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Floor Speech

My colleague whom I am pleased to work with on a number of issues has come to the floor with a unanimous consent request that would constrain the power of our President to protect our public lands. So while we may agree on a number of things--and I hope that doesn't hurt his reputation back home--on this particular proposal, I do bring a different perspective.

I think in my role working on the Interior Committee--and understanding that the authority we have granted the President is so essential to making sure that the lands that are publicly held remain a treasure for every single American.

It was not that long ago--well, it seems like quite a few years now, maybe a decade, I attended a hearing in which a number of folks came forward to explain different damages that had occurred to the water table in their community from fracking.

Now, in this case, my real concern here is about constraining the President's ability to protect our treasures, our public lands, from these types of effects.

I think Americans who have traveled to our national parks and our BLM land and our Forest Service land understand that this is a responsibility that we in the Senate take very seriously, but there is also a little bit more to my concern here as well.

One is that if we are going to tackle climate chaos, we have to have international cooperation. And if we continuously say we are going to reduce the ability of the United States to have policies and abilities to address our own production of fossils, then, of course, every other country is like, well, the United States and China are the biggest producers of climate gases--both methane, known publicly as natural gas, methane gas--and they have very large footprints, if they are not going to act, why should we act?

So if we want to address this challenge and sustain international cooperation, we can't be consistently restricting the potential flexibility of our President.

The third is that the climate impact in my home State is very substantial. We have seen a loss of snowpack in the Cascades that is devastating--the water in late spring and early summer--to our ranchers and farmers. Our rural foundation, our rural pillar is our farming and our ranching. And when you constrain the water in our rivers because of the dropping snowpack, that is a big impact.

And in addition, our water tables have been dropping that many farmers have depended on. In fact, we are investing heavily in piping our irrigation ditches at huge expense, knowing how precious every drop of water is.

So if we care about our rural areas, we have to take on climate chaos and not just our farmers and ranchers, our foresters, too, because we are seeing significant devastation to Oregon's famous forests over drought and insect infestation with climate chaos.

Of course, it is not just Oregon that is affected. Every single State is affected. I was very concerned earlier this year, earlier this summer, when I heard about the 115 to 120 degrees in a heat dome that passed over my colleague's State and the impact that that was having. I think every State has their effects that they are experiencing.

So this is a big issue that we need to wrestle with, and this brings me to the fourth item mentioned about energy security. In the last 4 years, under the Biden administration, we have become energy independent. There has been a vast increase in the production of oil and a vast increase in the production of gas. As a result, we are now the largest producer of oil and gas, and we are the largest exporter of gas.

Now, kind of the interesting little piece here is that the goal of the gas industry is to export gas and raise prices on Americans, so it is more expensive for Americans to heat their homes and heat their water. But we could do the opposite. We could, in fact, say we are going to repeal the 2015 law that put us into the world market and created these massive exports and lower the price here in America for our families.

That is a much better idea than raising the prices. Let's lower the prices. In fact, here is the thing. Let's start right now by ending our exports of oil and gas to China. Now, my colleagues just not so long ago advocated that we end any sale of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China with good reason. Why should we lower their prices and increase our prices? But that is true for the exports that are going to oil and gas as well.

So let's stand together on both sides of the aisle. Let's lower the price for American consumers and ban these exports to China. And for that reason, I have prepared just such a solution and an opportunity to have it embraced by my colleagues.

And so I turn to the formality here that I ask the Senator to modify his request and that the Merkley substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, so that we will have the ability to end these exports to China and lower the prices for American consumers.

Actually, my bill is about stopping exports to China. They are not our ally, last I checked. We are in competition with them, and these exports are making their life easier and their economy stronger and making things more expensive for us here in the United States of America. If you want more available for allies, hey, let's stop the exports to China. It is actually compatible with the goal my colleague suggested.

The second is he challenged the question--and I realize we are doing this on short notice; so we have various facts flying around--about whether the United States was the largest exporter of natural gas last year. So I have in front of me the information from the Energy Information Administration, which produces all of the stats on this, and the headline is:

The United States was the world's largest liquefied natural exporter in 2023.

Now a third point, outside of North America, China is the largest recipient of our gas. We are directing more gas to China, whom we are in competition with, than any other nation. That is just a little bit crazy, and I want to support our allies. I want to support our consumers at home through lower prices.

So I am disappointed that I didn't win over your support with my presentation.

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