Click here to watch Ranking Member Barrasso’s 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 opening remarks at a full committee hearing to examine the President’s budget request for the U.S. Department of Energy for Fiscal Year 2024..

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

For more information on witness testimony click here.

Senator Barrasso’s remarks:

“Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this very important hearing.

“Secretary Granholm – welcome back to the Committee.

“It has been two years since Joe Biden took office.

“Today’s hearing is a good opportunity to assess the results of his energy policies.

“And to me, in one word they’ve been a disaster – a disaster for our nation.

“President Biden inherited an energy economy that – despite COVID – was among the strongest in the world.

“America’s energy revolution turned our nation into the world’s energy superpower.

“It gave our industries a competitive advantage.

“It allowed us to challenge dictators without worrying about energy markets.

“It lowered the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“It provided Americans with jobs.

“It gave American families relief from high prices.

“You’d think any president would want to build on that energy success.

“But no, not Joe Biden.

“He has spent the last two years surrendering those gains.

“He’s attacked America’s oil, natural gas, and coal producers at every turn and in every place he could.

“He’s staffed the administration with zealots more interested in appeasing political activists than in providing accessible, affordable, reliable energy.

“And he’s put countless roadblocks in every way on energy production.

“The result has been just what you would expect – record high energy prices and stubbornly high inflation.

“And how has the president responded?

“He actually did plead with dictators – pleaded with dictators – to produce more oil. And he raided our nation’s energy emergency supplies.

“He did everything except the one thing that would work – helping Americans produce more energy here at home. He stopped all of that.

“Since President Biden took office, the overall price of energy is up 36 percent.

“The price of gasoline is up 46 percent.

“The price of natural gas is up 31 percent.

“The price of home heating oil and diesel fuel is up 49 percent.

“And the price of electricity is up 23 percent.

“It has been a disgraceful performance by this administration.

“The president has said we will need oil and gas for only another decade.

“His climate envoy, John Kerry, suggested seven or eight years.

“This is a fantasy.

“The world is going to be using vast amounts of oil, natural gas, and coal for the foreseeable future.

“The Department of Energy’s own analysis confirms this fact.

“The only real question here is, where is the world going to get that energy.

“It’s high time for the president and this administration to face that reality.

“If we follow President Biden’s agenda, Americans will become even more dependent on China and Russia.

“These countries control the complete supplies, in so many ways, of the minerals used in the renewable and battery technologies that the president favors.

“We have many of these minerals right here in the United States.

“But this administration has actually blocked access to them.

“President Biden would rather get these minerals from China than mine and process them here at home.

“Last year, the Department of Energy announced that it intends to give hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to Microvast. It is a China-linked company.

“Last month, Politico magazine quoted John Podesta – White House Deputy Chief of Staff –saying that China’s companies are going to be “big players,” he said, in President Biden’s energy agenda.

“Meanwhile, scientists at your own Department of Energy and FBI analysts determined that the COVID-19 virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

“I think many Americans are asking themselves the following question –

“Why is Joe Biden rewarding a country that contributed to the deaths of more than 1.1 million Americans and nearly 7 million people worldwide?

“Why is the White House saying China is a ‘big player’ in our energy policy? They shouldn’t be.

“At a minimum, Madame Secretary, you should make it clear today that your department will not fund China-linked companies, including Microvast.

“President Biden at least owes that to the American people.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”

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