Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, there are a few bills that we have been hearing might come that weren't discussed, and I know the gentleman alluded to the CHIPS Act. I know the Senate still hasn't finalized anything there. We are hearing they may. There are some other bills we have been hearing might come over. Of course, it seems like we keep hearing talk that something on Build Back Better may come back over on budget reconciliation, whether it is the trillion plus, whether it is something different, whether we would come back in August to deal with that. I don't know if the gentleman can touch on what he might be hearing from the Senate, and if there would be any plans beyond next week to come back in August where it is currently not scheduled to be a legislative period that we would be in session. I am not sure if the gentleman is willing to share that, but I will yield.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate especially the concern about that first 2 weeks because as with my family and a lot of families, those first few weeks where the families are still together before everybody goes back to school, you know, a lot of plans are made. We have a lot of work to do. We also have families, and you don't want to, you know, lose that element of having people be able to spend the time back in their districts and back with their families. If schedules have to change, at least give some lead time. I know Members on both sides appreciate that. Clearly, a lot of this depends on what the Senate does or doesn't do. For those of us that would prefer the Senate work in a bipartisan way or especially work in a way that focused on addressing and being aware of the inflationary problems in the country, and, of course, we just saw last week, 9.1 percent inflation, 40-year high, a lot of that driven by the spending in Washington. There is still talk that the Senate is trying to reach some agreement that would lead to a potential large amount of tax increases. A trillion dollars is a number that keeps being thrown around. It seems like trillions of dollars keep getting thrown around to the point where inflation has gotten out of control from the spending. We all know how much families are paying for so many things: gas prices, when they go to the grocery stores, all the things that they buy, if they can afford to buy them, those things are dramatically higher. Hopefully, the Senate doesn't keep adding to that inflation by coming up with more ways to spend money that we don't have. We will see. There is also talk that as part of the ObamaCare subsidies--you know, that is an entirely different conversation--that bill still needs heavy subsidies that are not affordable, but they are talking about drug price controls that would be paired with that. Again, more a message to our friends on the other side of the Chamber in the Senate, just for situational awareness when countries do price controls, there is a cost in terms of lifesaving drugs that are not available in countries where they have done price controls. When you look at the United States, clearly a leader in innovation--we have seen it with Operation Warp Speed where we were able to get three different vaccines approved in less than a year because we encourage innovation in this country, we don't penalize that innovation. But there are countries that do try to fix prices. While it might sound populist to do it, the cost for those countries is that many lifesaving drugs are not available in those countries. We all hear about Canada. Canada clearly is a country that fixes prices. France is a country that fixes prices. You can see here, almost half of the drugs that are available in America that save lives are not available in Canada and France. I know there is a temptation, as they are negotiating over in the Senate, to get into the price-fixing business. I am not sure which lifesaving drugs the Senate would like to remove off the shelves of the United States, but there will be lifesaving drugs removed off the shelves. Let's not do to drug manufacturing and lifesaving innovation in America what they have done to baby formula in America, where you can't even find it on the shelves. You will not be able to find many lifesaving drugs on the shelves in America if they go to price fixing. I know it is a heated negotiation over there. They haven't come to an agreement. Hopefully, they won't come to an agreement on something that would actually take lifesaving drugs off the shelves in this country. I would yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. I know there has been a lot of work by Members on both sides on the CHIPS Act. Mr. McCaul on our side, through the China Task Force, put out a number of recommendations. The CHIPS Act was one of them. Of course, one of the concerns we are seeing, as that bill continues to be negotiated in the Senate, it is not being negotiated more narrowly, it is being loaded up to the point where we are hearing numbers of well over $100 billion in unpaid-for new spending as part of that bill. As we talk about inflation, any economist will tell you, inflation is too much money chasing too few goods, and if we already acknowledge there are too few goods, to put another $100-plus billion, maybe $150 billion--it keeps growing every day--of borrowed money, none of that-- they are not prioritizing existing money. Everything we are hearing is all of it would be completely borrowed money. Next week, we are hearing the Fed is going to raise interest rates maybe up to another point, and that is without $100-plus billion of additional debt being added on. If the Fed is telling us that the spending is leading to higher interest rates, which makes it harder for low-income families to buy their first home, for people to maybe expand their business where