Today, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined a roundtable discussion focused on how American families, workers, and small businesses are suffering due to Democrats’ far-left energy policies. Whip Scalise highlighted how the Biden Administration’s war on American energy and radical climate agenda have raised the price of food, gasoline, and electricity, making it more expensive for the average American to fuel their car and heat and cool their home. Whip Scalise slammed President Biden for traveling to Saudi Arabia to beg OPEC countries for oil instead of turning to American producers for domestic energy production. Additionally, Whip Scalise emphasized that House Republicans have a plan to fix President Biden’s self-made crises and bring back American energy independence.
Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Select Committee on Climate Crisis Ranking Member Garret Graves (R-La.), Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Congressman August Pfluger (R-Texas), Congresswoman Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), and Congresswoman Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.) joined Whip Scalise at the roundtable discussion.
Joining the lawmakers were Mike Gooding, President of San Joaquin Facilities Management, Inc., Tom Jorden, President and CEO of Coterra, Jeff Wilson, Vice President of Public and Government Affairs of Devon Energy, Joe Leimkuhler, COO of Beacon Offshore Energy, and Steve Pruett, President and CEO of Elevation Resources to discuss how House Republicans can bolster U.S. energy production and lower energy prices.
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here or on the image above to view Whip Scalise’s remarks.
“He also, at the same time, started begging other countries to produce our energy for us. It started with Russia. You know, before the invasion of Ukraine, we were getting more of our oil from Russia under [President] Biden, and in fact, Putin was making about $700 million a day selling his oil to America and Europe in the build-up to the [Ukrainian] war.
“And so, because [President] Biden shut down production in America, there's a cost to that. And the cost we feel, and especially hardworking families, lower and middle-income families, is the pain at the pump when they pay four, now [five-plus] dollars a gallon. That really is hurting [a] family's ability to go on vacations, to go to the grocery store to buy things that are more expensive.
“But if you look at what it's done, it's emboldened a lot of our enemies around the world. And so, there's no reason Putin should have been making all of that money. Then he turned to Iran. He's turned to Venezuela.
“He's getting on Air Force One. You saw him fly yesterday to the Middle East. Tomorrow, he's going to be meeting with the Saudi princes, begging them to produce more oil when we can produce it here.
“Everybody knows that, and the real important point is no one does it better. No one does it cleaner [and with a] lower carbon footprint. If oil is made anywhere in the world, the best place to make it and produce it is in America. We should be doing more of it.
“I will just show this chart because I don't think [this point] can be made enough. Again, [President] Biden's flying 5,700 miles on Air Force One, which, [there are] no solar panels on the wings – it's all jet fuel – to Saudi Arabia. Port Fourchon, in my district, is where deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico emanates from, and they could produce all of the needs for America that are being unmet right there.
“I know some of my other colleagues from other states that produce energy, whether it's Texas, Oklahoma, [or] New Mexico, we've got the ability to produce our energy. We ought to be doing it here, not going to foreign dictators to get it there.”
