Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the Republican whip for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. and will recess shortly thereafter. At approximately 11 a.m., the House will meet in joint session with His Excellency Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Greece. Votes are expected in the House on Tuesday thereafter.

On Wednesday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for legislative business.

On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.

The House will consider Chairman Scott's H.R. 7309, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2022, which is an important part of the Make It In America agenda. Now more than ever, businesses need skilled workers, and it is essential that we reauthorize WIOA to expand access to skills training for high-demand, high-wage jobs.

Mr. Speaker, the House will also consider H.R. 7688, the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act, introduced by Representatives Kim Schrier and Katie Porter. This critical legislation seeks to give the Federal Trade Commission greater authority to rein in excessive gas prices. This bill would protect consumers against irresponsible actors in oil and gas who would artificially inflate prices for extra profit, and it will help Americans struggling with higher energy costs.

Mr. Speaker, the House will also consider two bills under suspension of the rules in recognition of National Police Week.

Mr. Speaker, 23,229 of our fellow citizens have lost their lives, over the course of the existence of our country, in law enforcement, in doing their duties and protecting us and protecting our property.

The first of those bills is H.R. 6943, the Public Safety Officer Support Act, bipartisan legislation that would expand eligibility for the Public Safety Officers' Benefit program to include stress and trauma-related injuries and death by suicide for law enforcement officers and their families.

Tragically, Mr. Speaker, that happens too often as a result of the trauma and stress which our police officers around the country confront.

The second bill is H.R. 2992, the TBI and PTSD Law Enforcement Training Act, again bipartisan legislation, Mr. Speaker, that would require the Department of Justice to develop crisis intervention training tools for law enforcement agencies so they can better equip officers to respond to individuals with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, some of the most dangerous confrontations that our officers have.

The House will also consider, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6531, the Targeting Resources to Communities in Need Act of 2022, sponsored by Jim Clyburn and Hal Rogers, the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee. Unfortunately, that failed on suspension, so it is coming back under a rule.

We will also consider S. 2938, legislation to designate the United States Courthouse and Federal Building located at 111 North Adams Street in Tallahassee, Florida, as the Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building, which was sponsored by Senator Marco Rubio, Republican Member of the United States Senate.

The House will consider other bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business today.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, we obviously will be ready at any time that the Senate can pass assistance to the extraordinary, brave, and courageous Ukrainians, who are confronting the Russian criminal invasion of their country unprovoked, unwarranted, and unjustified.

We will have that legislation as soon as it comes back here considered, hopefully, on this floor so that we can get some $40 billion in military and humanitarian assistance that is needed in Ukraine so critically.

It is a sad thing that we passed this bill Tuesday night, and it has been sitting in the Senate with essentially now one Senator, one Republican Senator, Mr. Paul of Kentucky, holding it up. I am hopeful that the Senate can move it over to us quickly.

We passed it in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion when it was here, so that is also a possibility, Mr. Speaker, to be on the floor next week.

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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield just on that point?

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Mr. HOYER. On just that point, the gentleman mentioned this the last time we had a colloquy and pointed out that the drilling and processing of petroleum products are the cleanest in the world. You made that point last week, and you have just made it now.

Does the gentleman know why that is the case?

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Mr. HOYER. Correct.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we have had this discussion before. I am going to take a little bit of time to--because if you just listen to the Republican whip, you would think that America is bereft of production of oil, or of LNG, or of petroleum-based products.

I want to go through what America is doing, what the increase has been, and what can be done.

First of all, the United States is the largest producer of oil in the world--18.61 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia is about half of that, at 10.8. Russia is slightly less than Saudi Arabia; Canada about half of what Russia is doing; China about half, a little less than half, of what Russia is doing. So, we are the largest producer of petroleum products.

We import some, and that is largely based on the type of petroleum products that we use. On crude oil we produced 11.6 million barrels in February 2022. The all-time high was 12.9, almost 13 million barrels.

When Trump took office, we produced 8.8 billion barrels in January 2017. In 2008, we produced 5 million barrels. We more than doubled that in a decade from that 5 million.

