Providing for Consideration of H.R. Unlocking Our Domestic Lng Potential Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1009 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 1009

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 7176) to repeal restrictions on the export and import of natural gas. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees; and (2) one motion to recommit.

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Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), who is my good friend, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.

House Resolution 1009 provides for consideration of H.R. 7176, which is the Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2024, under a closed rule with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees. It provides one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, since President Biden took office, he has waged a war on American energy independence while supporting policies that have emboldened Vladimir Putin, the Ayatollah of Iran, and the dictator in Communist China, Chairman Xi.

Mr. Speaker, if you don't believe me, then let's go through some of the facts.

President Biden green-lit the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to provide Russian gas to Europe at the same time that he blocked the Keystone XL pipeline here at home. He has proposed and enacted rules that have devastated clean, coal-fired power plants while China approves two coal power plants a week.

He has deleted the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest levels since 1983 and sent millions of barrels of oil to where? Communist China.

Mr. Speaker, on the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, almost as if he was trolling patriotic Americans and the families of victims of 9/11, on that same day, he turned around and unfroze $6 billion in oil sanctions to Iran. Just days later, the Iranians turned around and helped fund a horrific, medieval, barbaric attack on our number one ally, the State of Israel.

The Biden administration's policies have truly embodied the slogan, America last. That is not all. You might be thinking there can't be more that he has done to devastate energy production and harm ourselves and our allies, but wait, there is more. We are going to talk about it right now.

Last month, this administration announced an indefinite pause in new approvals of liquefied natural gas exports. This deeply concerning decision puts American family-sustaining jobs and the security of not only ourselves but our allies and other partners around the globe at risk.

In the wake of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, our European allies have nearly tripled their import of U.S. LNG while significantly reducing their reliance on Russian natural gas.

Studies have shown that LNG exports can provide upward of $73 billion to the U.S. economy by 2040, create an additional 450,000 jobs, and help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, Biden and his administration have tried to put a stop to all that.

This administration's actions will undoubtedly cause significant disruptions to the United States and global economies.

Let me be clear about one thing. The only people who stand to benefit from this decision are people based in Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow, and maybe White, affluent suburbs that vote for Joe Biden and want to feel good about themselves. Other than that, no one else benefits from this decision.

That is why House Republicans are bringing to the floor this week the bipartisan Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2024, which ends the Biden administration's ban on LNG exports and streamlines the permitting process by removing the Department of Energy from the approval process.

This week's vote will be very clear. Do you support American workers and American energy, or do you support authoritarian and Communist regimes abroad?

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot to rebut there, but let's start with the notion that we are here passing the same bill over and over again. That is simply not true. We are here for one reason and one reason only. Last month, Biden and the far-left radical Democrats catered to their base and put an indefinite ban on LNG exports.

Again, as I said in my opening, this is going to hurt American workers. This is going to hurt our allies and partners around the world. If you are worried about carbon emissions, it is going to be bad for the environment. Who benefits from this?

The people who benefit from this are Putin; the dictator in Communist China, Xi; and the Ayatollah in Iran. They are the only three that benefit from this. The loser, again, is the American worker and our allies abroad.

If you support dirty Russian and Iranian oil and gas, then go ahead and vote against this bill, but know that your vote supports them. If you support American energy and the American worker, then vote for this bill. That is why we are here today.

To talk about this being a handout to Wall Street and big corporations, I tell my colleague across the aisle that the early 2000s want their Democratic Party back because, the last time I checked, we are now the party that supports the people who shower after work, not before. They are the party of Wall Street, and we are the party of Main Street.

When President Biden took office, you can look at what he did. What he did was detrimental to Main Street, detrimental to the American workers, very beneficial to corporate America, and very beneficial to Wall Street.

When President Biden took office, inflation was at 1.4 percent. Since then, prices have risen 17.9 percent. That includes a 28.6 percent increase in electricity, a 20 percent increase in food prices, and an 18 percent increase in rent prices.

