WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined Kudlow on Fox Business to discuss President Joe Biden’s war on American energy and the need to return to energy independence, and the latest on the 2022 government funding package, currently being debated in the House of Representatives.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the Biden Administration’s war on the oil and gas industry and green energy fanaticism: “Well, I think this is very typical of what the coastal elite with the Democrats like to say. It’s their version of ‘let them eat cake,’ Larry. There are no electric cars to support this. And frankly, to make these vehicles, you’ve got to rely on countries like Russia to produce palladium. You’ve got to rely on countries like China for lithium. It’s amazing how shortsighted their perspective is. But I guess if you drive a Tesla and you live in Los Angeles, maybe it’s okay for you to tell the rest of the world, to just eat it, to suffer it. But that’s not the way things work in the part of America where I’m from in Tennessee. We’re suffering greatly because of the increase in prices at the pump. And this is all because of the absolute war that the Joe Biden Administration has begun to wage on the oil and gas industry from the day he got into office: killing the Keystone XL Pipeline, forbidding drilling on federal lands, killing the permitting, and as you and Governor [Rick] Perry were talking about, making it so difficult with the regulatory morass here in Washington. It’s so difficult for anybody to commit new capital into the oil and gas industry right now. I serve on the Banking Committee. They’re trying to use bank regulations as a means to shut off the oil and gas industry. Some of these nominees they’ve put up you and I’ve talked about. It’s a war on the industry at every level with this Administration.”
Hagerty on the need to regain energy independence to demonstrate American strength: “Common sense needs to prevail here. And I think you’ve got here the largest manufacturer of electronic [electric] vehicles saying, ‘this isn’t the path.’ We’ve got to have a bridge to ever get to what he’s talking about. And we’re certainly not going to get there with the Biden Administration cutting the legs out from underneath that bridge. They should be supporting our oil and gas industry, making us energy independent again, just like we were when you and I served in President Trump’s Administration. The first time ever we became energy independent was in the Trump Administration because our policies made sense. We actually were leveraging American strength—that’s America First. The Biden Administration has very quickly destroyed our energy independence. We could be coming to the aid of our allies right now. Instead, we’re dependent on Russia. We’re now dealing with international killers like Maduro in Venezuela. We’re talking about bringing more Iranian oil onto the market right now to get them to bail us out rather than dealing with American drillers. It’s just a shame.”
Hagerty on the government funding bill: “I think what’s going on is Democratic legislative malpractice is what we’re seeing here, Larry. I mean I’m on the Appropriations Committee. I haven’t seen a word of text, and supposedly they gave birth to a 2,700 page plus bill over in the [House of Representatives]. No one’s coming to an agreement on it yet. What they’re doing is putting us on course to actually shut down government on Friday night. That’s where the Democrats are taking this. They’ve had three weeks to work on this. As I say, I serve on the Appropriations Committee and I have not seen a word. The Senate has been working on everything but our budget. So again, it is Democrat legislative malpractice at work here.”
Hagerty on Democrats’ irresponsible governing: “And the government’s scheduled to shut down on Friday. The last Continuing Resolution was passed three weeks ago. We should have been working on this every day. That would’ve been responsible government. Instead, the Democrats, I guess, have been working in their basement. Nobody knows what they’re working on. We haven’t seen anything. I haven’t seen anything. And you know, they do all of this in secret then try to drop it on us… a 2,700 page plus bill and expect to have it passed overnight. It’s not going to happen […] We should be continuing on the Trump level of expenditures right now. At least we knew those policies worked. Those budget levels, again are outdated. This is not the way to run a government, but certainly better than what I think the Democrats would come up with.”
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