Daines Works to Protect American Energy Security

Click here to watch Daines’ remarks.

Click here to download Daines’ remarks.

Senator Steve Daines today spoke out about the critical role that American energy independence holds in winning the war on terrorism and strengthening American security both at home and abroad. 

“Our national security—protecting our families from terrible acts of terrorism—I can tell you is on many Montanans’ minds every day as I travel around the state. It’s telling to us today how important American energy independence and security is to our safety and prosperity—not just ours, but the world’s.”

During a Senate Energy and Natural Resources hearing on examining terrorism and global oil markets, Daines stressed how removing oil as the primary source of revenue for ISIS is critical to the United States’ efforts to defeat the Islamic extremist organization and win the global fight against terrorism: 

“As we look at what’s going on right now with ISIS – the testimony we heard today that one of their leading sources of revenue certaintly is from oil production. It seems like its pretty clear there’s two parts of our strategy one would be to increase U.S. oil production which hopefully will be working to address that through removing the oil export ban. The second would be destroying ISIS oil production and revenues in that two pronged attack.”

Daines also expressed his concern over reports that the Obama administration has been reluctant to aggressively attack ISIS oil wells due to environmental concerns.

Daines has repeatedly stressed the importance of North American energy independence in not only creating more good paying jobs, but also bolstering national security. He has a been a vocal advocate of the Keystone XL pipeline and has advocated for increased research for technological advances to put America on the forefront of creating clean coal technology.  

###