If you factor in inflation, wages have actually fallen 4 percent since Biden took office. For 26 straight months, inflation has outpaced wage growth. Last October, mortgage rates hit a 23-year high.

Today, Americans are spending just about $12,000 more per year just to buy the basics. That is like coming and saying we are going to take $1,000 out of your paycheck every month just to keep up with Bidenomics.

Who does that hurt? It doesn't hurt the executive working at BlackRock that sends money to the Democratic Party. It doesn't hurt the fat cats running corporations. It hurts the supporters and the American workers. The base of the Republican Party is who pays the price for this.

Mr. Speaker, for the Democrats to say that we are somehow concerned with Wall Street, that is their party. We are worried about Main Street on this side of the aisle.

Now, talking about Republicans not wanting to support our allies abroad, maybe I was asleep last week when the Democrats voted down a clean Israel aid package, because that aid package would have helped our allies abroad. I am not sure who my friend is talking about when he is saying we don't want to help our allies abroad.

It is very clear that we are the party who wants to support democracy abroad because the LNG issue is one of the most beneficial things we can do for our allies in Europe, in particular. Despite disaster after disaster on the foreign stage, this could actually help alleviate it.

Let's talk about Biden's disasters on the international stage. Biden's foreign policy has led to--and I will list it: a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that killed 13 Americans.

By the way, my friends across the aisle claim they care about women and children, but do you know who is paying the price for Biden's disaster in Afghanistan right now? It is all the women who had rights when we were there, and all the children that now have to grow up under the medieval-style rule of the Taliban.

Biden's disaster just didn't stop with Afghanistan. He also emboldened Iran to unleash a proxy network that killed American troops in the Middle East, along with three brave servicemembers lost in Jordan from Iran's aggression. Also, the Biden administration has had a failure to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea from ragtag Houthi rebels, which Biden delisted from the terrorist organization list.

This shouldn't be surprising, though. Former President Obama's own Defense Secretary commented that Joe Biden has been wrong on every single foreign policy decision he has ever made. I would submit to you that this LNG export ban is in that list of decisions that Biden has made for foreign policy that is simply wrong.

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Mr. RESCHENTHALER.

Mr. Speaker, again, there is a lot to rebut there.

If the gentleman wants to talk about Trump and foreign policy, let's talk about it.

It is not a coincidence that under the Obama administration, you had an aggressive Russia moving into Crimea. Then you have 4 years where Russia does not invade any of their neighbors. Then enter Joe Biden and the radical Democrats, and Vladimir Putin senses the weakness of Joe Biden and invades Ukraine.

I will take President Trump's record on the foreign stage over Joe Biden's record any day of the week. Furthermore, to suggest that President Trump doesn't care about the military and about advancing American interests abroad, I would remind the gentleman--maybe he forgot--that it was President Trump who took out Soleimani. It was President Trump who took out al-Baghdadi. It was President Trump that debilitated and destroyed ISIS. It was President Trump who brought forward the Abraham Accords that actually brought the promise of peace and stability to the Middle East.

I will take President Trump's foreign policy any day of the week, as would probably the Ukrainians, the Israelis, and the Taiwanese people.

Now, the comment about this bill benefiting authoritarian regimes, it is completely the opposite. If we limit our export of LNGs, the demand for LNGs abroad is not going to go away. That is fantasy land.

Our allies will still need liquefied natural gas, but instead of having the benefit of buying it from places like Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, our allies will have to buy it from places like Russia, Tehran, and Venezuela, for example.

So who are you supporting when you ban the export of LNG? I would submit to you that you are supporting the authoritarian regimes that you proclaim to despise.

Now, my friend and colleague--and I do consider him a friend--from Massachusetts made a comment that we are operating under a different set of facts. It is like we are looking at two different fact patterns. That might be right, but I think we are looking at two different decades.

Again, this is no longer 2006. This is a new Democratic Party. This is a Democratic Party made up of radical extremists, leftists, and the Republican Party has also shifted.

