Brady Briefing
When our nation’s leader declares war on your industry, watch out.
President Obama used his final State of the Union to demonize American crude oil as ‘dirty energy’. Energy workers, beware. White House power can devastate whole industries.
For example, President Obama targeted and is successfully destroying what he considers another ‘dirty energy’ source: affordable coal. Last week’s bankruptcy of Arch Coal is one of 27 U.S. coal companies forced into bankruptcy in the last four years. Over 40,000 coal jobs have disappeared forever. The market value of the American coal industry has shrunk by a shocking 90%. With one-third of U.S. electricity depending upon affordable coal, families and local businesses will pay higher fuel costs.
Now he’s targeting American crude oil and its workers. The White House has launched a full-fledged attack on American-made energy which will cost Texas energy jobs and aggravate thousands of more job layoffs as the industry fights to survive with under $30 a barrel oil prices.
The president’s assault includes higher taxes on U.S. energy production, well-control rules that could shrink Gulf oil production by an estimated 30%, proposed fracking and methane rules to block on-shore production, fewer leases on federal lands, and abuse of the Endangered Species Act to lock away private lands with high oil and gas potential. Not to mention his absurd decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline.
As Ways & Means Committee chairman I’m proud to keep blocking President Obama’s tax increases on American energy which would send Texas jobs overseas, and to help successfully lift the federal ban on exporting crude oil. But make no mistake: if your job depends upon U.S. energy, we’ve got a battle on our hands.
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Amazingly, President Obama used his State of the Union to continue to mock the growing strength of Islamic State terrorists. Yet two-thirds of Americans believe his foreign policy is making America less safe.
Facts are facts: the President’s current strategy to defeat ISIS is failing. He’s obsessed with circumventing laws preventing him from transferring terrorists at Guantanamo to American soil. His disastrous nuclear agreement with Iran has actually accelerated Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles. This brutal regime is acting with impunity while he’s timidly imposing the fresh round of sanctions the law requires. And now President Obama released $100 billion of Iranian assets which his own experts admit will help fund Iranian terrorism around the world.
At least Congress in the recent omnibus spending bill approved full funding of our national defense in its war against terror and closed the loophole against foreign terrorist fighters traveling to America. But we need a commander-in-chief who is as serious fighting terrorism as he is fighting global warming.
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Wonder why so many Americans still question White House actions surrounding the deadly attack in Benghazi? Watch the movie “13 Hours”. It’s an accurate, powerful telling of one of America’s more shameful moments.
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U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.
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