WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), the ranking member of the Energy and Water Subcommittee on Appropriations, today spoke on the Senate floor to condemn the Biden administration’s pause on new and pending permits for liquified natural gas (LNG) exports.
Kennedy detailed several Biden administration policies that have harmed America’s energy independence and argued that President Joe Biden’s hostility toward America’s domestic energy sector will hurt the U.S. economy, jeopardize national security and make life more expensive for Louisianians.
Key excerpts from Kennedy’s remarks include:
“President Biden is committing energy suicide for America. Regrettably—and I mean that—regrettably, too many times in the past three years and on too many issues, we have seen President Biden act as a sock puppet for a faction of neo-socialist Americans who don't like our country, who think our country was wicked when it was founded and that it’s even more wicked today.
“This faction, which President Biden has supported far too often, thinks our country must be torn down and rebuilt, and, of course, they want to be the ones to rebuild it. Now this faction turned its sights, with the help of President Biden, on America’s hard-fought energy independence. President Biden just aided this faction in destroying America’s energy independence and committing energy suicide by declaring a moratorium on new gas terminals in America.
“Apparently, President Biden’s new policy is to give up our own oil and gas and buy the energy that we need from countries that hate us so they will have more money to buy weapons to try to kill us. Stupidity, Mr. President, stupidity should hurt more. I realize you can’t fix stupid, but you can vote it out.”
. . .
“Energy independence is America’s jackpot lottery ticket. Now, we’ve worked hard for it, but it’s our jackpot lottery ticket, but, for some reason, President Biden wants to light our winning numbers on fire.
“He is committing energy suicide. Did I mention that? At every turn, the Biden administration has taken steps to make it more difficult, more expensive and sometimes flat-out impossible to produce, transport and sell the energy products that we need to power America. These foolish policies—the latest of which is a moratorium on LNG—these foolish policies are killing American jobs. They’re killing American jobs, they’re driving up energy prices, they’re jeopardizing our national security and it needs to stop, Mr. President.”
. . .
“Liquified natural gas—it’s not complicated, America helped invent it. You just take natural gas—which is in its gaseous forms—and you cool it, turn it into a liquid, put it on a ship and you can send it all over the world. That’s how we kept Europe open after Putin cut off its oil and natural gas. It was a lifeline for our allies in Europe. It’s a lifeline for many of our friends in west Asia, and President Biden, before this moratorium, he promised our allies in Europe that they could rely on the United States for their LNG needs.
“Now, President Biden has chosen to stab America’s LNG producers and our allies in the back—not in the front, in the back—by prohibiting new LNG export terminals. This decision is going to kill dozens of multi-billion-dollar new terminal projects, including a project in Louisiana that we call Calcasieu Pass 2. . . . It would have brought thousands of good jobs to Louisiana and to America. It would have produced the energy to keep this country safe, to keep this country warm and to help our friends, but President Biden has put all those jobs and the terminal itself in jeopardy. Why? Politics. To appease that neo-socialist faction that I talked about that don’t even like our country.”
. . .
“Energy independence keeps America safe. It keeps America strong. It keeps America prosperous. . . . Louisianians do not want to rely upon the whims of our adversaries to keep our country running.
“We cannot let President Biden commit energy suicide to appease the radical left in the loon wing of his party. So, I ask my colleagues, Mr. President, to join me in pushing back against President Biden’s anti-energy agenda and his moratorium on liquified natural gas.”
Read Kennedy’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed on LNG here.
View Kennedy’s full remarks here.