they can hire more people to go and meet the needs of the supply chain, they won't be able to do that if interest rates keep going up. And yet, as interest rates are about to go up again next week, the Senate is trying to figure out how to keep adding and adding and adding on top of what is already probably well over $100 billion in borrowed money that they are going to send over here. I hope that we would keep that in mind as we are also trying to address these other problems like gas prices. I know we have talked about this many times. I shared it with the majority whip last week and would ask the majority leader again. We have identified a number of bills that have strong support that would address the many problems we are hearing that are leading to an inability to produce energy in America. We saw the President go hat in hand to Saudi Arabia last week. As I and many others predicted, we all knew that they were going to tell the President no, but I also suggested that if the President just saved the 11,000-plus miles on Air Force One and stayed here and called places like Port Fourchon, Louisiana, they would say yes to producing more energy, not in Saudi Arabia where their carbon emissions are much higher, but here in the United States where nobody in the world does it better, does it cleaner, or more efficiently. That would create more jobs in our country, and it would give more energy security to our country. It would allow us to lower gas prices, not just for us but for our allies around the world. And yet, instead of working with us on these bills, the President chooses to go to foreign countries who have no interest in lowering gas prices, and so we still end up in this situation. I don't know if there is an opportunity to get any or all of these bills brought up where we could actually come to an agreement on some things that would move the needle and help families in America lower gas prices. Today, we are still over double what the price of gasoline was before President Biden took office. Wherever the price moves, up or down, when families are paying over $150 to fill up their car, it is taking a huge hit out of low- and middle-income families' budgets, and that is one of the driving factors behind the sluggish economy. I don't know if the gentleman wants to make an announcement of some of these bills coming to the floor. I would welcome that, and I would yield.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. This debate will continue. It would be great if we were debating these bills next week. I stand to be surprised and happily surprised if the announcement comes out over the weekend that some or all of these bills will be brought to the floor. I would give the gentleman a prediction that if the House were to take up and pass these bills, we would see a dramatic reduction in the price of gasoline. I will leave that out there for the gentleman to consider as one more reason why these would be good debates to have, where we could talk together in support of good policy. We are both blessed with good staff that help us identify really good pieces of legislation that we could bring to address these big, big problems that families are facing. Mr. Speaker, unless the gentleman has anything else, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring to the House majority whip the schedule for next week. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the majority whip of the House.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I know this is a conversation I have had for months with the majority leader as we have talked about the concern over high gas prices, and I notice that, on the agenda that was listed, there are no bills that would deal with the high price of gasoline that families are struggling under due to President Biden's many different actions he has taken to shut down American energy. Of course, as we know, the President today is in Saudi Arabia, begging the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to produce more oil, when we have been asking the President to work with us to open up American energy, which is abundant, available, but, unfortunately, closed for business. Of course, we know during the campaign, President Biden bragged that he was going to shut down drilling, that he was going to make it hard for the energy companies to produce in America, and he has done that. The problem is it has had devastating impacts on families. So, we brought forward a number of bills, again, months ago. I have presented some of these to the majority leader. He said he would look at them and consider bringing some of them up. I want to present a few of these to the gentleman from South Carolina to see if we can get consideration of some of these bills next week at a time when we just saw a report with 9.1 percent inflation, the worst numbers in 40 years, in large part driven by the high price of gasoline. We have bills to alleviate that problem that families are facing. I will start with H.R. 7285, by Mr. Carl. This is the Unleashing American Energy Act that requires the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a minimum number of oil and gas lease sales so that we can get back to producing more energy here. H.R. 7292, by Garret Graves, the Securing American Energy and Investing in Resiliency Act: This requires the Secretary of the Interior to conduct all oil and gas lease sales that, under current law, he is supposed to be doing. The President is not in compliance with existing law on that. H.R. 7293, the Energy Permitting Certainty Act, by Ms. Herrell: This requires the Secretary of the Interior to process applications for a permit to drill. It doesn't tell the Secretary what determination they have to give, but it gives them a shot clock, just like they give to businesses. When they tell a business