{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=576CACB7-C43A-4726-8602-4CD704F04667", "Democrats\u2019 Energy Agenda Puts Foreign Leaders\u2019 Applause Ahead of American Families", "2021-10-27", "2021", "2021-10", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Democrats\u2019 reckless tax and spending spree:\n\n\u201cIn a few days, President Biden is set to gas up Air Force One and jet to Scotland for a global conference about the climate.\n\n\u201cAccording to press coverage, the President\u2019s agenda is clear:\n\n\u201c\u2018Biden Wants to Show World He\u2019s Serious About Cutting Emissions.\u2019 \u2018Joe Biden Gets Real On Climate Change.\u2019\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re talking about a meeting\u2026 to review a plan\u2026 that failed to get its own signatories to meet its unenforceable \u2018commitments.\u2019\n\n\u201cA deal that couldn\u2019t compel the world\u2019s largest carbon producer, China, to commit to any less than another nine years of rising emissions before it starts to turn things around. This is a country with single companies that emit more carbon than nations the size of Canada.\n\n\u201cAnd all the while, the United States, from outside the deal, cut our emissions more than any major country inside the deal.\n\n\u201cThe Biden Administration is desperately chasing bad deals to win applause from foreign leaders. That\u2019s what this is about. Signing the American people up for self-inflicted pain for no meaningful gain.\n\n\u201cThe only thing that\u2019s serious about President Biden\u2019s environmental agenda is the trouble it\u2019s already causing here at home.\n\n\u201cOur adversaries like Russia are salivating over big windfalls while working American families are feeling the pain.\n\n\u201cRemember, on day one, this Administration put a freeze on crucial development of domestic energy and killed the Keystone XL pipeline \u2014 along with over a thousand jobs.\n\n\u201cCombined with Democrats\u2019 flood of inflationary spending, it\u2019s no wonder that consumers are facing the highest prices at the pump in seven years\u2026\n\n\u201cThe most expensive home heating forecast in more than twelve years\u2026 And soaring prices on the household goods that are costing U.S. manufacturers more to make.\n\n\u201cBut wait, there\u2019s more. When President Biden jets off to next week\u2019s summit, his fellow Democrats will be busy plotting yet another reckless taxing and spending spree that would compound the pain with more anti-energy policies.\n\n\u201cThey want to create new taxes on the most affordable and reliable forms of American energy that would put producers out of business, workers out of jobs, and make home heating even pricier this winter.\n\n\u201cThey want to put billions more into \u2018environmental and social justice block grants,\u2019 whatever that means. They want to subsidize the favorite products of blue-state elites, like electric cars and even electric bicycles.\n\n\u201cDemocrats also want to pour billions of dollars into a made-up government work program they\u2019re calling the \u2018Civilian Climate Corps.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis is pure socialist wish-fulfillment. We\u2019ve already got a worker shortage and record numbers of open jobs, but Democrats want taxpayers to put aside $8 billion for make-work programs for young liberal activists that they admit \u2018[wouldn\u2019t] measurably reduce emissions.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd under their latest batch of proposed regulations, states that fail to keep pace with heavy-handed emissions targets would face \u2018consequences\u2019 \u2014 like freezes on funds for major transportation projects that employ lots of American workers. They want to bully every state to become more and more like California.\n\n\u201cWashington Democrats are plowing ahead with all this precisely as the Ghost of Christmas Future is providing us with a cautionary tale from across the Atlantic.\n\n\u201cAcross Europe, natural gas prices have jumped 400% since the start of the year. Countries are scrambling to rediscover and reactivate the reliable systems they\u2019d left behind to follow the latest fads.\n\n\u201cThanks in part to the Biden Administration\u2019s own inaction, Putin\u2019s Russia has turned its controlling share of Europe\u2019s gas production into a political weapon.\n\n\u201cBut instead of heeding this cautionary tale, President Biden seems to want to follow suit.\n\n\u201cHis regulations have squandered the energy independence we enjoyed before he took office. U.S. imports of Russian oil have doubled. As gas prices soar, his Administration is reportedly asking OPEC to cut us some slack.\n\n\u201cAs one academic summed it up, \u2018Biden policy promotes a multiyear, multitrillion-dollar windfall\u2019 for adversaries like Russia.\n\n\u201c\u2018To raise energy prices while enabling Moscow to tighten its grip over Europe\u2019s energy supply is to turbocharge a Russian regime that was staggering and showing its age.\u2019\n\n\u201cPain for the American people. Payoffs for our adversaries. So that President Biden can receive cheers from the crowd in Glasgow.\n\n\u201cSmall comfort for his own citizens.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:24:51Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=576CACB7-C43A-4726-8602-4CD704F04667"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5155910514295101, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}