Lankford accuses Biden administration of stalling energy production

Videos | News | U.S. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma

 

Senator James Lankford (R-OK)  went to bat for American energy producers against federal regulators on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who Lankford says are part of the Biden Administration’s effort to further stall—and stop—American energy production and American energy independence at the same moment Russia is using its energy production as a weapon.

Lankford questioned witnesses in a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee about recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) guidance on permit processing for the construction and operation of interstate natural gas pipelines and other natural gas infrastructure projects.

The Senator discussed the negative impact of Biden’s climate change agenda that stifles energy production through excessive regulations and sometimes discontinues entirely the permits, leases, and other federally required processes for energy production in the US.

The hearing featured Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioners including Chairman Richard Glick and Commissioners James Danly, Allison Clements, Mark Christie, and Willie Phillips.

This week, Sen. Lankford joined every Republican member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to send a letter to President Biden outlining 10 steps he and Congress can take to regain America’s energy dominance.

Following President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, Lankford addressed Biden’s proposal to reduce gas prices and how releasing the strategic petroleum reserve globally would do little to help gas prices and would only be short term. In his reaction to the State of the Union address, Lankford offered his sharp criticism of the Biden Administration’s anti-American energy policy that actually supports the Russian regime.

Exerpt 

Lankford: In the week that Russia is murdering its neighbors and using fuel as a weapon again against all of Europe, intimidating everyone with it, we’re discussing how much slower fuel will be managed in the United States. That’s the problem is that this continues to slow down. This conversation about ‘certainty’ that’s been here, my understanding from reading through this is FERC will now handle mitigation plans on a case-by-case basis. Case-by-case basis doesn’t give anyone a sense of certainty to say, ‘Turn it in, we’ll look at it, and we’ll discuss it.’ And especially with a new process, when literally we should be trying to expedite things, it’s now a ‘case-by-case basis, do a $3 billion proposal, and we’ll take a look at it case by case, depending on the makeup of this body.’ 

I would tell you, Keystone sent a pretty clear message day-one of this Administration, we don’t want to do pipelines on oil. And then there was an announcement of a Federal Reserve nomination that the nominee announced immediately and made it very clear that they’re going to use the Federal Reserve to then punish any entity that provides capital for any kind of fossil fuel projects.

Source: Lankford release