that they have to give an answer on something, it is by a certain date. Yet, when the applications are submitted, the agency just ignores it, just doesn't do their job. Let's get an answer, yes or no. Let's get an answer and back it up with facts. That is what this bill requires. H.R. 7298, the Promoting Energy Independence and Transparency Act, by Mr. Moore from Utah: This requires the Secretary of the Interior to submit a report on expressions of interest in applications of permits to drill and requires the publication of data on expressions of interest in applications of permits to drill. H.R. 7304, the Restore Onshore Energy Production Act, by Mr. Rosendale: This requires the Secretary of the Interior to immediately resume onshore oil and gas lease sales. Let us have an opportunity to utilize our natural resources to lower the price of gas. H.R. 751, the Protecting American Energy Production Act, by Mr. Duncan: This prohibits any declaration of a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing, which, again, has been a threat by this administration on a very efficient, clean source of energy that America could produce but, right now, is being dramatically limited. Finally, H.R. 1616, the Promoting Interagency Coordination for Review of Natural Gas Pipelines Act, by Mr. Burgess: This provides for Federal and State agency coordination in the approval of certain authorizations under the Natural Gas Act for the critical infrastructure of pipelines to move energy throughout America so we don't have to get it from tankers, from foreign countries, many of them hostile to America. I would be happy to yield to see if we could get some consideration next week of some of those bills, if not all.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman is interested in inflicting pain on Putin, then pass these bills. These bills will take away all of Putin's leverage. The only reason Vladimir Putin has any leverage over America and Europe is because President Biden shut down American energy. Again, each of these bills addresses different components of President Biden's attack on American energy. It has been a very direct assault on American energy on many different fronts. These lay out all of those things. You can have all the leases in the world, but if the administration won't give permits to actually execute the lease to do seismic, to build pipelines so you can actually move the resource, to drill in new areas while the resource is being depleted in other areas, then you don't have an ability to secure America's future. It results in the President going hat in hand to foreign countries like Saudi Arabia. I would just point out that I know the President likes talking about carbon emissions a lot. It is a 5,700-mile trek to Saudi Arabia, and I would imagine he is going to come back home. That is more than 11,000 miles on Air Force One. If you notice the picture, there are no solar panels on the wings of Air Force One. It is jet fuel that actually gets it from here to there and back with the President and his staff. You could save all 11,000 miles and the entire carbon footprint of that trip by staying here in America. I recommend going to a place like Port Fourchon in south Louisiana where they produce energy cleaner, cheaper, and with American jobs. By the way, as States drill, they get revenue sharing. They would actually be able to use that investment to lower prices at the pump and to help American families. If you think about where the price is today, whether it is $5.20 or $4.80--of course, it continues to go back and forth in a very high range--it is all double, more than double, what it was 2 years ago. What that means is that people who are filling up are looking at the bottom line. They are looking at the fact that it is costing them over $150 to fill their car today when it cost them maybe $70 2 years ago if they can afford to fill it up all the way. We are seeing a trend right now where many families can't even get it to full. They might have to go only halfway because they can't afford the full price. Their credit cards get maxed out before then because if they are filling up to go to the grocery store, they are also paying double-digit increases for everything they are buying there because of the spending-induced inflation. I suggest if we want to send a message to Putin, no better way to do it than to cut him off at the knees in his ability to hold leverage over America and Europe by producing more here in America. If we produce it in America, cartels can't control the price. Putin can't control the price. We can meet all of our needs and help our allies around the world so that Putin has no leverage over anybody. The only person giving Putin leverage today is President Biden by allowing all these limitations on American energy production that these bills will remove. These bills will help America get back to energy independence by unleashing all of those different leverages, those different inhibitions, the prohibitions that President Biden has put on our energy. Again, if he was against all fossil fuels, maybe there would be a consistency in policy, but he is only against American fossil fuels. He will travel 5,700 miles to beg Saudi to produce oil that he won't allow our own producers here in America to produce. I think that is what has Americans irate the most. