On the recordJuly 12, 2012
I yield myself an additional 1 minute. Oil and gas really drive the economy of the world, and every time I bring an amendment out here on the floor that says, well, let's drill for oil and natural gas on the public lands of the United States, but we can't export it after we discover it here, drill for it here, to China, the Republicans, every time, vote not to put a ban on that. At the same time, they are over there with crocodile tears very concerned about China having all of these precious metals that they won't sell to us. Well, you want to know the best way to get China to sell that stuff to us? For us not to sell the stuff we have to them, that they need to manufacture those materials. That's the game. So you can't have it both ways. You just can't have it both ways. Either this is a great threat to our country and we're going to use the precious metals we have, the precious minerals that we have, oil and gas as our weapon against China, or we're doomed. We don't have a real strategy. Again, this is not a coherent strategy to deal with the country of China and their economic strategy to undermine our competitiveness. I reserve the balance of my time.
