Nord Stream 2

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor to congratulate and commend the remarks by the senior Senator from Alaska. She certainly knows from whence she speaks.

I remember so well the discussion that she just mentioned with regard to the energy bill and HRCs and the effort for a cleaner environment, and it was through the process that we were able to come up with legislation that we believe--all believe--was a better result for the Nation and for the environment.

It took longer than any of us wish it would have taken, but it was through that process. And had we been in a situation without the ability to filibuster, we would have never gotten to such a good result because a 50-50 Senate is--basically it is a mandate to move to the middle.

So I commend the senior Senator from Alaska. She knows from whence she speaks. She is very high up in seniority in the institution. She has institutional memory, more than many, many Members of this body, and when she says what goes around comes around and the shoe is, at another time, on the opposite foot, she knows what the implications of those are and why what the Democrats are proposing now is in the wrong direction for the country.

So I believe it is misguided, and I concur with her comments. Nord Stream 2

Mr. President, I come to the floor today on another matter, and that is to support sanctions on Vladimir Putin and his Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

This body will be voting on that very issue in the next day or so, and I am urging my colleagues to support S. 3436, which is known as Protecting Europe's Energy Security Implementation Act.

Let me just explain why this is so important. And it is important because right now, Vladimir Putin has mobilized close to 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine. They are nearly encircling the country of Ukraine. Our intelligence community has warned of a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine in the next month or so.

So why is this happening? Well, Vladimir Putin has always wanted to control and dominate Ukraine. This is nothing new. He invaded in 2014. He illegally annexed Crimea and continues to occupy Crimea today. Now, he wants more, and he is now also flush with cash. With Joe Biden in the White House and the Democrat energy policies, Vladimir Putin has hit the energy financial jackpot.

You don't have to take my word for it; take it from the Biden administration. Joe Biden's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs is one of his top Russia experts for our own State Department. She has spent her entire career working on issues related to Russia, Ukraine, and Europe.

Well, in December, she testified before the Foreign Relations Committee. She testified about increasing Russian aggression on the Ukraine border. She said, ``Energy is the cash cow that enables these kinds of military deployments.''

She said Vladimir Putin ``needs the energy to flow as much as the consumers need'' it to flow.

But why is that? Well, it is because of Russian energy that Putin is able to pursue these dangerous military ambitions.

The late Senator John McCain, with whom I have traveled on several occasions to Ukraine, used to say, ``Russia is a Mafia-run gas company disguised as a country.''

Energy is the only successful sector of the Russian economy. Natural gas is what is propping up the Russian military and the entire Putin regime. Vladimir Putin uses energy as a geopolitical weapon, and he knows how to use it.

He uses energy to coerce and to manipulate our allies and our partners in Europe. If they don't do something that Putin wants or they do something that he doesn't like, he can turn off the power and turn off the heat. We just saw an example of this in November, when Russia threatened to cut off gas flows to the small and neighboring country of Moldova. Moldova had to declare a state of emergency.

Well, under Joe Biden's energy policies, Europe will soon be in a state of energy emergency as well. It is because Europe already gets almost half of its gas imports from Russia. With the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany, the imports will only need to go up, and they will go up.

Under Secretary Victoria Nuland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ``We have been counseling Europe for almost a decade now to reduce its dependence on Russian energy.''

A decade. A decade includes the administrations of both President Trump and President Obama. Yet Joe Biden has done everything he can to cripple American energy production.

What happens with that? Well, it makes our allies more dependent on Russia for energy. It gives more power to Putin.

Under Joe Biden, American energy production hasn't really recovered yet to the 2019 levels. This is a direct result of the anti-American energy policies of this White House.

On his first day in office, Joe Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline. He then blocked new oil and gas leases on Federal lands. We are now producing 1.4 million fewer barrels of oil each day than we were before the pandemic.

We are, in the U.S., now, using more oil imported from Russia than we are using oil from our own home State of Alaska. It is a national disgrace to be dependent more upon Russia for oil than we are from our neighboring State of Alaska.

Joe Biden's National Security Advisor even pleaded with Russia to produce more oil--hard to believe, hard to believe that the National Security Advisor for Joe Biden in the White House would plead with Russia to produce more oil.

Well, the administration actually put the Russian energy request on the White House website. Joe Biden would rather have America buy energy from our enemies than sell energy to our friends.

Joe Biden would rather have European nations dependent on Russian energy than increase American energy production and exports from home here to our allies. It is completely backwards.

Under Joe Biden, American energy production is down and energy prices, as any consumer knows, is way up. American families are caught paying the price for these policies of the Democrats and the Biden administration.

In November, we saw the biggest energy price increase in 10 years. CNBC reports that one in five American families can't afford to pay an energy bill this year. Roughly the same percentage have kept their home at an unhealthy low temperature because they can't afford the cost to heat their home. People who traveled for Christmas just faced some of the highest Christmas Day gasoline prices in history. American families are getting squeezed, and Putin is getting rich.

Joe Biden is against American pipelines, but in May, he gave a green light to Vladimir Putin's pipeline between Russia and Germany. This is a betrayal of American energy workers. It is a betrayal of America's allies in Europe.

If the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is completed, it will double the amount of Russian natural gas flowing into Germany. Putin will be able to manipulate the price and the availability of energy to European nations in the middle of winter. He will be able to hold half of Europe hostage.

Stopping this pipeline should be an area of bipartisan agreement in this body. In fact, it was an area of bipartisan agreement until Joe Biden became President. Even Joe Biden said that he was against the pipeline--well, until he was for it.

Many Democrats voted for the sanctions against the pipeline on more than one occasion, but when Joe Biden flip-flopped, so did they.

Senate Democrats now are running interference for Joe Biden. But Democrats just spent 4 years talking about Russia, Russia, Russia-- obsessed with Russia. They spent 4 years going on TV, spreading conspiracy theories, all of which were false.

Yet now, the Democrat caucus is attempting to protect the Kremlin's greatest geopolitical weapon.

For the Democratic Party, this is a return to tradition. Democrats were soft on Russia during the Cold War, soft on Russia under the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton gave the Russians a great big reset button. President Obama was caught in a hot-microphone moment telling the Russian President at the time that he would have more flexibility: Tell Vladimir I will have more flexibility after I am reelected.

Democrats talk tough--they did under the last administration, that is. But now we are back to the old Democratic playbook. This is the kind of Washington, DC, partisanship the American people hate--the same thing Democrats did with Iran when Barack Obama was in the White House.

An American President must always negotiate from a position of strength. Democrats tend to think if you give Putin or the Ayatollah something they demand, that they will then play nice. That is not how the real world works. Vladimir Putin is cunning, he is opportunistic, and he is aggressive. He sees an opportunity, and he takes it. He can smell weakness. He respects strength, not statements.

The Nord Stream 2 Pipeline from Russia to Germany will be an enormous transfer of wealth from our allies to our enemy. It will make our allies weaker, and, of course, it will make Vladimir Putin stronger. When Putin gets stronger, he gets even more aggressive.

History should not be kind to those who gifted Putin a pipeline, pointed like a gun into the heart of Europe.

This vote to support sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline is our chance to undo a great mistake, and it may also be our chance to prevent an even greater mistake.

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