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“BIDEN ADMINISTRATION” mentioning Shelley Moore Capito was published in the Senate section on pages S187-S188 on Jan. 28.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION
Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, it is nice to see you in the Chair, Mr. President. I haven't seen that for a while. Congratulations to you.
I feel like yesterday I was in the movie ``Back to the Future.'' I rise today to voice my deep concern with the lengthy Executive order that President Biden issued yesterday pertaining to climate, and my larger concerns about where the Biden administration is moving with regard to their energy and environment agenda.
President Biden, very passionately, as we sat out on the steps, called for unity in his January 20 inauguration speech. But as his first actions, President Biden managed to kill thousands of jobs and paralyze America's industry--the energy industry.
His order yesterday put a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on Federal lands. This is an economic, energy, and national security disaster, in my view. This order moves America from energy independence back to relying on foreign sources for fuel--and a lot of times these are the countries that have much more lax environmental policies than we have right here in the United States.
The order also usurps our States' rights--the States' rights which are to manage their own energy industries.
As you know, I come from an energy-producing State. We have a proud heritage of that. So what about the States that rely on tax revenues from the energy industry to fund education? We see what has happened with education now under the pandemic. More headwinds into how do we deliver a great education product is a question we are going to be answering over the next several months and years. So any ideas?
I wonder if President Biden actually talked to any of the Governors of these States to see what the impact of what he was doing might have.
But what we saw yesterday in the press conference was President Biden and Gina McCarthy and John Kerry's ultimate goal, which is to ban fossil fuels. They were pretty upfront about that.
So my skepticism, when I hear that the administration is going to give industry time to transition and give workers a clean energy job--
that is where I found myself thinking: I am in ``Back to the Future.'' I have heard this before because I vividly remember the empty promises of the past.
This is a deeply personal issue for me because I have lived through this. I have seen this playbook before. So we are back to the future.
The Obama administration said the very same things to West Virginians. In fact, I remember the same people saying the same things, and I remember the utterly unachievable regulatory requirements that Gina McCarthy created in her position as head of the EPA that decimated my State.
I remember the thousands of jobs lost--and still lost--and the hopelessness and then the succeeding opioid epidemic that followed.
I remember begging the Obama EPA to come to West Virginia to see how the regulations, with no time to transition, were destroying more of our State's economy. They were destroying our families. They really didn't seem to care. The only response I got in one of my hearings was, well, they will come to Pittsburgh. Well, that is not coming to West Virginia.
Look, I am not here to just put down the Biden administration. I want to work with the administration, and I am going to be in a position to do that as ranking member on EPW. I want to be a part of the solution. I am not a climate denier. We all need to take care of our planet. We must be good stewards of our Earth, of our water. We know it is the right thing to do.
The free market is already moving in that direction, which was part of the presentation yesterday. Private companies are cutting their emissions. That is awesome. And as we see the emission figures, they have gone way down over the last 15 years.
Consumers moving toward greener products? That is great. I find myself doing that in my everyday living, and it is great. I feel like, in some ways, I am doing my small part at home.
But a national energy transition really needs time, and the Biden administration needs to be very clear about what their timetables really are.
They also need to be very clear about who is really in charge here. This is another one of my concerns. President Biden's nominees--Michael Regan; Jennifer Granholm; Brenda Mallory, at CEQ, Janet McCabe; and even Pete Buttigieg--have all been tasked with addressing climate. They are going to be tripping all over each other, before you even consider those avoiding Senate confirmation, process all of this together--
McCarthy, Kerry, and a whole host of other czars who aren't accountable to Congress. So who is really going to be making the decisions? I think, from yesterday's press conference, it is pretty clear what the answer to that question could probably be.
Will this Cabinet actually wield any power or will the decisions be made in the White House in an effort to avoid public and congressional scrutiny?
The American people really need to know. West Virginians need to know. New Jerseyans need to know. I will definitely be asking those questions in the upcoming hearing.
In closing, I would just like to say that America is a great and very proud energy producer. West Virginia has powered the country for decades, and we are incredibly proud of that fact. Coal, natural gas, oil, solar, wind, nuclear, biomass--our country has been incredibly blessed with energy resources, and using all of them keeps Americans safe and keeps our country running.
Eliminating fossil fuels from our energy mix will lead to higher utility costs and less reliability. So whom does that really hurt? It hurts those in the lower and mid-income category--the ones that are hurting right now because of this pandemic. And you can just ask California about the rising cost and the rise in unreliability of the grid.
Renewables can't power our country at 100 percent all the time right now. Maybe in the future, but right now they can't, and battery technology hasn't been able to fill that gap.
But we can address climate change together through innovation and technology. We already have new markets for coal and carbon products. We know investing in carbon capture and utilization and storage is critical. For a lot of reasons it is a win-win on both sides. We know new technologies are progressing every single day, and we have been working on this issue in a bipartisan way. Senator Whitehouse and I were the main proponents of the 45Q credit for capturing carbon and reusing it.
But I am very concerned that President Biden's Executive order yesterday really alienated some of the key players in the conversation, and I don't think that is the way to build unity. Here we go--back to the future, picking winners and losers. That is pitting American jobs against one and the other, and that can create and will create resentment across the country.
So I urge the President--let's tackle these climate challenges together, not through overreaching Presidential orders and Federal regulations. This country has risen to every single challenge that we have had. This climate challenge is no different. I understand the urgency. I understand the issue. But with our American ingenuity, we can find these solutions together.
So let's make our future one that we build together.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Without objection, it is so ordered.
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