Lower Energy Costs Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chair, saying that gasoline prices are down is a little bit like giving an arsonist a medal for putting out a fire that he helped start.

They are still 50 percent higher than when President Biden took office. That is not counting inputs for ag products like fertilizer, which the natural feed stock is natural gas, all of those different issues.

That is not really the point in all of this. Two things can be true at once: The world's going to need more oil and natural gas and drive more electric cars in the next decade, and this bill has a little bit of something for everyone.

The last time we brought a refinery online in the United States with any true downstream capacity was the year I was born, 1976--46 years ago.

If we want to continue to build more electrification, have more batteries for more American-made electric vehicles, well, we need the rare earths to do it. This bill does those things.

When you live in a small community like I do in the geographic center of North America, we have recognized, very clearly, how hard it is to get the products that North Dakota makes that the rest of the world needs to market. Doesn't matter if it is corn. Doesn't matter if it is fertilizer. Doesn't matter if it is oil. Doesn't matter if it is natural gas.

We used to be the shining example in the whole world on how to put infrastructure in the ground. That is no longer the case, and it is not because Americans don't know how to do it. It is not because North Dakotans don't know how to produce it. It is because alphabet soup agencies in Washington, D.C., make it harder and harder and harder.

When we can't get those projects in the ground, we starve off capital. We are the only country in the world that is both energy and food secure. That is an incredible strategic advantage on the world stage.

In any normal place, we would maximize that. We would do everything we could to increase that, but we don't live in a normal place, Mr. Chairman. We live in Washington, D.C.

This bill will help us get infrastructure in the ground, help us produce those things that the world is starved for, and allow us energy independence, energy dominance, and also help communities in States like mine continue to thrive.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. The amendment is necessary because it addresses the Biden administration's mismanagement of our Nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

President Biden has drained the SPR to the lowest levels since 1983. More than 40 percent has been liquidated in less than 2 years.

The Department of Energy has no meaningful plan to refill our strategic stockpile. Instead, the Department created new rules to allow it to use fixed-price bidding.

As we expected, the Biden administration's price-fixing scheme is failing. When DOE put out its bid, there were no takers.

The SPR is at its lowest level since 1983. We must replenish it as soon as possible to protect our economy from a true supply interruption.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Kansas for offering this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to join me in support.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment.

This amendment expresses disapproval of the proposed tax hikes on the oil and gas industry in President Biden's 2024 budget. It is estimated that the President's budget request would result in a $31 billion tax hike on the industry.

This is another move by this administration to harm the domestic oil and gas industry and undercut their global competitiveness despite asking them to produce more.

The independent oil and gas producers develop 91 percent of the wells in the United States, producing 83 percent of America's oil and 90 percent of its natural gas.

I think it is important to note that integrated companies don't get 100 percent of the tax break, only nonintegrated companies. The small oil and gas producers that exist in western North Dakota, eastern Montana, Kansas, and Oklahoma that produce the majority of America's oil are the producers that the Biden administration wants to raise taxes on.

The Biden budget proposal also calls out these producers for failing to invest in production. Meanwhile, this administration is doing everything to tax and regulate the industry out of existence.

Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. This amendment requires the EPA Administrator and the Secretary of Energy to issue a report on harmful regulations that degrade our energy independence and raise costs for consumers. It requires the Biden administration take a hard look at how their own policies are hurting American consumers with high prices and less energy reliability.

The Biden administration has imposed harmful energy policies on American consumers since day one, such as canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and imposing a moratorium on oil and gas extraction on Federal lands.

We need to expand our American energy and our production, and I support this amendment.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. This section of H.R. 1 provides that the Department of Energy import new functions to identify the criteria of the energy resources, the minerals, and materials needed for our great American energy systems. It requires DOE to identify supply chain vulnerabilities, the vulnerabilities to supply disruptions by our adversaries like Russia and China, and it requires DOE to act to address risks to facilitate action across agencies, industry states, and to do something about them.

The amendment here by Representative Mace requires that DOE keep Congress informed in a timely manner of the risks to supply chains and the actions taken or that Congress may want to take to those risks. This is an important amendment to assist Congress and to keep the public informed of the energy security risks we face.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. The Biden administration will stop at nothing in its war on American energy.

Democrats' next target is Americans' home appliances, including stoves, your furnace, and your hot water heater.

In the last 2 years, we have seen far-reaching regulatory proposals and executive orders to restrict the use of natural gas.

As we speak, DOE is proposing to ban more than half of the gas stoves currently on the market. Some States, like California and New York, are going even further to ban natural gas pipelines and the sale of gas- powered appliances and equipment.

The American people are paying for these gas bans in the form of higher prices and surging utility bills. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment so that the GAO can study the true cost of gas bans.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment.

The amendment would stop the Department of Energy from implementing punitive regulations to ban natural gas stoves.

Earlier this year, we learned that the Biden administration was considering a nationwide ban on gas stoves when Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Trumka said gas stoves were a hidden hazard, and all options are on the table to restrict their use.

Weeks later, the DOE issued a proposed efficiency rule that would ban up to 96 percent of existing stoves on the market.

DOE's punitive regulations to ban gas stoves is a massive expansion of their statutory authority. DOE should be focused on expanding energy options rather than banning them.

DOE's regulatory assault will force the American people to change out their reliable gas stoves for more expensive and less reliable electric appliances.

This amendment would stop DOE from banning those gas stoves, and I urge my colleagues to join me in support.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. Mr. Perry's amendment makes very clear that the States have primacy for the regulation of hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas production on State and private lands.

We cannot allow unelected bureaucrats or independent commissions to prohibit oil and gas production activities that are safe and permitted under State law.

The Biden administration and radical environmentalists are waging a war on American energy, and they want to ban hydraulic fracturing.

The United States has become the world's number one energy producer thanks in part to technological innovations like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

According to a recent study placing a moratorium on fracking would mean a $900 billion increase in U.S. household energy costs, $7.1 trillion in potential losses to the U.S. economy through 2030, and over 7 million fewer U.S. jobs.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment and standing up for American energy and American energy workers.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, before I start, I will point out that it sounds like we want to cooperate with our foreign neighbors when it comes to environmental control, but we don't want to import energy from them or we don't want to export energy to them. I find that a little bit ironic.

That being said, I regretfully stand in opposition to this amendment.

After Congress reviewed and preserved the Clean Air Act in 1977, it did play an important role in cross-border pollution issues of the late 1970s with Canada. Before we strike an entire section of the Clean Air Act involving air pollutants, the committee of jurisdiction should examine the issues, particularly to make sure we avoid any unintended consequences.

For example, we should make sure that striking this section does not undermine the ability to reduce international air emissions that harm the United States.

I commit to working with my friend from Pennsylvania to take this through regular order, but I am a big fan of the committee process. Let's see that it works.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the previous speaker. I think this draft amendment was designed to have certainty. I think it was designed to have certainty, in that no new pipelines would get put into the ground.

By mitigating both upstream and downstream carbon, if anybody who understands the way economics of a pipeline work, not only are you delaying this process even further, which is what H.R. 1 is trying to constrict, but you will make it nearly impossible and not economically viable to get pipe in the ground.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is an energy economic regulator, not a climate regulator.

This is a good amendment. It will take draft language that had no business being introduced to begin with and remove it.

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