There was a comment about union jobs. It is pretty clear where the Democrats stand on union jobs when literally on day one of the Biden administration, right out of the gate, he cancels the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Do you know how many union jobs were lost? There were over 60,000 union jobs lost.

So the guy that is driving the EV to the yoga class, he might be happy that the Keystone XL Pipeline went down, but that is the guy that has the ``Ridin' with Biden'' bumper sticker on his car.

The guy that is actually driving to work in a truck, that is the guy who is voting Republican, so a different set of facts. I suggest a different decade. It is a new Republican Party, and it is a new Democratic Party, for sure. Those union workers are voting Republican.

Let's talk about what we have done in Congress so far. It is hard to prove a negative, but in some ways we can talk about the rush to the Green New Deal and us preventing a rush to the Green New Deal. If the Democrats were in power right now, we would be all in on the disastrous policies of the Green New Deal, which does nothing but benefit China. However, because we are in the majority, we have been able to stop extreme left positions and ideas.

Again, let's go back to the Green New Deal. The path forward for the Green New Deal has been propped up by adversaries like China. Why is that? It is because we rely on China for critical minerals. We need those critical minerals to build everything from an electric vehicle to a solar panel to windmills.

Biden's administration, by the way, openly admits this. According to his own Secretary of the Interior, the administration's rush to green policies has furthered our dependence on China. She said that in a hearing, by the way, in the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. She is right about that. China accounts for 63 percent of the world's rare earth mining, 85 percent of rare earth processing, and 92 percent of rare earth magnet production.

While Democrats hamper our domestic energy production, China is busy emitting more greenhouse gases than the U.S., the entire EU and Japan combined. China is the one that is bringing two coal-fired power plants online every week, two a week.

It is clear when the White House and congressional Democrats push for the Green New Deal, they are actually absolutely colorblind. What they really are pushing for is a red new deal that benefits our number one adversary, China.

Mr. Speaker, I remind my friend across the aisle that when President Trump was naming those world leaders, those world leaders were actually alive.

Let's talk about Ukraine aid. I don't know if my friend knows my record, but it is pretty hard to find someone who is more hawkish on Russia than me. The difference with my position is I am consistent. My friends across the aisle are not.

It is amazing. The same people who are calling for a blank check for Zelenskyy, saying it will take as long as it takes, those are the same people who are telling our allies in Israel who are under attack every single day from the north, south, and west that they need an off-ramp, that they need to turn it down. They are the ones who voted against a clean Israel aid package just last week.

I am very proud to be consistent. I don't like Russians in Ukraine, and I also don't like Hamas attacking Israel. I wish that consistency were across the aisle. I think my friends, though, are too beholden to their radical, anti-Israel, far-left base.

If we want to talk about Biden failures, there is more than just foreign policy. Let's talk about the border crisis. Joe Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, I would submit to you, have intentionally left the southern border open. Under President Trump's leadership, America never had a single month of over 150,000 illegal border crossings. It never crossed that threshold. Do you know what that number is under Joe Biden? Thirty-four. It is as if he is intentionally leaving the border open. This is an absolute dereliction of duty by Mayorkas and Joe Biden, and it is because they are beholden to their far-left radical extremist base.

Just how bad is this? Let's be clear. On day number one, this administration put in motion a border agenda that endangers our national security, exacerbates our fentanyl crisis, and puts our communities at risk.

Do you want to talk about more numbers? Every single day, roughly 300 Americans die of fentanyl overdoses. It happens every day. That would be like a commercial airliner once a day going down and my friends across the aisle not caring or saying anything about it. It is amazing the silence on the fentanyl issue.

It didn't have to be this way. Joe Biden could have had remain in Mexico. He could have had catch and release. He could have done numerous executive orders that President Trump did, but Joe Biden, Mayorkas, and, again, the extreme radical Democrats have refused to do anything to secure the border.

Mr. Speaker, let's refocus this debate on what we are here to discuss, and that is LNG exports, making sure that we are exporting clean liquefied natural gas to our allies abroad.