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. I appreciate that. Hopefully, as I continue to have these conversations with the leader, maybe you and I could be whipping these bills together. You would see an overwhelming result and a quick reduction in the price at the pump that is hurting families. One final question I want to raise to the gentleman, and this came up yesterday or 2 days ago as we were having a series of votes on the National Defense Authorization Act, as the gentleman pointed out. Next week, we will be bringing up some of the appropriations bills, with still more to come over the next few weeks. As we have large numbers of amendments on NDAA and appropriations, which is typical for the process, to be able to go back to 2-minute voting where we can do our business not in 4 hours until 11 at night, but where we can actually be more efficient at processing all the requests that Members have to get a vote on different issues. We have continued to push to end proxy voting. Again, you have seen most of the country already get there. Most of the country is getting back to work. Airplanes, finally, you don't have to wear masks anymore. People are traveling internationally again. People are opening up their offices again to get workers in the office. Congress, frankly, should be leading, not lagging, on this. But if we got rid of proxy voting, we could get back next week to 2-minute votes and be much more effective and efficient in doing our jobs here in Congress. Is that something that the majority would consider, especially looking at six different appropriations bills, which I am sure will yield hundreds of amendments that would be debated and voted on, on this floor? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. I appreciate that. I will share--and if the gentleman wanted to share as well with the majority leader--our side stands ready and strongly encourages the complete elimination of proxy voting. We could absolutely get back to 2-minute voting with that. It is not a partisan issue. You can look across the Capitol, in the United States Senate they have never utilized proxy voting. They continue to do their work. It is, of course, controlled by Democrats over there. They represent the same States that we represent. They managed to do their business without proxy voting so that everybody has to show up to do their job. This time is no different than any other time in our Nation's history. There are some people who get ill; there are some people who have surgeries; there are some people who just have other things maybe with their family that takes them away. That is something that we all accommodate, we all recognize as a condition of doing a job that actually requires interaction with other people. The Senate has managed to do it without proxy voting; we would just urge that the House embrace that same approach. We will continue to push for that, which would allow us to do things like 2-minute voting. Unless the gentleman has anything else, I am prepared to yield back. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mrs. McMorris Rodgers, for leading on this issue. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this radical movement by our colleagues on the left to go way further than Roe, under the guise of codifying Roe, to push some of the most extreme packages of pro-abortion legislation that we have seen. Where would this push us if they got their way? Under this package of bills that the House is taking up today, the United States would end up among just a handful of countries, including China and North Korea, in radical abortion on demand up until birth policy. Now, there has been a lot of misinformation presented since the Supreme Court made their decision, a decision that I applaud because, Madam Speaker, it is a decision that finally said Roe was a flawed decision and that, in fact, elected leaders should be the ones debating this. How much can we debate how to protect life? States have been having this debate. Roe didn't end the debate. It started a movement, a movement for almost 50 years. The March for Life. You see young people, tens and hundreds of thousands, coming up to Washington, just praying and marching for the opportunity to protect life. Now, those States and Congress can have that debate about how much more we can do to protect life. In fact, we brought an amendment because whether it was before the Dobbs decision or even today, a State like New York has such a radical law that a baby can be born alive outside the womb, and they can murder that baby and call it abortion. That is still legal today in States like New York. It should not be. It is murder. If a baby is born alive outside the womb, how in America can that baby be murdered under the guise of abortion? Yet, that is what is allowed. We had the motion to recommit we brought forward--we will have a vote on that shortly--to say that barbaric act can no longer happen again in America, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Everybody should vote for that. People pro-choice have said they think it is radical that a baby can be born alive outside the womb and still be murdered under the name of abortion. We will have the opportunity to right that wrong today on the House floor. I hope everybody votes for it. Unfortunately, so far, we haven't gotten any support from my Democratic colleagues. I will end with this, Madam Speaker: Our Founding Fathers empowered us with three unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The first among those is life. Let's do all we can to protect life, not have this radical, extreme agenda pushed forward today.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend and the House majority leader.