'Spare Me!': Ted Cruz Clashes With Chris Murphy On Senate Floor

i'm brittany lewis with forbes breaking news senators chris murphy and ted cruz clashed on the senate floor wednesday over energy policy crews introduced a unanimous consent request to prevent oil from the strategic stockpile from going to china murphy blocked the request and instead asked to ban all u.s oil from going to china the texas republican blocked that request and slammed democrats saying that quote they want to destroy the american oil and gas industry the connecticut senator fired back saying quote i don't apologize for a second for making my priority the people of this country not the profits of the oil companies further that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table is there objection under president the junior senator from connecticut thank you madam president reserving the right to object i appreciate the senator's interest in trying to make sure that american energy resources don't go to benefit communist china and it's interesting because i don't think a lot of americans know that prior to 2015 the united states didn't allow for the export of american oil we saw it prior to 2015 as a strategic asset all of the oil produced in the united states prior to 2015 we decided that the oil produced in the united states would stay in the united states that it should benefit u.s consumers and i have heard my republican colleagues come down to the floor over and over again and call the buy administration to do more drilling to do more exploration to authorize more permits under the belief that drilling in the united states will produce results for american consumers but the reality is we have done more drilling in the united states but much of that drilling and exploration has benefited you guessed it china prior to 2015 the united states didn't export oil to china in 2013 we exported 0.3 million barrels the next year 0.4 million barrels the next year 8 million dollars barrels the next year 80 million then 84 million dipped down to 50 then back up to 176 in 2021 91 million barrels of oil shipped from the united states to china and so if we're sincere about trying to make sure that american produced oil benefits american consumers rather than the chinese communist party well then let's make that our policy let's not limit the policy to the strategic petroleum reserve let's just make the decision that american oil is going to benefit american consumers that change was made in 2013 as part of a compromise republicans wanted the ban on oil exports lifted democrats wanted the extension of some tax incentives for renewable it was a bipartisan compromise but now that we seem to have greater consensus around stopping american exports of fuel benefiting china then let's not just do this halfway let's make it a clear policy and so i just learned of the senate's you know senators unanimous consent request this morning and i'll commit to him to learn more about the more targeted approach that he's making but i i'm going to plan to object to it today unless we can modify it to make this policy universal senator markey has a piece of legislation that would reimpose that ban on the export of oil this seems like a pretty important time to do that if we have oil in the united states why don't we keep it here to benefit the people of the united states instead of shipping it to china senator marky's bill has language in it that would allow for national interest exemptions so that if we needed to get oil to ukraine for instance we could still do that but 91 million barrels of oil is um that's a lot of oil to be sending to china every year and so i'm going to ask that the senator modify his request to pass senator markey's legislation instead which would you know frankly get at the concern that senator cruz is articulating but do it in a much more comprehensive way i expect he may object to that modification and if he if if he does i will object to his original request but commit to him um to spend some time looking at his more targeted uh approach um given a little bit uh more of a window so i'm going to make this request right now which is um that the senator modify his request and instead that the committee on banking housing and urban affairs be discharged from further consideration of s1415 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration further that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table does the senator so modify his request do not reserving the right to object debates on the senate floor sometimes can be clarifying over the course of the day my office and i engage in good faith negotiations with a number of democratic senators we engaged in extensive negotiation with senator manchin the chair of the relevant committee senator manchin proposed minor alterations to this bill and agreed to support it if we made those alterations i agreed to accept senator manchin's alterations and we then had what was going to be a bipartisan bill senator cantwell like likewise we negotiated with her office today and had reached what we thought was an agreement and then at the last moment the senator from connecticut raised this objection and i think what he is asking this body to pass really clarifies where the extreme left wing of the democratic party is which is the green new deal democrats want to destroy american energy jobs they want to destroy the american oil and gas industry they want to destroy our own production and bizarrely they simultaneously want to benefit energy jobs of our enemies there's some irony that the senator from connecticut is