Frank Pallone: “I can only characterize this amendment as extreme. If adopted, this amendment would make an already reckless bill even…”

“I can only characterize this amendment as extreme. If adopted, this amendment would make an already reckless bill even more careless and would weaken our national energy security. Now, let me say that I totally disagree with what the gentlewoman just said. First of all, what President Biden has done, as we have said repeatedly today, is to release crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to bring down gas prices. And he actually accomplished that goal. It worked by bringing down prices about a $1.50 per gallon since the peak last June. In addition to that, we have set forth that this was to address the supply chain because we know that with the war in Ukraine, the supply chain was severely limited, and one of the purposes of releasing oil from the reserve was to have more in the supply chain. The gentlewoman also suggested that this administration is restricting the use of public lands for drilling. That is simply not the case. One-half of the public lands are available for drilling. As I have said before, the oil companies simply don't want to drill because they want to keep the prices artificially high. Now, what the gentlewoman has done--and I just want to explain this in a little detail. Right now, the bill before us does have an exemption that says that you don't have to drill or put forth a plan to drill on public lands if certain criteria are met.…”