Sen. Cramer: Biden Administration's Energy Policy is Doing Irreparable Damage to the Economy

Press Release

U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) joined Kudlow on Fox Business to discuss skyrocketing oil and gas prices caused by negative signals sent from the Biden Administration to global energy markets. He also highlighted new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations when energy prices are already at record highs. Excerpts and full video are below.

On Meetings with Energy CEOs:

"What the executives are telling me is intuitive to those of us that follow markets and that is the reason the rig count hasn't gone up is because they need longer-term certainty to make the type of investments required to meet the demand. Now, you've been talking a lot about the supply-demand differential and I think that's by design. It appears to me that Democrats in the White House are trying to starve demand by starving the supply. The problem is they're doing almost irreparable damage to the economy and to global security in the process. So hopefully, they can make a correction here soon."

On Soaring Gas Prices and Energy Permitting:

"Even getting the easement or the lease in the first place has proven to be difficult and on purpose. Just in the last couple of weeks, the President has canceled three major federal leases. The Applications for Permits to Drill take longer and longer to get if you can get them at all. And, to your point, the ESG movement has sent very negative signals to the investment community. However, I do think Larry, you're seeing a little bit of that change in $120 per barrel oil or $5, $6, $7 per gallon gasoline. It causes some of that change to take place because the American public will not tolerate having the Administration peeing down their back and telling them it's raining. They know better."

On Refining Challenges:

"First of all, Larry, you know darn well for you to permit a new refinery -- if anybody was even inclined to build one in this climate -- would take so long that the markets would go up and down multiple times before it would ever be online. Adding refining capacity to existing refineries is more likely and that is happening in some cases, but you're exactly right, none of that happens quickly. Remember, we lost some refining capacity during the pandemic when the demand was so low and that's market signals again from this Administration before the recovery even sent the wrong incentives to refining companies. All of this rhetoric matters in addition to the regulations. It all piles on. To me, Larry, I think there's still lots of opportunity for those that have the courage to step up and invest. Demand is not going to go away quickly and the attitude of the American public, the global public, and the investment community, I think is shifting to a more realistic 2022 scenario rather than the 2050 aspirations and fantasies of John Kerry and Gina McCarthy."

On Biden's Burdensome Regulatory Pile-Up on the Energy Industry:

"In fact, you could look at the long list of regulations and rhetoric since the very beginning, since Joe Biden took office. As recently as the last week, a couple of new regulations have been talked about by the EPA [like Clean Water Act Section] 401 permits. When the Trump Administration passed some relief in the 401 permitting area, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld it and now this Administration is undoing that [rule]. Additionally last week, they announced some regulations coming out of the EPA dealing with more traditional pollutants at the distribution and the storage levels of the liquid fuels value chain again adding one more layer of burden on an already overly burdened commodity. We should all just admit their goal is to starve the demand by starving the supply. They have this fantasy that next year everybody is going to be driving an electric vehicle and the government will pay for it. It's absurdity and it's time for not just Republicans, but industry to push back against this and tell the president to his face, "this can't work.'"

On the Geopolitical and Economic Ramifications of Biden's Energy Policies:

"You have to have reliable electricity if you're going to have a reliable grid. You have to have a fuel that's one hundred percent there, one hundred percent of the time. [Wind and solar are not]. By the way with regard to solar, 75% of the supply chain of a solar panel comes from China. Do we really want to be further connected to China? We ought to be divorcing ourselves from China. The geopolitical ramifications of many of these policies are equally as bad as our own economic ramifications. It's just word salad designed to appease a very far-left fringe of their party, which by the way, isn't so much a fringe as it has become the base of their party. This is why as you say the cavalry is coming. But when the cavalry arrives on November 9, the day after the election, we've got to have a plan to reverse a bunch of this."

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