Barrasso: President Biden is Choking Off Affordable and Reliable American Energy

Click here to watch Senator Barrasso’s opening remarks.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (ENR), delivered remarks at a full committee hearing to examine the President’s budget request for the U.S. Department of Energy for Fiscal Year 2025.

The hearing featured testimony from the Honorable Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy.

For more information on Secretary Granholm’s testimony click here.

Senator Barrasso’s remarks: 

“Thanks so much Mr. Chairman.

“Thanks for holding the hearing.

“Secretary Granholm – welcome back to the committee.

“Looking at America’s energy sector, there is some really good news – but also plenty of bad news.

“The good news to me is that in 2023, America pumped a record amount of oil and natural gas.

“A normal administration would be cheering record production.

“But not this one. No no.

“Boasting about record production of oil and gas would offend the climate lobby in an election year. So the administration chooses not to take credit for something.

“And there is another reason that President Biden has kept quiet.

“Because he knows that we’re producing a record amount of oil and natural gas despite him – not because of him.

“The credit belongs to the innovators, the risk-takers, the roughnecks in my home state of Wyoming and elsewhere.

“They are the people, who in 2019, made America energy independent for the first time in 70 years.

“How did Joe Biden celebrate their achievement?

“Well as a candidate, he threatened to throw them out of work.

“As president, he’s killed pipelines, he’s canceled lease sales, rescinded existing leases, slow-walked permits, and blocked access to more and more of America’s energy resources.

“Meanwhile, this President has failed to enforce sanctions on Iran and has waived sanctions on Venezuela.

“This is a disgrace.

“The reason that we had record production in 2023 – nothing to do with Joe Biden.

“It is because more of our energy is produced on private lands and state lands.

“There, the producers don’t need permission from Washington to drill.

“You know in 2005, about 68% of our oil and 62% of our natural gas was produced on private and state lands.

“Today, those numbers have increased dramatically.

“75% of our oil and 90% of our natural gas are produced on private and state lands.

“So while oil production is at a record high, we actually should be producing even more.

“In 2020 – the year before Joe Biden took office – the Energy Information Administration predicted that the production would be 14 million barrels a day by 2023.

“We actually produced 1.1 million barrels a day below that forecast in 2023.

“When it comes to production of oil and gas on federal lands, we are living on borrowed time.

“We have been able to maintain output thanks to production on leases that were issued before Joe Biden became president.

“In fact, the Biden Administration has offered the fewest onshore acres for lease of any administration since the end of World War II.

“The outlook offshore isn’t any better.

“In 2022, the administration cancelled three lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and in Alaska.

“After Congress restored those sales, the administration did all it could to make the leases unattractive to bidders.

“Then, the administration issued a five-year offshore plan with the lowest number of sales in history.

“This isn’t just incompetence.

“It’s an ideological effort to choke off American energy production.

“So, what does this all mean?

“It means President Biden is setting America up for a fall.

“It means that, if we don’t reverse the President’s policies, it will be difficult to maintain American oil and natural gas production in the years ahead.

“But we don’t have to wait years to know the effects of President Biden’s decisions.

“American families are feeling the pain right now.

“This chart shows how much energy prices have increased since Joe Biden has become president, since he’s taken office.  

“It shows what had happened four years ago— between 2017 and 2020, March of 2020 under President Trump.

“Gasoline prices down, natural gas prices down, home heating oil prices down, electricity up only 3%, and total energy cost unchanged. January 2017 to March 2020 under president Trump.

“In every case, prices are not only worse under Biden – they are significantly worse.

“Gasoline up 48 percent, natural gas up 27 percent, home heating oil up 44 percent, electricity up 29 percent, total energy costs up 39 percent since Joe Biden has come into office.  

“This is a record of failure. This is why Joe Biden for one reason or another is called the president of high prices.

“Between energy costs and grocery prices people of this country are being hurt by this administration and it’s policies.

“Joe Biden needs to stop playing politics with our energy security.

“He needs to stop worrying about what the TikTok climate influencers think and the ones who are apparently driving the energy policy according to the New York Times.

“The report’s related to how policies are being made at the White House today.

“The president and the administration ought to start worrying how American families are going to pay their bills – now as well as ten years from now.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”