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the confession about how many 60th birthdays he has shared. Here is to many more for you, but also for Bres. As the gentleman points out, a fair and free press is vital to democracy. It is the First Amendment to our Constitution: freedom of speech and freedom of the press. While they might not report our press releases verbatim all the time--as we might like them to--they serve a vital purpose. Bres is one of those that we see in the halls, like the press that is around here making sure that the country knows what is happening here in the greatest democracy of the history of the world. As a 60th birthday gift to him, I promise not to sing ``Happy Birthday'' to him. I wish Bres a happy birthday, and I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that update. As we celebrate Juneteenth next week, also right here in this House Chamber over 150 years ago is where the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was debated and passed. So history is made here on a regular basis. And then we celebrate the freedoms that result and continue as our Founders talked about to aspire towards a more perfect Nation so we will do that next week. I do want to thank the gentleman because last week during this colloquy I know I asked my friend if we could bring the Supreme Court protection bill, the bill to make sure that Supreme Court Justices and their families get proper protection, as we were watching and saw a man arrested for trying to murder a Supreme Court Justice. Leader McCarthy, I know, urged that as well. So I appreciate that we got to bring that bill up, debate it, and quickly pass it to President Biden's desk where we can get that in place. I would hope that the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, would start enforcing 18 U.S. Code 1507 to give protection properly as Federal laws dictate, but it is not being enforced at the homes of those Justices. But, again, I appreciate that we got a very overwhelming bipartisan vote on that bill this week. Does the gentleman have anything to add before we talk about the schedule for next week? Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Obviously, we will continue to debate this. Hopefully, we will debate it over H.R. 6858 where we can actually be talking about how we work together to solve the problem. Of course, as the gentleman knows, Congress did come together, Republicans and Democrats, to give our friends in Ukraine the tools to go and push Putin out of much of Ukraine and, hopefully, all of Ukraine. We will continue to stand with the incredibly strong, resilient people of Ukraine in standing up to Vladimir Putin. We will, hopefully, have this debate further as we are talking about the legislation that we would like to bring. Unless the gentleman has anything else--Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. I share those comments by the gentleman from Maryland. As we look towards next week--we have had this conversation a number of times--one of the items I don't see on the agenda is an item to address the problem of high gas prices, and, of course, we have now crossed an average of more than $5 a gallon. It is a major burden for families, especially lower-income families who are being forced more and more to make those tough decisions of can they even afford to drive to work, and can they even afford to drive to see their doctor or to drive to the grocery store where they are paying maybe 20 percent more for some of the food items. We have had a bill for over a month now, H.R. 6858, that would address these problems and allow us to actually have more control over our own energy production in America, to be able to drill in America for energy to lower the cost of gasoline, by confronting so many of the problems that this Biden administration has imposed that are making it hard for us to produce more energy in America to the point where you now have President Biden announcing that he is going to go to Saudi Arabia to beg them to produce more oil. As we try to confront this challenge--and again, H.R. 6858 would allow us to do that--if you look at President Biden's proposed trip to Saudi Arabia, the President likes talking a lot about carbon footprints, carbon emissions, and global warming. Why would the President get on Air Force One and fly 5,700 miles to Saudi Arabia to beg them to do something that we can do right here in America? In fact, he could go less than 1,000 miles to Port Fourchon, Louisiana, in my district where they can produce hundreds of thousands of barrels a day in America which, by the way, because America has the best standards in the world, would emit less carbon than the oil produced in Saudi Arabia. While the President will be flying over to Saudi Arabia, he won't know the answer he is going to get. They are an OPEC nation. They typically support a limited supply of oil because they want a higher price. So he doesn't know what the answer is going to be. He is going to fly 5,700 miles over and another 5,700 miles back to the United States. There are no solar panels on Air Force One, so that is going to be a lot of jet fuel and a lot of carbon emissions to do something that he could pick up the phone and call Port Fourchon. We would love to see him down there, but he can call them. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, the answer would be ``yes.'' They would say: Yes, we will produce more energy here in America. But they are not allowed to right now because of limitations put in place by the Biden administration. So while we push to get this bill, H.R. 6858, brought forward, it really begs the question of first: What is the carbon footprint of President Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia? But why even do this trip? Why go to Saudi Arabia and ask them to produce oil when we have it right here? It is President Biden's policies that are stopping that oil from being produced, and, by the way, at a much lower carbon footprint than anything that Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, or any of those countries would produce if it were their countries meeting the demands of our Nation and so many others. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman, hopefully, to see if we can get the bill scheduled for next week.