Today, during a hearing with energy executives, Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07), who represents the Houston, Texas, the energy capital of the world, participated in the Energy and Commerce’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing about the complex dynamics of the energy market and resulting high gasoline prices in recent weeks.  Witnesses included executives from six major oil and gas corporations: BP America Inc., Chevron Corporation, Devon Energy Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, Pioneer Natural Resources Company, and Shell USA, Inc. Congresswoman Fletcher spoke about the need for Congress to adopt thoughtful energy policy that allows us to remain energy independent

Congresswoman Fletcher’s full testimony can be viewed here. 

Remarks as delivered are available below: 

Thank you, Chairwoman DeGette, and Chairman Pallone, for allowing me to waive on and participate in today’s hearing.

We are nearing the end of a long day, and I want to thank our witnesses for their time and insights during today’s hearing.  As the Chairwoman noted, this is an investigatory and oversight hearing, not a legislative hearing, and we are here today because people across the country are feeling pain at the pump, and we want to help – we are looking for ways to help -- to ease the pain that inflation at the pump and elsewhere is causing for the people we represent.

These are serious challenges—for our people, for our economy, and for our policymaking.  That is why I am so disappointed that much of the questioning today has centered around scoring political points and blaming others rather than taking a serious look at the challenges we face and their drivers as well as how we can actually address them.

Our energy ecosystem in this country and around the world is complex, as are the challenges presented in this moment.  How we find our energy sources, extract them, move them, refine them into fuels and petrochemicals, and deliver them to consumers at home and around the world are vast, varied, and complicated.  

In my district in Houston, we are involved in Every. Single. Aspect. of that work.  

And we are proud to do it – we supply energy to the world.  

For us, that means working collaboratively to partner with the people who produce energy including our witnesses today, and with policymakers everywhere in charting a path for our energy future that understands the very real challenges of today – from supply issues driving up prices to climate change threatening our communities—to create a lower-carbon future.  I hope everyone here heard that from our witnesses today.

In the five minutes I have today I can’t possibly respond to everything that’s been said here today that I disagree with – but there are things worth remembering as we move forward.

Less than three years ago, at the end of 2019, the United States hit a new domestic production peak, just under 13 million barrels a day.   More than 800 oil rigs were operating here in the United States.  When the pandemic hit, demand for oil and gas collapsed under unprecedented demand destruction.  And I cannot overstate the shock we felt at home seeing oil trade for less than zero dollars a barrel.  

By the summer of 2020, only about 250 drilling rigs were active.  Production dropped by nearly 3 million barrels a day.  In the U.S., more than 120,000 people –many of them in Texas—lost their jobs.  

Contrary to what we have heard from our friends on the other side of the aisle, our current rig count is not simply the result of some policy change from the Biden administration and Democrats. 

Today the rig count in the U.S. is up to 673.  That’s up 243 from this time a year ago. 

Likewise, my colleagues know that I’ve been unequivocal in my support of the importance of new pipeline construction for our energy infrastructure, but the claims many have made here today that President Biden has caused these high prices by revoking the permit for the Keystone pipeline are simply not true.

 The current crisis has its roots in a lack of upstream inventory, not a lack of transportation from inadequate pipeline infrastructure and bottlenecks getting to refiners.  The oil that Keystone would have transported is still making its way on to the market through other transportation methods.   

 My colleagues also know I haven’t always agreed with the Administration’s policy decisions in this area, but when it comes to upstream production, the Biden Administration has approved 34 percent more federal drilling permits in its first year than the Trump administration did—900 more permits to drill than the Trump Administration did over the same period.  And, the Department of Interior approved 97% of all of applications to drill submitted to the Bureau of Land Management in fiscal year 2021.

 On another note, there is also not a meaningful connection between leasing sales and prices at the pump today.  We heard as much from industry reps in a recent hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Finally, we’ve heard a lot today about the record $76 billion in profits that these companies have made in the last year.  The record loss of $77 billion that these companies posted the year before in 2020, which some of the witnesses mentioned, should not be discounted as some of my colleagues have suggested.  

 Nor should the more than 100 oil and gas companies—E&P and oilfield services providers—that declared bankruptcy in 2020. 

 It wasn’t just in 2020.  It was also 2014, 2015.  1982.  In Houston, we have lived through it all, the boom and the bust.

 That is why we know we need sound, forward-looking, durable energy policy that will help make it more stable and predictable for businesses and consumers alike.  

 We’ve heard today: Global demand for crude tops 100 million barrels a day.  Questions about how the market will meet this moment have caused the price of crude to skyrocket.  Recovery from the pandemic isn’t the only driver, nor is this only a domestic issue, as we know, other factors influence supply, including the decision to ban Russian crude oil after Russia’s unprovoked and unjustifiable war in Ukraine. 

In this moment, President Biden and the administration are using the levers we have to confront the crisis head on.  The release from the SPR of 180 million barrels, the largest in history, will help close the inventory gap upstream.  

The federal government should be using every tool we have to address the crisis.  And we should do it all the time.

It is worth noting in 2020, I introduced a bill with Mr. Armstrong to purchase oil for the SPR when it was under $40 dollars a barrel.  Senator Schumer bragged about keeping my bill out of the CARES Act, calling it a bail out for big oil.  If we had these additional crude reserves today, our country would be in a much better position.

As policymakers, we need take energy policy seriously, and stop using it as a political weapon.  The stakes are simply too high.