Lower Energy Costs Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTEN. Madam Chair, I am going to be honest. I am at a loss for words.

This bill, the polluters over people act, is bad for the consumers, bad for the environment, and bad for the U.S. economy. You wouldn't know that from the rhetoric across the aisle, leaving me to wonder whether they are all lying or just ignorant. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume they are ignorant.

Since I am at a loss for words, as I said, I am going to try to explain this with some numbers. Since 2010, the United States economy has grown by $7 trillion. That is about 50 percent. During the same period, natural gas consumption in our country is up 25 percent, only half as much. Petroleum consumption is flat. Coal consumption is down by 40 percent.

This is awesome news. We should all be celebrating. We have decoupled economic growth from fossil fuel consumption. We can grow without depending on environmental degradation. The environment and American energy consumers are winning. That is not because they are using less energy. It is because they are not paying for it. You don't pay for solar energy. You don't pay for energy efficiency.

Remember, no one wants a barrel of oil. What you want is a cold beer and a hot shower. Now, Americans are getting more of the latter with less of the former, and if that confuses anybody in this body, then I would encourage you to go ask your local 6-year-old, what would you rather have on Christmas morning; a warm fire and some twinkly lights or a big old lump of coal? Like I said, this isn't that complicated.

Let us now ask what the fossil fuel industry has done in the wake of their collapsing market share. Did they pivot to providing things consumers want--cleaner, cheaper energy?

Did they redeploy their capital into solar, wind, geothermal, electric vehicle charging stations?

Of course not. They moved to strip-mine the United States and asked for your acceleration of their work.

During the same period, U.S. exports of oil have grown by a factor of four. U.S. exports of natural gas have grown by a factor of six. Their revenues that Mr. Levin talked about are not going up because they are selling more of their product to Americans, it is because they are strip-mining America and selling it overseas.

Exporting U.S. energy does not lower the price of energy in the United States. If anything, it raises costs to American consumers because you reduce domestic supply, for goodness sakes. This bill would only make that worse.

To be sure, there are real challenges facing U.S. energy consumers. We have an aging grid. We need transmission to connect renewables to load. We have got the growth in electric demand thanks to all those EVs and heat pumps. We should be focusing on those challenges if we are looking out for the American consumer, but this bill does not give a damn about the American consumer. Its sole purpose is to transfer wealth from the American taxpayer to American energy exporters.

There are a small number of Americans whose wealth depends on oil and gas production and export--you all know them by name, I am sure--but every single American benefits from cheaper energy, and if you are going to claim to support the interests of the latter, vote ``no'' on this bill. If you are voting ``yes,'' at least have the dignity to be honest about whose interests you are looking out for.

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