On the recordFebruary 29, 2012
Madam President, the first 3 years of President Obama's administration were a frenzy of activity. He pushed the stimulus, he spent over a year pursuing his health care law, and he forced through Dodd-Frank, imposing historic regulations on the banking industry. Even The Economist magazine has found fault with that. Yet, at a time when the Nation was in economic free fall, the President chose an agenda of more regulation and higher taxes. The President ignored private sector job creation and the primacy of economic growth, and nowhere was this more evident than with respect to energy policy. President Obama has failed entirely to address one of the greatest obstacles to economic growth; that is, high energy prices. Today he claims he is for an all-of-the-above approach to energy. All of a sudden, facing $5-a-gallon gasoline, weak job creation, and a Presidential election, he claims to have found religion on energy production. But whether we look at oil, natural gas, or the Keystone Pipeline, the American people are not buying this conversion story, and I certainly agree with our distinguished minority leader and his comments here this morning. This failure by the President to tackle our energy needs is a national crisis for which the American people should hold him accountable. Yet his inability to put jobs ahead of his radical and unrepresentative environmental base has particular implications for the citizens of my State of Utah as well.…





