U.S. Rep. Randy Weber to host House Energy and Commerce Committee meeting in Port Arthur

Houston - Back in January, President Joe Biden created a firestorm of criticism and praise by declaring a complete pause on the approval of any future liquefied natural gas export facilities.

 Texas Senator Ted Cruz made no bones about it - labeling the move an overt, retaliatory, economic attack on the Lone Star State.

 On Monday, April 8, the House Energy and Commerce  Committee will gather in Port Arthur for a meeting hosted by our own congressman Randy Weber who joins us this morning to talk about the mission and the stakes. 

Greg Groogan: What do you hope to accomplish? 

U.S. Rep. Randy Weber: Well, we're going to we're going to highlight everything that's going on that the president is things that are going on. You know, this is the Sabine-Neches waterway, which is a waterway between Louisiana and Texas. We have three LNG ports on that waterway. We've got two really on the books.  We export more LNG than any other state in the country. This is economic help for Texas. This is jobs, jobs, jobs. It's clean energy. The Port of Port Arthur, the Port of Beaumont, the Port of Orange, the Port of Sabine Pass, all of these four ports, we have seven in our district, are huge,. exporting industry and its jobs.  Why the president, other than the fact that it's a campaign year, why the president would want to shut down LNG, which is one of the cleanest sources of energy you can use, is beyond me, except that it's a campaign year.

Greg Groogan: Do you agree with Senator Cruz? It's, retaliation.

U.S. Rep. Randy Weber:  Absolutely, It's retaliation. Next thing you know, the president is going to allow an open border. Oh, wait, he already does that. It's unbelievable what he's doing. The state of Texas. Texas is the number one energy producer in this country. And our southeast Texas ports, as I just pointed out, is the number one energy exporter.  Why the president would want to shut us down from giving our allies across the world the cleanest source of LNG, the most dependable source of LNG. Why? So they can buy it from Russia. They can pay Russia pay other countries. Why wouldn't we want that here in the United States of America?  And most appropriately, in our great state of Texas?

Greg Groogan:  Look, math was never my greatest subject. But natural gas reduces half as much carbon as coal. And if you're a climate trying to protect the climate in this transition often seems to me like you'd want to burn natural gas.

U.S. Rep. Randy Weber: That's absolutely correct. It's actually, backwards from what they claim they want to do in their new religion save planet Earth. It's actually  cleaner part of that. And I would even throw in nuclear while we're on the subject, the fact that they want to do this is beyond I don't understand it at all.  We produce less carbon, we capture carbon sequestration than we have the largest carbon capture and sequestration storage facility in the country. In Port all about that. We want to reduce the amount of carbon emissions. I got that, but it's not by, it's not by stopping permits on LNG. 

Greg Groogan: Think you'll have any epiphanies Monday when they see what's going on down there? 

U.S. Rep. Randy Weber: I would hope so. A couple of our colleagues were there. You know, maybe a couple of months back trying to say that it was bad. It was bad for the area. If you knew the history of Port Arthur and you knew the history of Southeast Texas, you would see that this is jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. It's money. They pay city taxes. They pay county taxes. They pay our great, college taxes down there, so, you know, we've got Lamar State College there and in those counties, it is a big deal for us.