America’s global strength has been built on the backbone of our economic, particularly manufacturing, dominance.  This economic engine enables us to project strength worldwide, restraining our enemies, intimidating our rivals, and keeping us safe at home.  This economic competitiveness exists because America has long been blessed with the abundant natural resources it needs to thrive and the ingenuity necessary to access and exploit these resources for the betterment of society.  Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, this has been the story of oil and gas.

America’s relatively easily accessible oil and gas reserves powered a manufacturing sector that led the world during the 20th century, and in the last decade, the industry’s ingenuity (led by Texans…) renewed that American bounty for a new century.  After the shocks of the ‘70s and the fears of the ‘90s and early 2000s, we have put America back on a secure footing.  We are at the center of global trade in energy resources and now much less vulnerable to conflict-prone regions and countries that may not always have our interests at heart.

Outside of Texas, and especially in Washington, D.C., too many people overlook the fundamental importance of affordable and reliable energy.  We, unfortunately, saw the effects of that ourselves just two months ago.  But the low prices and certainties that our grid provides enables our manufacturers of all types to compete with the world.  If we are to continue competing with the developing world, including rivals such as China, we must continue this history of reliable and affordable energy. Abandoning oil and gas at this juncture will not work and will cost us our competitive edge.

A strong oil, gas, and power infrastructure strengthens our national security.

We cannot support a thriving oil and gas industry, and thus a secure America, without a robust and well-financed infrastructure system capable of extracting, transporting, and delivering the energy resources and power, that America needs to be strong.

A strong, secure, and competitive America relies on its infrastructure.  Countless miles of pipelines safely deliver crude oil, refined products, and natural gas across our country every day, and they do so in a more energy-efficient fashion than any other transportation method.  Despite what some in Washington might claim, we cannot do without these resources.  We must continue to support and expand this reliable fuel transportation network.  In fact, as America moves through a new energy transition, more pipelines will only become more critical.

As we shift to natural gas and away from coal, and as we build out a network of captured carbon and hydrogen, we will need to invest in a new generation of pipelines and provide a flexible environment for pipelines to stretch from new origins to untapped destinations.

Our ports also play a critical role in bolstering our national security.

Our energy ports remain critical to a robust exchange of global energy resources.  Because of the incredible discoveries of the last decade, America now sits at the heart of the global energy trade once again.  We now export crude oil across the globe, bringing profits back home and delivering energy security abroad.  This is especially true of our allies operating in Russia’s shadow.  America once again has the ability to provide reliable and affordable energy resources to Europe.  LNG that can compete with Russian gas significantly weakens a critical component of Russia’s coercive foreign policy.  We have seen that customers in eastern and central Europe are desperate for these sources, and Russia is desperate to keep us from exploiting these opportunities.  Even western Europe is interested as their oil and gas resources dwindle.  This could be especially true if we emphasize the environmental strengths of our own industry over Middle Eastern and Russian competitors.

But our globally competitive refining and petrochemical complexes still rely on global crude imports, especially of the crude types that are less abundant here at home.  Our energy ports and maritime industries are critical in maintaining this flow of crude oil into our refineries and petrochemical complexes and to export our refined products to the world.

This is an important economic interest of the United States, but in a time of conflict, these ports would be lifelines, both for our domestic manufacturing needs, but also for our friends and allies abroad.

Unfortunately, this administration has placed John Kerry, one of the architects of the Paris Climate Accord, as a Cabinet-level “Climate Czar.”  Debra Haaland, a former congresswoman who moonlighted as an anti-pipeline activist, is now the Secretary of the Interior.  Gina McCarthy, the head of the Obama EPA, is back as the White House National Climate Advisor.

These officials do not have the interests of American workers or American industry at heart.  And often, they do not have science on their side either.

The Biden Administration’s energy policy proposals ignore that America’s energy sector has been a leader in the innovations that have reduced America’s greenhouse gas emissions and that will bring about the technologies that will transform the energy sector in this new decade.  American innovation unlocked the bountiful natural gas that has transformed our energy power generation.  It has reduced the emissions in fossil fuel extraction so that America can extract and ship our fuels around the world with fewer emissions than our foreign competitors.  Our burgeoning LNG industry stands to replace dirtier fuels around the world and stands to power the development of countries around the world.

Too many Democrat proposals fail to recognize the past success of the American industry, with its potential to provide the innovations and new technologies that we will need to develop a new energy mix.  If we set out to punish this industry, restrict its profits, and hold it back, then it won’t be able to harness the resources that any corporation needs to invest in its future, in our country’s future.  That is why I oppose so many of the proposals put forward by my Democrat colleagues.  They hold back to sources of proven success in our country, the nimble private sector, and empower the slow federal bureaucracy.  We can see where this ends: with bad investments, expensive results, and a broken energy sector.  I try not to pick on my California friends too often, but we only have to look at what their ideas have produced in one of our country’s richest states:  high taxes, expensive power, and a failing energy grid.  It is up to Republicans in Congress to stand up and declare that these proposals are not the answer. And to provide the alternative roadmap that America needs.

In my role as the Ranking Member of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Energy Subcommittee, I get to be at the cutting edge of that roadmap.  And thankfully, our committee has often been able to hammer out bipartisan compromises that keep the government’s significant resources pointed toward where they can help most: basic research.

One of our key priorities is directing the Department of Energy to focus on the basic and early-stage research industry cannot conduct on its own, collecting long-term data and maintaining expertise to provide the industry with the tools to achieve technology breakthroughs.

We’ve seen incredible research and technology successes through collaborative, public-private partnerships, and it’s clear this is the model that ensures federal research investments give us the most bang for our buck.

But in our search for breakthroughs, we must focus the taxpayer’s investments on the things the federal government is good at doing – which we all know isn’t everything.  That is why DOE should continue to prioritize investments in user facilities and in the basic and early-stage research that provides the critical data and analytical tools industry needs to commercialize groundbreaking technologies.

At a hearing held by the Energy Subcommittee in March of 2019, I had the opportunity to hear from a Dow Chemical representative regarding their work in advanced manufacturing.

Companies like Dow Chemical rely on the deep bench of basic research capabilities that only the federal government can provide.  Since 2015, Dow Chemical has entered into 26 different collaborations with DOE and 10 collaborations with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on complex research challenges.

Partnerships like this between the federal government, the national labs, academia, and industry can modernize and transform U.S. industry.  Once a technology is developed, however, industry is best suited to take the lead.

Most of my Democrat colleagues on the House Science Committee remain, thankfully, skeptical of the far-left “Green New Deal,” but under the Biden Administration, this is threatening to change. While many of them love to speak on the need to transition to a solar- and wind-energy dominated system, it is important to remind them that we simply are not there yet, and fossil energy is going nowhere fast.

Fossil fuels still make up 63% of net electricity generation in the United States.  Many key industries still rely on petroleum products for fuel, affordable power generation, or industrial inputs.   Simply put, the use of fossil fuels isn’t going out of style anytime soon.  We have incredible domestic fossil energy resources, and our economic stability still depends on the power they produce.

I want this industry to thrive again.  And I believe it will.  But only if the federal government does not get in the way.  We need to build more in America, and yes, we need to drill more in America.  We must not let this Administration and this Congress tie down this industry in red tape, taxes, and moratoriums.  I will keep working to improve the business climate in this country, and I will do what I can in Congress to reverse some of the damaging actions coming out of the White House.