Barrasso Highlights Troubling Benefits for China in Biden-Backed Green Energy Push

Floor Speech

“Conventional energy is at the heart of U.S. manufacturing.

Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas help our nation manufacture thousands of the everyday products and the high-tech devices that people use every day.

These include plastics, clothing, digital devices, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, detergents, tires, fertilizers to grow our food. Ironically, solar panels and wind turbines rely heavily on oil and gas production.

President Biden and many Democrat colleagues in the Senate want to move us away from these resources. They use the tax code as both a carrot and a stick to make that happen. They throw up regulatory roadblocks to stifle traditional energy production and refining.

You mentioned this in your testimony, but I just don't think we can hear it enough right now. What would it mean for U.S. manufacturing if we continue to move away from oil, gas, and coal production — and is manufacturing even possible without the production of those fossil fuels?

Energy prices are up, but certainly so are food and groceries. The thing I hear about in Wyoming is the cost of going to the grocery store — and it's much, much higher now than it was three years ago when this administration took over.

As we find opportunities to grow U.S. manufacturing, I think we have to look at ways to limit China's influence in the United States in terms of manufacturing and the impact on supply chains.

This so-called Inflation Reduction Act — with the help of the administration, I think it further opened the door for U.S. tax dollars to go to entities controlled by China.

Our energy and green manufacturing sectors are flooded with expensive tax credits, and this tax and spending bill is pushing us away from the fuels and the technologies that America dominates.

Instead of pushing us toward the minerals and technologies controlled by China, I think we ought to be focusing more on what we ought to do here in the United States.

'American-made' is in the title of this hearing, but the products and the technologies that the Democrats are subsidizing are going to be constructed with components and materials that say on them 'made in China.'

So, my question to you is, what are some ways that China benefits from this so-called Inflation Reduction Act, and isn't that hurting us?”

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