Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams (R-Texas), and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) to discuss President Biden’s anti-American energy agenda and House Republicans’ legislation this week to push back on his public lands grab. Leader Scalise spoke about his recent tour of an LNG facility in South Louisiana and the threat President Biden’s LNG export ban poses to American jobs. Leader Scalise also condemned the violent antisemitic protests on college campuses around the country and vowed that House Republicans will take action.
     

On the need for more American energy production, not less:

“Last week, I brought a number of Members of Congress from around the country down to South Louisiana to look at some different energy facilities throughout South Louisiana. We went to Chevron's Anchor platform in the Gulf of Mexico; a facility that's going to be coming online in the next few months to produce over 70,000 barrels of oil a day. And while we were excited to be there, what is disappointing is that because President Biden continues to cancel legislatively mandated lease sales, fewer of those kind of projects will be coming online. And what that means is our country, America, will now be more reliant on foreign nations because we still have a growing demand for oil, for natural gas, for all forms of energy. And if President Biden takes American energy offline, that means we have to get it from other countries, which President Biden has done.

“He's made us more dependent on countries like Russia, like Iran, like Saudi Arabia. And so when you look at, you know, if he's worried about carbon footprints, there is no lower carbon footprint to produce oil in the world than in the Gulf of Mexico. We should be doing more projects like that, not fewer. Then we went to the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Venture Global project, which is one of the largest LNG export facilities in the world – over $20 billion of privately funded capital to build a massive facility. It shows you what American ingenuity can do. Again, exciting to look at it, exciting to know what our country can do to not only produce natural gas, lower the costs for families here at home, but then export it to our friends around the world. A lot of the natural gas at that Venture Global facility is going to be going to Europe when it's completed.

“The problem is, again, because President Biden's policies, now he's put in essence a ban on LNG exports. And while he tries to deny to all of you that it exists, they told us right down the street, literally right down the Mississippi River, there is a huge plot of land where they can build another facility even larger, again, over $20 billion privately funded, and they would have contracts for over twenty years in place to go tomorrow if they could get the permit. But they can't because this administration refuses to do it.”

On President Biden’s anti-American energy agenda helping our adversaries:

“And why is that important? Again, it doesn't mean that natural gas isn't going to be used anywhere in the world. It just means Vladimir Putin will be supplying natural gas in this case, think about these two countries, in this case to Germany and Poland. Natural gas that America could be providing to our allies – our allies would much rather get that natural gas from us – and it would help lower gas prices here. It would lower energy costs for families when they heat or cool their homes. It would also create really, really good jobs here in America. But Joe Biden keeps saying no to American energy, which means Vladimir Putin gets to sell that natural gas to those European countries, putting billions of dollars in the pocket of Vladimir Putin.

“Why would Joe Biden continue to do it? It begs the question, it’s why we’re bringing these bills that [Rep.] Bruce Westerman’s committee produced out of Natural Resources to open up more federal lands so that we don't have to be dependent on China for car batteries for goodness sake; on Russia or Iran for oil or natural gas. Again, these bad decisions by the Biden Administration don't just raise costs for families – which by the way they do, they're crushing low-income families here in America – but they also have serious implications on America's energy security. And so we're going to continue to bring these bills. You think about section 1002 of ANWR, a bill that we had opened up in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for exploration, great American energy in Alaska. The people of Alaska by the way, want that project to go forward. But Joe Biden continues to say no to that American energy, which only emboldens people like Vladimir Putin. Why does Joe Biden want to continue helping Vladimir Putin and hurting Alaskan families and other families here in America?”

On House Republicans standing against antisemitism:

“We're going to continue as House Republicans in this majority to fight for those hardworking families who are struggling to stand up to the antisemitism. We're going to have a press conference later to talk about the growing concerns on our college campuses, where college presidents are failing miserably to protect Jewish students in their ability to be safe just to go to school, just to go to class. These presidents are failing them, and we're going to talk more about that later.”

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