Let's talk about LNG export stats. In 2021, Russian gas accounted for more than 40 percent of the European Union's gas supply. Today, roughly 10 percent of the EU's natural gas supply still comes from Russia, a share that could be lowered further with U.S. LNG.

In 2022, the U.S. surged more than 800 LNG cargoes to Europe, a 141 percent increase from 2021.

In December 2023, more than 87 percent of the U.S. LNG exports went to the European Union, the United Kingdom, or Asian markets. U.S. LNG has helped reduce natural gas prices in Europe by over 83 percent from 2022 levels, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

American LNG has 41 percent lower lifecycle emissions than compressed natural gas from Russia. The Department of Energy estimates that LNG exports could add between $50 billion to $73 billion--that is ``billion''--to the U.S. economy by 2040 and create between 200,000 and 500,000 jobs as well as increase downstream industries like manufacturing. The top five importers of U.S. LNG are South Korea, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and Spain.

By standing against LNG exports, you are reversing all this good that is coming from it. You are making our allies more dependent on Russia. You are hurting the environment because you are having our allies burn Russian gas that is 40 percent dirtier than any LNG that is coming from the United States. You are standing in the way of American jobs and the American economy by the devastating impact of stopping our LNG exports.

However, don't just take my word for it. Let's go through some quotes on LNG exports. Let's look at our European allies and what they say. Here is what Eurogas said: ``If additional U.S. LNG export capacities don't materialize, it would risk increasing and prolonging the global supply imbalance. This would inevitably prolong the period of price volatility in Europe and could lead to price increases with the consequent implications that would have for economic turmoil and social impact.''

Again, that is Eurogas. That is our European allies. That is not the Republican Party saying this.

Let's talk about the Directorate-General for Energy for the European Union. The director said:

We do not have the abundance of energy sources in Europe. We need to rely on partners in the United States, and we need to become as resilient as possible within that reality.

Again, what the director of the EU is saying is if they don't have LNG from the United States, they are going to go elsewhere.

Where is that elsewhere? That elsewhere is Russia.

Let's look at industry. My good friend Toby Rice, the CEO of EQT has said: ``These types of executive orders send a chilling effect through the industries and the investors.'' Again, that is Toby Rice, the CEO of EQT, the largest LNG exporter in the United States.

The American Petroleum Institute, American Exploration & Production Council, and other industry leaders have said: ``Any action to halt U.S. LNG export approvals would be a major mistake that puts American jobs and allies at risk while undermining''--wait for it--``global climate goals.''

Let's end with our friends from across the aisle. What are Democrats saying about LNG exports?

Well, Secretary of State Antony Blinken says: The U.S. is ``. . . now the leading supplier of LNG to Europe to help compensate for any gas or oil that it's losing as a result of Russia's aggression against Ukraine.''

It stands to reason that if you want to help Russia and do exactly the opposite of what Blinken is saying, you would stop LNG exports from the United States.

Let's look at what Secretary Granholm has said. ``I believe U.S. LNG exports can have an important role to play in reducing international consumption of fuels that have greater contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.'' That was Secretary Granholm, not exactly a right-winger.

Again, if you are against this bill, you are against all these individuals that are speaking up for U.S. LNG exports.

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Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Madam Speaker, two quick things.

Let me correct myself. I said EQT is the largest exporter. They are the largest producer in the United States.

Madam Speaker, I inform my friend across the aisle that I have no more speakers. I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, this administration's decision will have long-lasting impacts on the workforce, including union jobs that my Democrat friends across the aisle claim to care about.

It will also have long-term lasting impacts on our country's long- term economic growth. That is why House Republicans will pass this legislation, which removes Biden's export regulations that add uncertainty to the market and that curtail production and decrease global price volatility prices at home and abroad.

The underlying legislation lowers global emissions, strengthens energy security, and creates thousands of family-sustaining jobs.

For those reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question and ``yes'' on the rule.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

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