Bruce Westerman: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, this amendment says that the sense of Congress is that the royalty rates…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, this amendment says that the sense of Congress is that the royalty rates should be 12\1/2\ percent, which was the royalty rate before the very misleading and misnamed bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, was passed by my colleagues on the left. We all know that it wasn't an Inflation Reduction Act, and they publicly call it their climate bill. President Biden has called it the climate bill. The increase in the royalty rates was simply another way to attack our energy resources here in America. The Democrats know that. The Biden administration knows that. The officials in the Biden administration know that. In a bill that they call the Inflation Reduction Act, they actually increased inflation by passing a law to say we are going to raise the costs of energy off of Federal lands. It didn't take the market to do it. It was done by the law passed by my colleagues across the aisle. If you don't believe what I am saying, take the word of the Biden administration. Earlier this month, the Biden administration confirmed this fact in a leaked Bureau of Ocean Energy Management memo on Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258. This is in response to BOEM trying to do an 18\3/ 4\ percent rate, trying to put the highest rate they could on this sale.…”