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, if there is common ground we can find on the components of H.R. 6858, I would be happy to help facilitate that negotiation because there are a number of very specific items in that bill that address the shortfalls, the deficiencies, the inabilities to produce energy in America. The Keystone pipeline might be one of the more well known. President Biden, on his first day in office, canceled the Keystone pipeline. Of course, it is not moving forward because he canceled it. It would provide a vital supply of oil from our friends in Canada that we wouldn't need from other people. But there are a number of other pipeline issues. No new pipelines have been approved in the country. You have to have an ability to move energy around the country if we are going to be able to produce our own. If a conscious decision was made in the White House that they don't want any pipelines, because that impedes the ability to produce energy in America, it just means we have to import more of it from other countries. Whether it is Saudi Arabia, Russia, any of them that I would not want us to have to get it from, it is going to come in some form. It might be a tanker. It is going to get here, and it is going to have to be put on rail or an 18-wheeler if it can't be put in a pipeline. Let's get more pipelines produced, LNG export facilities. There are multiple, at least four, LNG export facilities that are sitting on the desk over at the Department of Energy ready to go. These are multibillion-dollar, privately funded projects that can't move forward because they won't move, yes or no, on those requests that have been pending for over a year. Obviously, you look at leases, not being able to develop your lease. If you are a farmer and you own land, you could talk about all the thousands of acres of land, but if you need a permit from the Federal Government to plant food and the Federal Government won't give you a permit to plant the food, then you can't use the land. The land is worthless. You own leases on Federal or State lands, but the Federal Government, through President Biden, said you can't get permits to go and exercise that lease. Then the lease is worthless. There has been a lot of talk by the White House about who to blame. By the way, I have never heard of President Biden pointing the finger at himself or looking in the mirror and going, is there something I can do? We have a list for him that he can do, and he won't. But Joe Biden, as a candidate for President, has said things like this multiple times since being President: ``No more drilling on Federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.'' That was Joe Biden. Then, Joe Biden continued to carry out policies that followed through on those promises to kill drilling in America, and each step of the way, the price kept going up. Prior to Putin's invasion--I know the President loves trying to blame Putin. Well in advance of Putin's invasion, the price of oil was going up. In fact, the President was--whatever terminology you want to use-- pleading with, begging, asking Putin to produce more oil prior to the invasion of Ukraine. That was who Joe Biden was asking back then as he was carrying out his promise, ``No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.'' He only applied that, by the way, to America. He was asking other countries to drill. He was just saying you can't do it here. Putin said no, by the way. In the meantime, Putin was making $700 million a day selling his oil to America and Europe during that period when President Biden was carrying out all the steps to stop drilling in America. Then you fast forward. The price keeps going up. President Biden, again, doesn't look in the mirror. The gentleman mentioned they blamed the pandemic. That didn't fly because that wasn't the case because people started getting out again, started going again. Energy companies asked to start producing again and filed permit after permit application and got denied and denied and denied, so then the President blamed the oil and gas companies. They had hearings up here, brought in all the oil and gas companies. Do you know what the oil and gas companies said under oath? They want to drill more, and they can't drill because of President Biden's policies. It is President Biden's policies stopping them from drilling. Again, if the oil and gas companies or Putin were the reason that there was this inability, and President Biden, as he has done multiple times, blamed them, if they were the reason that they had this shortfall, he would continue to be blaming them. But he knew the public wasn't buying it because it wasn't them, so he just blames more people. Then, he goes to price gouging. As the gentleman pointed out, there was a bill here on the House floor a few weeks ago to try to shift the blame over to price gouging, and the answer was to allow you to sue your local gas station if you didn't like the price of gas. Well, none of us like the price of gas. Suing your gas station is only going to make the price higher. Obviously, that had no impact because that wasn't the reason. But that was the answer and the attempt to try to blame somebody else. Then we moved forward, and it is all of these other issues-- refineries. This week, the White House started blaming refineries. While the White House keeps throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying to figure out if somebody else will take the blame, he is going to go to Saudi and ask them to help us lower the price. Saudi's ability to produce is irrelevant to the price if we produce in America because we have the ability to drive down that price because we are not an OPEC nation. We are not a monopoly. We are a free-market economy when the free market is allowed to operate. But President Biden, through his promises--``No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period''--in