Adapted from a speech at The Heritage Foundation’s Texas Summit on March 7, 2025.
It is great to be living in the golden era of America. It’s hard to keep up with President Donald Trump, though, in the House of Representatives.
We have a president who is all gas and no brakes when it comes to energy. We have a president who understands that American energy is an asset, not a liability; who understands that energy is national security; who believes that energy security is national security. We have a president who champions the energy industry because energy is actually the lifeblood of civilization.
Look around you, everything requires energy for us to even be here today. In the last four years, the Biden administration did everything they could to stand on the neck of the energy industry. And yet, in spite of that, we are pumping more energy in America today than we ever have. But again, it’s in spite of the Biden administration, not because of the Biden administration.
We live in a world where economic development is largely equal to energy. Increased availability of all forms of energy means there will be improved lives and improved national security across our world, the Western world, as Winston Churchill called it, the Christian civilization.
As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, I can tell you that Europe really made some serious mistakes over the last 20 to 25 years. Germany led the way in dependence on Russian energy. And they almost paid the price about two winters ago. And yet, American energy saved them from that, along with a very mild winter.
[Artificial intelligence] and data centers are here to stay because we must have more energy because of that. Because of our growth, because of AI, because of data centers, we require more energy, and now is the time to do it.
I have probably had 15 or 20 delegations from Europe through my office since I was named chairman this term, and I tell them all, if you continue to use Russian energy to any great degree, you are liable to blackmail. It’s a simple fact of life.
It’s also rich that Europeans expect us to keep funding the Ukraine war when their nations have basically been funding both sides of it by buying Russian energy. EU imports of Russian [liquefied natural gas] grew by almost 20% last year, and that cannot continue.
A little further afield, let’s look at China, which imports 11 million barrels a day every day. We produce about 13.5 today, and Russia is the No. 1 supporter of China.
We have sanctions on Russian oil that we are not enforcing. If we would simply enforce our sanctions on Russian oil as well as Iranian oil, the world would be a whole lot safer place today. And how are we going to replace that if we enforce the sanctions on Russia and Iran? With American energy.
We can do it. We need to be dominant. This is a national security issue. I will tell you, everyone that works in the industry does vital work, as President Trump would say, “Beautiful work.”
I cannot leave the stage today without, of course, saying, “Drill, baby, drill.”
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