Oil production is up more than 700,000 billion barrels from January to December 2021. It is up. It is very substantially up. Oil production is projected to grow more than 1 million barrels this year alone.

The U.S. rig count--this is important because these are the rigs that are in operation. The U.S. rig count is at a current level of 705, up seven from a week ago, and 257 from 1 year ago--a 57 percent increase.

So the presentation that somehow we are handcuffed in producing petroleum products is simply not true. In terms of natural gas, the United States is also the largest producer of natural gas in the world, at 3 trillion--3.109 billion cubic feet. Russia is second, Iran is third, and China is fourth, and Qatar is fifth.

In December of 2011, Mr. Speaker, the U.S. was producing 82.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas. That was in 2011. In December 2021, we are now producing 118 billion cubic feet, a 45 percent increase in 10 years. Again, to hear the whip talking about it, it would be as if we have been somewhat constrained and are not doing our job.

Now, I happen to have an export company in my district, Calvert Cliffs, a nuclear facility. Right south of Calvert Cliffs is an export facility for LNG, in Cove Point, Maryland. In October 2021, 66 percent of the deliveries went to Asia, 34 percent went to Europe.

In February and March of this year, it is now 80 percent to Europe and 20 percent to Asia.

Why is that? So that we can meet the cutoff that has either happened because Russia did it or it has happened because the Europeans have stopped buying, in some respects, Russian product.

In any event, at the end of 2021, the U.S. had a peak export capacity of 11.6 billion cubic feet per day. By the end of 2022, that figure is expected to increase by 20 percent. This is not a country that is locking down the production of oil.

In addition, let me point out that there are--I want to get the right figure--oil and gas companies already have 26 million acres of public lands to drill on and over 11 million acres of Federal waters that are currently at their disposal. They have 37 million acres in total. Nothing is stopping these companies from drilling there, if they choose to do so.

The industry, Mr. Speaker, holds 9,000 unused approved permits right now. There are 9,000 approved permits to drill, which they are not using.

Last fall, the Biden administration put 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for auction; unfortunately, the court overturned that. There has not been a pursuit of that, as the whip will point out, since that time. The point is that the response to that offer got a 2 percent response for 1.7 million acres out of the 80 million acres that were offered.

Now, the reason I took some time to go through these figures--nobody ought to be confused by the fact that what we are experiencing is a cause of the President's proper view that we need to move to alternative fuels, a proper view that we need to, as the whip has pointed out, have safe production, safe processing, energy efficient, but also environmentally sensitive production of our oil products. All of which we are doing.

I want to make it very clear that my personal view is we need to make sure that Europe has product, period, for national security reasons and, as the whip points out, for environmental reasons. There ought to be no confusion that oil production in this country is doing very well.

Now, why do some companies say they are not producing a lot? Because they are making a lot of money, a lot of profits, and buying back stock. That enhances the value of that stock. It enhances the value of the company. It enhances the value of the CEO. I don't criticize them for that.

Very frankly, we are at war. A dictator has invaded, without justification, a friendly country, Ukraine. They have fought back with extraordinary valor. What we really ought to do is talk together about how we can make sure that we bring gas prices down.

Now, whether the FTC decides--as the gentleman has pointed out, Mr. Speaker--whether or not there is gouging, if they don't decide that then, as Secretary Granholm observed, they are not sure, so be it. If they are gouging--if they are incorrectly charging consumers a higher price just because they can, then we ought to know about that.

That is what this bill is about, and that is going to be discussed next week. There ought to be no confusion, we are producing a lot of oil. We are producing a lot of LNG. We are trying to provide for our own needs and the needs of those who are confronting tyranny in Europe and are confronting shortages in Europe, which is driving up prices.

For the gentleman to say that these are Biden prices is simply not the case. Biden didn't have anything to do with these prices. We were producing more petroleum products. What happened is the cartels, which have done so--and I am old enough to remember what happened in the early 1970s--the cartels are controlling supply.

