Source: United States Senator for Alaska Dan Sullivan
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) spoke at a press conference with eight of his Republican colleagues yesterday criticizing the reckless tax-and-spend policies of the Biden administration and congressional Democrats that are driving up inflation, and threatening America’s post-pandemic recovery and the livelihoods of hard-working Americans. Sen. Sullivan argued that the Biden administration’s policies aimed at killing the domestic oil and gas sector have contributed to the dramatic increases in gas prices, already spiking due to inflation.
Transcript
I want to thank Senator Scott for his leadership on this issue. It’s a really important issue for the whole country. I want to focus on one area in particular: energy. We have seen in the last year a 97-cent increase at the pump for the average American. That is a 44% increase in [the cost of] buying gas. Why is that happening? We all know why that’s happening. In the phrase of a former Democratic strategist, it’s the policy, stupid. Here’s what happens when you undertake policies, like the Biden administration has:
- Restricting production of American energy. That’s happening. We all know it.
- They’re going to Wall Street to try to influence woke CEOs to tell them, “Don’t invest in the energy sector.” That’s happening. We know it; and
- They are saying the modes of transportation for energy—pipelines, for example—they’re going to restrict those.
These are the policies of this administration when it comes to energy. Let me give you one more that’s not often noticed. In the president’s budget for the Corps of Engineers, a really important agency, they said they’re not going to fund any Corps of Engineers projects that helps move or subsidize hydrocarbons—pipelines, harbor dredging. Some estimates are that that’s about 40-50% of the Corps of Engineers’ budget that they’re going to red line.
This is what happens when you restrict energy production (and) you restrict supply. It’s actually a double whammy for working families. It drives up prices, as we’re seeing, that really hurts people at the pump and it kills really good working class jobs in the energy sector by the thousands. These are the policies that are doing this. They need to be reversed.
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