New York’s Malliotakis Reacts to Biden’s SOTU Address

Member of the Congressional Hispanic Conference (CHC) Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 1, 2023. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) has expressed guarded optimism about President Joe Biden’s acknowledgment during his State of the Union address on Feb. 7 that the United States is not ready to abandon fossil fuels completely.

She made the comments to NTD, the television affiliate of The Epoch Times, in a Feb. 8 interview, while also expressing concerns over the Biden administration’s policies that she said have hampered energy production and complicated efforts for America to maintain energy independence.

During his State of the Union remarks on Tuesday night, Biden noted that oil companies reaped record profits last year, and took them to task, saying, “They invested too little of that profit to increase domestic production and keep gas prices down.”

The comments, at least implicitly, acknowledged the need for continued domestic fossil fuel production for the immediate future.

Malliotakis stressed the importance of energy independence and the need to put the energy needs of America and her allies well ahead of those of communist-ruled China, but questioned whether Biden’s actions have contributed to achieving this goal.

She took issue with a number of the Biden administration’s energy policies, namely the decision last year to release up to 260 million barrels of crude oil from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) to deal with energy shortages—a decision that drew sharp criticism from GOP lawmakers at the time.

“I think the president has to face the reality that we’re going to need all diverse sources of energy. I would say that the constituents I represent, and most Americans, they believe that we should be moving toward clean energy, but not to the exclusion of our traditional sources of energy: oil and gas,” Malliotakis said. “We need to make sure that we have all types of energy available to the American people for reliability, for affordability, as well as our independence.”

“I was happy to hear that he acknowledged that we’re going to continue to need those traditional sources. And I hope he backs that up with actual policy that will ramp up our domestic energy production and invest in key infrastructure like the Keystone Pipeline, to get it across the country,” she added.

Malliotakis described a market characterized by record-high utility costs, including gas prices higher than when Biden took office in January 2021. At the same time, diesel fuel, which is used for heating in the northeastern states, is at its lowest rates in quite some time, she observed.

“So we need to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to make sure there’s a reliable, and affordable, energy for American families and their businesses, because they’re getting hit the hardest,” she said.

‘Anti-Energy Policies’

Biden’s concession during his Feb. 7 address that fossil fuels still have a role is welcome, but somewhat ironically comes from the very president who has pursued policies that have hurt productivity, Malliotakis argued. She criticized the administration for not allowing energy to play the role that it could in a less fettered economy.

“They’ve sat on permits, they’ve sat on leases, they killed the Keystone Pipeline, which would have provided thousands of good paying jobs,” Malliotakis said, referring to Biden’s revocation of a permit for the $9 billion Keystone XL pipeline in June 2021.

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“They have discouraged companies from expanding their operations and producing more energy because [the companies] fear that this is an anti-traditional energy administration that is just going to continue to hinder productivity and make it more difficult for us to use our natural resources here in this country.

“That’s why we’ve seen these prices skyrocket: it’s because of the anti-energy policies that have come out of this administration since day one,” Malliotakis continued.

Besides executive orders that have driven up energy costs, Malliotakis criticized the administration’s much-touted Inflation Reduction Act for adding taxes on certain types of energy. These policies have motivated Malliotakis and some of her GOP and Democratic colleagues to urge the president not to make use of the nation’s strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) and not to sell U.S. energy to China when this country and her allies need it so badly, she said.

Biden should not have seized 40 percent of the strategic petroleum reserves that are supposed to be set aside for use in a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or another emergency, Malliotakis said.

“That’s what the SPR is for. It’s not for this president to raid its barrels and then even sell them to foreign countries while the American people suffer. We should be increasing production,” she added.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm for comment.