04.24.20

ICYMI: Sullivan, President Trump Denounce Big Banks Targeting Energy Sector

Senator Attends CARES Act ‘2.0’ Signing Ceremony at White House

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) today participated in a ceremony at the White House where President Donald Trump signed the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act into law, which replenishes the funding for several of the pandemic relief programs initiated by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, among other measures. After the signing ceremony, President Trump and Senator Sullivan also addressed the challenges facing America’s energy sector. Both Sullivan and Trump criticized large American banks for discriminating against American energy companies and withholding investment in resource development projects in states, like Alaska.

TRANSCRIPT:

 

Senator Dan Sullivan: First, I want to thank you and your administration. Your involvement on the OPEC deal was incredible, vital. It wouldn't have happened without what you did. Your whole team has been very focused on energy. I do think one issue that a number of us are starting to have concerns about is our big American financial institutions, that the federal government has helped many times—they are going to do well with regard to facilitating some of the CARES Act stuff. They are starting to discriminate against American energy companies, to discriminate against investment in my state, in Alaska. I think it's going to be really important that these Wall Street banks that want to have the federal government to help support them, and then they discriminate against a critical sector of the U.S. economy. By the way, the sector in the 2008-2009 recession that really drove us out of our recession. I don't think they should be allowed to do that, sir. I know you have concerns about that.

President Trump: I like the idea of looking into that, you're right. They were pushed by the “radical left,” so they are afraid of the “radical left.” They shouldn't be afraid of the “radical left.” Very nice people. AOC plus three, and all of her friends. But you shouldn't be afraid of them. You should reason with them. If they don't reason, you do what's right. You cannot be discriminating against these great energy companies. There is -- I've heard that from them, it's very hard. One of the banks, I think they said, "We want to be out of energy by 2050." That's a long time, but they want to be out of energy. What’s that all about? They want to be out of energy? We are blessed in this country. We are sitting on top of tremendous wealth. Very few countries have that kind of wealth. We are bigger than Saudi Arabia, bigger than Russia, bigger than any other country in terms of our energy. A lot of things, like the Paris accord, the Paris accord basically took your wealth away. It didn't give you the advantage. I said, "I won't sign it." It took the wealth of this country away because they didn't want us to use our energy, they didn’t want us to use our great assets. We have tremendous wealth. You know, one of the interesting things, if you look at Iran and Saudi Arabia and if you look at the big vast waterways that we patrol, years and years, for nothing, so that other people got rich, so that we could get oil out of there. But so that other people got rich. We never got anything. Now we get things for it. But we don't have ships very much in there anymore. With all the conflict at all of the things, they kept saying, "Where are the American ships?" We have so much energy now. We are sitting on so much. It has happened, really, over the last three and a half years. One thing that happened, if you look -- John, you were in favor of it, because you're an energy person -- we helped Alaska, but we really United States with ANWR for Dan. They did a fantastic job. Ronald Reagan tried to get it approved, couldn't do it. Every president tried to get ANWR, they couldn't do it. I got approved. People don't even talk about. That's okay, they don't have to talk about it. That's why I talk about it. ANWR is perhaps the largest find in the world. It could be. It certainly one of them. It has been talked about for years. Part of maybe the largest find anywhere in the world. We got it approved a year ago. You are working on it, and it's incredible. Ronald Reagan could not do it. He said that was one of his big disappointments, he could not get ANWR approved. They couldn't get through. We got it through, we got it passed. That was a great achievement for everybody in this room and a great achievement actually for the two of you, the big oil guys, right? I have to say, these senators, the people in this room, they love energy. Not that they love it, they love the jobs it produces and they like what it represents, and it gives us total independence. So it's very important.  

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