leading this objection because it was earlier this year when the senator from connecticut led the effort in this body to block sanctions on russia and vladimir putin on the nordstrom 2 pipeline sanctions that i had authored and passed into law not once but twice sanctions that had stopped that pipeline sanctions that had prevented putin from invading ukraine sanctions that hurt russia and hurt putin until joe biden became president decided to wave the sanctions on russia and putin to capitulate to russia and putin when biden did so when biden waived those sanctions the government of ukraine president zielinski said if you waive these sanctions russia will invade ukraine the government of poland said if you waive these sanctions russia will invade ukraine and in january of this year i forced a vote on imposing the sanctions at the time the government of ukraine begged us there were tanks on the border of ukraine the invasion hadn't happened and the government of ukraine begged us please pass these sanctions now every democrat in this body had voted for my sanctions not once but twice they had supported it when the president's name was donald j trump but then they had a democrat in the white house and a democrat joe biden who on the day of the vote came to capitol hill it's the only time i know of that he's done this to personally lobby democrats to vote against sanctions on russia against sanctions on putin to vote to green light a natural gas pipeline for putin and russia and the senator from connecticut led the fight on the senate floor urging his democratic colleagues flip your votes give an enormous present to russia and putin and sacrifice ukraine in the process i stood on this floor and said if you do this the 44 democrats who cast the vote we will see russian tanks in the streets of kiev i wish that prediction had proven wrong but it did not what the senator from connecticut just came back with is we should prohibit all energy exports from america and in fact i'll read from the billy called up it is the president may restrict exports of coal petroleum products natural gas or petrochemical feedstocks shut down all exports so madam president i want you to understand the difference between my bill and the bill the senator from connecticut is asking us to pass my bill says don't sell our oil to our enemies communist china is our enemy russia is our enemy iran is our enemy north korea is our enemy let's not sell our oil to our enemies this is a reasonable common sense proposition i am confident any one of us at home with our constituents if you asked your constituents should the president of the united states be selling oil that the american taxpayers paid for that is kept as a strategic reserve to keep america safe should we be selling it to communist china the overwhelming majority of your constituents in mind whether democrat or republican would say absolutely not that's idiotic my bill says don't sell our oil to our enemies the senator from connecticut has responded with don't sell our oil to anybody don't sell our natural gas to anybody don't sell it to our friends now let's be clear there have been a lot of democrats in this chamber who once the war in ukraine started stood up and said the key to defeating putin is exporting our liquid natural gas to europe so they can get off of dependency on russian oil and gas i can't count how many democrat speeches i've heard saying what is absolutely true we want our friends and allies purchasing energy produced here in america and not purchasing enemy energy from our enemy and what the senator from connecticut has just said is we should abandon our friends in europe we should abandon our friends that want our energy we should tell them you know what you're better off buying oil from russia you're better off buying oil from iran you're better off buying oil from venezuela which i guess makes sense because joe biden's state department was asking venezuela led by an illegitimate nicolas maduro an enemy of america the biden administration is asking our enemies to produce more oil so the effect of the senator from connecticut's proposition would be to hurt jobs in america hurt energy prices in america by the way would drive up gasoline prices if the extremes in the democrat party have their way we won't just see five six seven dollar a gallon gasoline we're going to see ten dollar a gallon gasoline that's where they want to go and by the way the transport transportation secretary pete buttige said publicly this is the cost to transition we got to make gasoline expensive in politics that's called saying the quiet part out loud that for too many of the extreme democrats they want working men and women to pay a hundred bucks 150 bucks at the gas pump why because they don't like that some moms choose to drive minivans they don't like that's that that some americans choose to drive a pic drive a pickup truck or an suv and they want to force you to sell your suburban and buy a prius and their strategy is we're going to make it so expensive so miserable that you can't afford your bills until you comply with what they want it is cynical and it's misguided but it does at least make transparent that the little stickers on the gas pump with joe biden pointing at the price saying i did this that is what they intend we should not be selling oil to communist china everyone in this body knows this but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to abandon our friends and send our friends and allies to become customers of vladimir putin that is spectacularly ill-conceived and therefore i decline to accept