04.23.20

ICYMI: Sullivan Calls on ‘Woke’ Banks to Stop Discriminating Against Energy Industry

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) joined Stuart Varney yesterday on Fox Business Network to discuss the severe supply and demand shocks hitting the energy industry in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, and efforts by banks and certain politicians to further harm the oil & gas sector, which supports thousands of jobs in Alaska.

TRANSCRIPT

VARNEY: Alaska Senator Republican Dan Sullivan is with us now. Mr. Senator, welcome to the show. 

SULLIVAN: Good morning, Stu. Good to be back on the show.

VARNEY: The Treasury Secretary gave you a glimmer of hope this morning. He suggested that the price of oil could get back to $30 a barrel by August. I'm sure you'd like that, because at $14 you guys are out of business.

SULLIVAN: I think it's obvious that the energy sector has been through a supply shock, a major one, (and) a major demand shock. What we need to avoid as we come out of this pandemic is a major political shock. What do I mean by that? The president and his team and Senate Republicans—we are all focus on bolstering this key sector of our economy. But, let's face it, Stu. National Democrats have become irrationally unhinged in their hostility toward the energy sector. You may have seen the uninformed congresswoman, “AOC,” tweeting the other day celebrating the demise of this sector and the tens of thousands of good jobs in it. In the Senate, over one-third of Senate Democrats recently wrote (to) the big bank CEOs and said, “Don't invest in the energy sector, especially in places like Alaska.” And to me it's remarkable, because their policies hurt families, good-paying union jobs, our national security, our energy security, our economic recovery. Do the national Democrats really want Russia to be the world's energy superpower? Not America? I think so. So we’ve got to avoid the major political shock, which I think we will.

VARNEY: What are you going to get in terms of help from the government? I know that [there is] this $3 billion set-aside to buy oil and put it into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I guess there are other plans to get some tax breaks for the drillers. Is that enough to save you without a raft of bankruptcies in Alaska? 

SULLIVAN: Well, what we do not want [is] a rash of bankruptcies and job layoffs, and that is starting to happen around the country. The president and his team, [and] a bunch of Senate Republicans that I'm a part of—we've been working on the supply side, getting the Saudis and other nations to cut back significantly. The president did a great job on that. We were threatening the Saudis to remove our military. If they didn't do that.

VARNEY: What help do you want?  

SULLIVAN: Well, I will tell you one thing that's going to be really critical. Right now, there has been a movement on Wall Street where the big banks, the big CEOs are starting through, I don't know, their “woke” sensibilities or whatever it is—to start discriminating against the oil and gas sector, particularly in my state, but (also) around the country. Big banks, every day, coming out saying we're not going to invest in that sector. My view is, (if) you want to be part of the CARES Act, the trillions of dollars of financing that these banks want to be part of, they shouldn't be able to discriminate against a really important sector of the economy. We've been talking a number of folks in the administration (along) with certain senators. But Wall Street shouldn't have the opportunity to say, “Hey, we're going to participate in CARES and financing and then discriminate against a key sector of the economy, killing jobs, killing our national security.” That's something I think is going to be a really important issue (over) the longer term. 

VARNEY: Fair enough. Republican senator from the state of Alaska, the enormous state of Alaska, Dan Sullivan. Dan, thanks for joining us. 

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