unfortunately, this has been all too predictable given the Biden administration's domestic energy policy actions.
On day one of his Presidency, President Biden managed to immediately kill thousands of union jobs and paralyze America's energy industry with the Executive orders that killed the Keystone XL Pipeline. At peak capacity, this pipeline would have delivered 830,000 barrels of oil per day to American refineries. It is pretty similar to what we are importing from Russia.
The President put a moratorium on all new oil and gas leases on Federal lands, moving America from the energy superpower that we have been back to having an increased reliance on foreign adversaries for fuel feedstocks. These are countries that have much laxer environmental rules than we have or that we will ever have.
The administration has also been openly anti-pipeline and anti-fossil fuel with its rhetoric, through its actions, and embodied by the people it has elevated to unaccountable leadership roles. Two by name are Gina McCarthy and John Kerry. This administration has instituted regulatory uncertainty at a time of record inflation.
The administration wants to make a new definition of WOTUS, which is a rule otherwise known as the waters of the United States, to regulate every pond and ditch--even on private lands all across the country. This will devastate energy production as well as hurt sectors like agriculture and home building at a time when their products are already in high demand and under immense inflationary pressures.
The administration is considering new, tighter methane regulations that will also raise our energy costs, including for home heating and, as we move to the next season, for home cooling and electricity bills.
It is revising the NEPA permitting process by undoing the streamlining that was done during the Trump administration. NEPA touches almost every single infrastructure project in our country. Think about it. We just passed an enormous infrastructure package, but if you add more and more redtape onto these infrastructure projects that we have bipartisanly passed through here, you are going to add more and more costs for producers and more and more costs for everyday Americans. This regulatory uncertainty is increasing energy prices for Americans across the board and is felt most acutely at the gas pump because we can see it so clearly every time we fill up, and we see it posted at the stations.
You also have an Energy Department that is slow-walking the build-out of LNG export terminals, which means we can't export much needed energy to our allies as efficiently as we could be.
Endless regulatory delay and environmental lawsuits, including on permits already issued, delay more than pipelines and kill more than jobs. We have one in West Virginia, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, that is working hard to complete the last 5 percent of the pipeline to move the product. They also crush our economy with inflation and leave us and our allies more susceptible to bad actors like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran.
We are seeing the importance of energy independence play out in realtime with the destruction--the horrifying destruction--in Ukraine. Because of the Biden administration's policies that I just outlined, we are not able to immediately provide an energy backstop to our European allies that are trying to break their Russian oil and gas habit. They are begging for our coal as we speak. It is the perfect storm for a global energy crisis. It almost sounds cliche to say, as it has been said so often, but energy security is our national security. Specifically, fossil fuel security will help keep us secure nationally.
So what is the Biden administration doing?
We have seen reports that the administration is discussing a possible trip soon to Saudi Arabia to convince the Kingdom to produce more oil. Well, he has tried this--and, oh, by the way, they won't even take the President's phone calls.
We know the administration is considering easing sanctions on Venezuela so they will produce more oil.
Once again, President Biden opened the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, even though it didn't work the last time, costs the taxpayer, and depletes our own stockpile that we created from the last oil crisis to be used when the United States faces another crisis. But incentivizing oil and gas production in our own country or letting it move forward? No.
So, according to the administration and its actions, Saudi and Venezuelan and OPEC oil is good, but American oil is bad. OK. Got it. Rather than encourage American oil production, this administration would like to line the pockets of the Saudis, Nicolas Maduro, and, yes, Vladimir Putin.
You cannot hinder American oil and gas production in the name of reducing emissions and then nudge countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to produce more. Emissions are emissions, no matter where it comes from. Emissions are emissions when it comes to global climate change.
And while I know the climate czar John Kerry is disappointed that war in Ukraine is distracting people from climate change--as we see 2 million people leaving that beautiful country--I don't see our European friends trying to secure alternative sources for more solar panels. Instead, they are worried about access to oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear. That is because wind and solar aren't able to meet their energy demands.
And, sadly, with the energy decisions the Biden administration has made, American fuel won't be there to meet their needs either. We just don't have the physical infrastructure in place to export. We are producing more than we ever have--even in this regulatory purgatory--
but that just underscores how much more we could be doing if the Biden administration's redtape and policies were not in place.
Right now, the world is begging for American leadership; Ukraine is begging for American leadership; Europe is begging for American leadership, and that includes energy leadership.
Putin is emboldened every day that the Biden administration flails on this issue.
The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is completely heartbreaking. According to the United Nations, as I stated, more than 2 million people have been forced to leave their homeland. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians still in Ukraine are without food, water, or power. We have seen the haunting images of the bombings of schools, apartments, and hospitals, including, sadly and just horrifyingly, a maternity hospital just yesterday. Civilians are being targeted. Children are being orphaned. It is an absolute atrocity.
We cannot leave Ukrainian patriots and our European allies at the mercy of Moscow. We must address the poor energy policy decisions of the Biden administration in order to unleash full American energy production, support our allies in Europe, and stop funding Putin's war against Ukrainians.
We should be acting quickly. The security of the free world depends on this.
And I thank you for that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
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