House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Thursday that President Joe Biden and Democrats are “feeling the heat” from families suffering from high energy prices.
As Americans continue to feel the crushing weight of high energy prices and Biden has refused to unleash American energy, Scalise, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA), National Resources Committee Chair Bruce Westerman (R-AR), and Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves (R-MO) introduced H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act.
Congressional leaders typically reserve the first ten bills introduced for their most marquee legislation, and Scalise told Breitbart News that he and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) wanted to make it known that this was one of their “highest priority” issues for the new House Republican majority.
In short, the Lower Energy Costs Act would:
- Bar Biden from banning fracking
- Repeal restrictions on importing and exporting natural gas
- Disapprove Biden’s cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline
- Require the Interior Department to resume leases on federal lands and waters
- Reforms the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) permitting process to streamline federal reviews for all sectors of the economy
- Streamline the environmental permitting process for critical mineral refining
“Whether it’s making computer chips or even electric car batteries, it’s harder to get those critical minerals here in America because of the Biden administration’s heavy-handed regulations, and so you end up getting those from China, but we don’t want to be dependent on China for critical minerals,” Scalise said of the measure to improve access to critical minerals.
Although Biden vowed not to approve any new oil and gas leases on public lands during the 2020 presidential election, the Interior Department gave the green light to CoconoPhillips to drill for oil in the federally-owned National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
Scalise took this as a sign that Biden is beginning to crack from the pressure of high energy prices as inflation continues to run rampant.
He explained, “I think the President is finally feeling the heat from families who are fed up with paying so much more for energy just to appease the demands of the radical left, that Biden has been listening to. Yeah, you know, and so they want to shut down energy in America, but they’re okay with getting energy from foreign countries. And if you’re concerned about carbon emissions, nobody makes energy cleaner in the world than the United States.”
“We should be making it all here in America, cleaner and cheaper than anywhere else. And so that’s what the lower energy cost bill is all about,” he added.
Should the bill pass through the House, Scalise said he believes that it would pick up steam and put additional pressure on Democrats.
“I think it’s going to pick up a lot of momentum when it goes to the Senate. And, you know, there might be some senators who want to keep our country more dependent on nations like Saudi Arabia for energy,” he said. “Good luck explaining that to Middle America [that] is fed up with paying 40% More for gasoline at the pump, and 20% more for household electricity costs.”
Scalise said the bill the Lower Energy Costs Act would “fix all of the problems that the Biden administration has created and remove the impediments that they placed in front of producing more energy in America.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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