As a result, the shortness of supply and the increase in demand--why? Because we dealt with the pandemic. We got shots in arms. Once we got shots in arms and we are not wearing masks on the floor anymore, we are in better shape health-wise.

So what are people doing? They are going out and driving. Demand is up and supply is being kept down by the cartels, not by Joe Biden.

This evidence of the companies not producing more product--I get it. They are getting very high prices.

So why should they produce more product? If you produce more product and if you want to sell more product to make more money--but they are making a lot of money right now and they are buying stock back. The dividends are being paid at a healthy rate. So here we are.

Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman that we are going to deal with both the supply side, which is important, but I also want to make sure that we aren't gouging consumers in the process.

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Mr. HOYER. It is unfortunate that at a time of war that we spend all our time blaming our own President.

It is unfortunate that when the Europeans put themselves over the objections of numerous administrations in a place where they had dependence on Russia, Russia has no leverage over us. We don't need Russia for energy. As a matter of fact, we voted overwhelmingly to stop buying any petroleum products from Russia which I supported strongly. On this side of the aisle and on the other side of the aisle we supported that strongly.

The fact of the matter is the gentleman refuses to recognize 80 million acres--now, it was overturned by the courts later--80 million acres. He says all these people want to produce it and they want to look to new places, and they want to find oil someplace. There was a 2 percent of response.

Mr. Speaker, 1.7 million acres out of 80 million acres were bid on. That doesn't sound to me like a stampede to find it.

But let me tell you what he doesn't tell the American people, Mr. Speaker, when he is making that presentation. And you would think the Biden administration has clamped things down. The Biden administration approved more drilling permits in 2021 than the Trump administration approved in the first 3 years they were in office. Let me say that again: The Biden administration approved more permits in the first year of their term than the Trump administration did in the first 3 years of their term.

So when he says: Oh, the Biden administration is shutting it down and that is why we are having the problem; we are having the problem because Russia--the second, third producer of petroleum products in the world--is an irresponsible dictatorship run by one man, essentially, who wants to use petroleum products as leverage. And he had leverage on the Europeans, and he had leverage certainly on the Ukrainians. They used energy as a bludgeon.

In addition to that, the oil companies were making huge profits as these prices kept going up. So they didn't go out and do a lot of drilling. They didn't bid on a lot of new opportunities that maybe they could have produced oil on. They didn't bother.

Why?

Because they were making so much money. Now, that is a business judgment. But the effect of not doing it meant that as demand went up and less of a supply, not just from their actions but from the actions of the Saudis, others, and the cartel, again, three times as many permits were authorized in the first year of the Biden administration than 3 years in the Trump administration.

So don't tell me about Donald Trump and the free market. The free market is one reason why this is happening. I am for the free market because sound business judgments work: we are making a lot of money, with that money we are going to buy back stocks; it will make the remaining stocks more valuable; we are going to pay good dividends; our stock value is going to go up, and everybody is happy--except the consumer, of course, because supply on the world markets--and it is a world market price, it is not Biden's price, it is the world market price--have gone up because demand is up and supply is down.

So I don't know how the gentleman rationalizes his comments about Biden constricting petroleum production when the permits issued are three times--or said a different way--in 1 year three times the number of permits that Mr. Trump issued in the first 3 years of his term. I wish we would get off this and really focus on the enemy. I know there is a lot of politics here, but we are at war. We need to produce energy.

As I told my friend, Cove Point is now sending 80 percent, reversing Asia supply to European supply because they need it because we are at war. And we are up in almost every category of production of petroleum products. So we can go on and on and on about this. Rig counts that are producing oil are up 57 percent--57 percent from a year ago--a 57 percent increase in operating rigs. It doesn't sound to me like Biden is shutting people down.

Biden does want a clean environment. Biden does want us to look at alternative energy. That is what he was talking about in the campaign that he wanted to look to that. But President Biden has made it very clear he understands in the short term--short term could be 25 years or 5 years--in the short term, particularly during the course of this war, we need to have all the petroleum products, and we need to have them for ourselves and for our allies.

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