WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Tuesday, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) spoke at the America First Agenda Summit about how President Biden is refusing to take responsibility for his far-left policies that have led to soaring inflation and skyrocketing gas prices. Whip Scalise urged President Biden to end his war on American energy and stop letting the radical Democrats implement an anti-American energy agenda that has led to the United States’ worst energy crisis in decades.Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Budget Committee Ranking Member Jason Smith (R-Mo.), and former United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer joined Whip Scalise at the panel discussion moderated by Larry Kudlow, former Director of the United States National Economic Council.
Whip Scalise’s remarks:“Well, first, welcome everybody here. Good to see all of you, and always great to be with my friend, Larry Kudlow. We got to work really well together when he was in the Trump Administration in the White House. You want to talk about how to get it back on track? You really don’t need to reinvent the wheel.“A lot of comparisons are made right now between today and the 1970s. I think when you look at [President] Biden’s poor polling numbers – it’s not just amongst Republicans. It’s something like 64 percent of Democrats don’t want [President] Biden to be the nominee in 2024. [Those are] Democrats!“I think Jimmy Carter might be the only person who’s a fan of [President] Biden because he’s no longer the worst President. But [if] you look at the 70s, and if you compare economically, you can look at energy policy, you can look at foreign policy, all the failures on every front were happening in the 70s, they’re happening today. The difference is if you look at the 70s, we didn’t have the technology we had today to know that we could supply our own energy needs. Our country was beholden to foreign powers, especially OPEC countries, for our energy.“We unleashed American energy during the Trump years, and we did it through very smart policy. It wasn’t accidental – the technology was growing, but if you go before the Obama Administration had actually shut a lot of our ability to develop our own resources down.“[President] Trump came in and opened things up, and what did that yield? It yielded less than $2 a gallon of gasoline. Remember that? It wasn’t that long ago. Just a little over two years ago, families were paying less than $2 a gallon for gasoline. It’s probably the single biggest impact item that affects families when we talk about inflation. Because inflation still is the driving issue today, and it’s going to be the driving issue [in] the November elections, which scares the death out of Democrats here who don’t want to lose control of power.“The thing is, they won’t work with us to change the problems that they’ve created, and they’ve created all of these. Larry talked really well about the regulatory [state’s] overreach. I mean, every federal agency – you pick your agency – from the EPA, which is still, even after the Supreme Court ruling, going after every administration trying to impose the Green New Deal even though they can’t pass it legislatively in a Democrat-controlled Congress.“The Department of Energy – you see their Secretary – she laughs when they say, ‘What are you going to do to produce more energy?’ She laughs about it. She thinks it’s funny. It’s surely not funny for us.“The Department of Interior won’t issue a single new permit for drilling onshore, federal lands, pipelines – it was not just Keystone – any new pipeline to move energy within this country – so it makes us dependent on our nations. That’s what’s really hurt families. Let’s get back to the policies that worked. Open up our energy reserves, [and] stop printing money, how about that? No more multi-trillion-dollar bills where they’re still trying to pass one right now. They’re still trying to pass Build Back Better.“Larry’s best comment, and we use it all the time, is ‘Save America. Kill the bill.’ The bill is not dead. As [Senator Graham] over there knows, it’s like a zombie that just keeps coming out. You shoot it down, it comes back, and they still want to bring it back again.“We’ve already seen what they’ve done to wreck our economy with massive spending and crazy far-left socialist regulations. Stop the madness. Help is on the way in November. But for the meantime, we need to stop the damage that’s already been done and then focus on reversing it.”