essence, he took the free market ability for America to produce energy off the table, which means he gave that leverage to monopolies, to cartels. They are taking advantage of it because President Biden gave them that. Instead of asking them to produce more when they are fine with the high price of oil, whether it is Brent, West Texas, it doesn't matter what it is. He has taken it off in America so that they can limit the supply. Let's not limit the supply. Again, if it is about saving the planet, if it is about carbon emissions, why not produce more here? There is no country in the world that produces oil that does it cleaner or better than us. If you take America off the table, as President Biden has done--``No more drilling on Federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore.'' That was Joe Biden. He took it off the table here. That means you are going to need oil from countries that emit more carbon to produce the same oil, so you get higher carbon emissions. Again, that doesn't even count the carbon emissions that will occur when President Biden gets on Air Force One and flies over 5,700 miles to go have this conversation that he doesn't need to have because he can have that conversation right here in America at a place like Port Fourchon, where the answer would be yes, and it would be cleaner. And by the way, it would bring billions more dollars into America's Treasury. It would lower the price of gasoline. It would create more jobs in America. Every answer says yes, except President Biden keeps saying no. We want to address it through this legislation, which would counter some of those many things that President Biden has done to turn off the spigots in America. If we can work on ways to confront this, I would be more than happy to have that negotiation, and we could go through, offline, how to do that. That is why I continue to bring up this bill. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Just for clarification, the ranking member voted ``no'' on the bill.

Mr. SCALISE. The 800,000 leases--and I know we talked about this before. You can have 800,000 leases, but when you need, then, permits to actually utilize the lease--so you have a lease to go and develop oil, but you need to drill. You need to do seismic. You need to build pipelines, infrastructure to move it. If you don't get those permits to actually utilize the leases, the leases are worthless. That is what H.R. 6858 addresses. We have been raising that issue for a long time. The lease is no good if you can't, then, use the lease.

Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I rise to inquire of the House majority leader the schedule for next week. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend and the majority leader of the House.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I wanted to ask, specifically, there was some talk that we may today take up the Senate bill, the bill that passed over a month ago in the Senate, to give stronger protections to Supreme Court Justices and their families. Of course, yesterday, something that angers a lot of us--Justice Kavanaugh, there was an arrest of a man that was at his house, attempting to murder Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. This is something we have expressed concern about for weeks, especially some of the language directed at Supreme Court Justices, people encouraging people to go to their houses. There was a bill that had bipartisan support that passed the Senate over a month ago to give them stronger protections. We thought that may come up today. I don't hear it on the schedule. Can we get a vote on that bill when we come back early next week on the suspension calendar to get that bill sent to the President's desk to get that in motion quickly? Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I hope that we can get that early in the week put on the suspension calendar, in the form the Senate sent over where there is broad agreement on both sides of the aisle, and get that to the President's desk to get those stronger protections in place. Finally, I would like to ask the gentleman, we have talked about this bill a number of times, H.R. 6858, which is a bill dealing with American energy independence, to open up more areas of our country to American energy production so that we don't have to be reliant on foreign countries, whether it is Russia, Venezuela, Iran or, now, the President is going to go to plead with Saudi to produce more energy when America has more energy that we could be producing that we can't because of current policies by President Biden. This would open those up. It would allow us to lower gas prices. It would allow relief to families who are struggling because of these energy policies that are hurting our ability to produce in America and making us more dependent on countries that are cartels or monopolies, whether it is OPEC or other countries where they want they want a higher price. They want to limit production. We want to open up American energy, and that is what that package of legislation would do. Can we get that bill added to the calendar quickly, hopefully next week, so that we can help get relief to families who are trying to plan a family vacation and can't afford to pay $4.50, $5 a gallon or more for gasoline? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, hopefully, we can get that addressed as well so that we can tackle some of these other problems: inflation, high gas prices, border issues that we are trying to bring legislation on. If the gentleman has nothing else, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I would yield. Especially if the gentleman would tell me we are bringing this up on the floor, I would be happy to yield right now.

Mr. SCALISE. Because America has the best standards in the world.