the modification objection to the modification is heard is there objection to the original request madam president the junior senator from connecticut madam president reserving the right to object here's what senator from texas is saying it's fine to sell russia to china so long as you're a big american oil company and profiting off of it that's the bottom line senator had the chance to endorse a policy that would have stopped all american exports to china if the priority is to not enrich the chinese government then let's enact that policy what senator cruz is essentially saying is that if the end result is massive profits for the oil company then we're just going to look the other way then we're just going to look the other way the strategic petroleum reserve no we're going to keep that oil here that can't go to china that would be a moral abomination if the chinese got their hands on that oil but if the end result is that oil companies get to pad their profits by selling oil to the chinese well then that's fine well then that's fine so let's be 100 clear what's happening here if your priority is not selling oil to china then let's make that the policy let's make that the policy but that's not the priority the priority is to make sure the oil companies can make as much money as possible exxonmobil expects to make 10 billion dollars in profit not revenue in profit in the second quarter of this year so i don't apologize for a second for making my priority the people of this country not the profits of the oil companies yeah i want to keep american oil here because i want it to benefit american consumers not the oil companies bottom line and spare me the rewrite of history on nordstream 2. those sanctions that we passed they were ready to go for donald trump what i objected to was the senator being silent when donald trump sat on the sidelines and refused to implement those sanctions and then taking a hard line when a democrat was in the white house senator cruz held up every state department nominee that president biden offered as hostage in order to get a change on nordstrom 2 policy the senator did not do that when donald trump was in office during the period of time in which the pipeline was being built by the time that donald trump left office that pipeline was 95 built and had senator cruz taken the same policy during the trump administration arguably we could have been in a different place by the end of 2019 so i don't apologize for saying you know what the oil companies are making too much money our prices our constituents our consumers should come first and if we're serious about not exporting oil to china then let's be serious about it and make the policy universal and so for that reason i would object that protection is heard madam president the junior senator from texas you know john adams famously said facts are stubborn things so let's clarify a couple of facts number one the bill that the senator from connecticut was pushing is a bill that is entitled quote the ban oil exports act in his remarks a moment ago he suggested it was about china this bill is not about china this bill is about banning oil exports natural gas exports coal exports energy exports across the board to anybody by the way the bill is authored by senator markey it's co-sponsored by senator wyden merkley sanders and warren senator from connecticut is not a co-sponsor of the bill this is an extreme bill as i pointed out in my remarks what the senator from connecticut was asking is let's refuse to sell oil or natural gas to our friends and let's make our friends buy them from russia instead in response to that he said preside precisely nothing nada he said exxon mobil is bad he said don't sell to china my bill says don't sell to china his bill says don't sell to anybody and as for his revisionist history on nordstrom 2 he is right that the pipeline was over 90 completed by the time the senate and house took up my sanctions legislation and the russian disinformation that was put out was it's over 90 completed so there's no way to stop it putin stopped building nordstrom 2 the day that president trump signed my sanctions legislation into law literally that day they halted construction a 90 complete pipeline is zero percent complete it's a hunk of metal in the bottom of the ocean the pipeline lay dormant it was dead for over a year he complains that i didn't hold donald trump's nominations i didn't need to the sanctions worked we'd stopped the pipeline then joe biden became president he immediately began signaling weakness to russia he began foreshadowing what he actually did in may which is waive the sanctions joe biden was sworn into office on january 20th 2021 putin recommends building nordstrom 2 on january 24th 2021 four days after joe biden put his hands on the bible i find it very curious that democrats number one ignored the pleas from our allies and stood with russia and putin to help putin build a pipeline to generate billions for his war machine but at the same time are willing to stand up and say we like russian oil and gas jobs but we don't like american oil and gas jobs we should not be selling oil or natural gas to our enemies this is an obvious proposition it ought to be bipartisan it was bipartisan until this last minute objection but the fact that we shouldn't sell to our enemies doesn't mean

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

Views: 220,001

Keywords: Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Chris Murphy, Senate

Id: z0_JqiQRaw4

Length: 20min 43sec (1243 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 28 2022