Democrats’ War on American Energy Hurts Families and Cuts Our Global Leverage
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding energy policy:
“The price of gas jumped more in the past week than in any week on record.
“This began long before Russia invaded Ukraine. Even before that, families across America were paying dramatically higher gas prices than they faced when President Biden took office.
“I expect our Democratic friends will now try to blame the entire increase in prices on our efforts to punish Russia. Don’t be fooled. This was more than a year in the making.
“Back in November, President Biden’s Secretary of Energy was asked about any efforts to ramp up production of our own abundant American energy. And she literally laughed at the question. ‘That is hilarious,’ Secretary Granholm said.
“The Secretary suggested that increasing domestic production would be futile because the market for oil is global.
“Well, it sure is. But right now the free world is considering making this market a little bit less global, to punish Russia for its brutal conquests in Ukraine. It sure would be nice if America had gone into this crisis with more headroom on supply and on gas prices.
“Just three years ago, under Republican policies, we’d become a net oil exporter for the first time since World War II.
“But Democrats are completely committed to their ideological holy war on affordable energy. From the campaign trail, then-candidate Biden promised, ‘I guarantee you we are going to end fossil fuel.’ And in office, the Biden Administration has used its considerable executive authority to actively target affordable American-made oil and natural gas.
“On his first day in office, the President cancelled a pipeline project that would have sped the safe transport of reliable fuel. The following week, he suspended all new federal leases for oil and natural gas exploration.
“Washington Democrats spent months trying to pass policies that would drive the most affordable, reliable, and abundant forms of American energy – and the jobs they support – into extinction.
“Literally just yesterday, as even our Western European friends are realizing that green fantasies can’t fuel their countries and trying to turn back toward nuclear, coal, and domestic natural gas, Biden Administration officials gave a press conference where they repeated the same platitudes about renewables.
“You can’t make it up. The Democrats in charge of the United States of America want us to embrace the same failed strategies from which our European friends are frantically backpedaling as fast as they can.
“While the Ukrainians are fighting Russia, Democrats are trying to fight a war on the law of supply and demand. They only want to have to look at solar panels and windmills here at home. So they want to get our oil and gas from everywhere else.
“But many of the biggest players in that global market are countries who don’t much care for the United States. And now the Biden Administration’s ‘green’ hostility to domestic energy production has them going hat in hand, begging our antagonists to increase production.
“After spending a year hammering America’s own energy producers, the Biden Administration appears to be commencing a world tour to try to buy oil from people who don’t like us.
“As I mentioned yesterday, the Administration appears close to a deal that would help Iran enrich more nuclear material and enrich its economy by lifting oil export sanctions.
“Reports also suggest U.S. officials have met with the Maduro regime with the aim of relaxing sanctions on Venezuelan oil, too.
“This Administration wants to ramp up energy imports from Iran and Venezuela. That is the world’s largest state sponsor of terror and a thuggish South America dictator, respectively. They would rather buy from these people than buy from Texas, Alaska, and Pennsylvania. Just let that sink in.
“The Administration is also apparently making similar overtures to Saudi Arabia. Obviously the Saudis are not an adversary like those other countries. But I doubt the American people are thrilled to see President Biden trying to increase our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and OPEC while declaring America’s own resources off limits.
“A green light for the Arabian Gulf, and a red one for the Gulf of Mexico. What sense does that make?
“The political left thinks that affordable energy is dirty and bad, so they are happy to export the dirty work and import the oil. Let’s ask our friends in Europe how that plays out.
“Outsourcing even more production to dictators and theocrats is not the answer. Dumping more subsidies into solar panels and charging stations praying everything works out is not the answer. The answer is to let Americans produce American energy.”
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Related Issues: China, Russia, Senate Democrats, Energy, Iran
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