Photo by Jon Anderson
220411_Gary_Palmer
U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Alabama, talks with people after giving a "Washington update" to several Birmingham area chambers of commerce at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham — The Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover, Alabama, on Monday, April 11, 2022.
Russia cannot win its war against Ukraine, U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Alabama, told a group of chambers of commerce at a meeting in Hoover today.
“They can destroy the country. They can destroy the infrastructure, but they can’t take the country,” Palmer said in a luncheon meeting at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham — The Wynfrey Hotel. “It’ll be another Afghanistan for them where they may stay there for 10 years, but eventually they’ll have to leave.”
He believes Russia already realizes this and is trying to consolidate its gains made in the eastern region of Ukraine, he said.
On the other hand, if the United States and NATO allies provide Ukraine with resources, Ukraine can win the war, Palmer said. He’s not talking about U.S. troops; he means providing tanks, missiles and ground-to-air defense systems at the level Ukraine needs, he said.
The United States also should continue to work to degrade Russia’s ability to carry out the war, Palmer said.
The congressman was speaking to a group that included members of the Hoover, Shelby County, Homewood, Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills chambers of commerce and the Chelsea Business Alliance.
While he touched on the Russia-Ukraine war, Palmer also spoke at length about the impact of the Joe Biden administration’s decisions concerning U.S. energy resources.
As soon as Biden came into office, he signed an executive order stopping construction of the $8 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to the American Gulf Coast.
That stopped what would have been the delivery of 830,000 barrels of Canadian oil per day, and instead the U.S. is now importing almost 600,000 barrels of Russian oil per day, Palmer said.
Biden also suspended any additional leases on federal lands for oil production, which also immediately led to a spike in energy prices, Palmer said.
The spike in energy prices has compounded inflationary pressures because everything has an energy cost, from water to food, clothes and transportation, he said.
Northern states already have felt the harsh effects due to heating costs this past winter, and people in the South will begin to feel it more as summer arrives, Palmer said.
The U.S. Census Bureau already reported that one in four U.S. households reduced their spending on food to keep their homes heated in the winter, Palmer said.
The “mad push” to renewable energy sources has consequences, he said. When the United Kingdom tried to go to 100% renewable energy sources, the country had 17,000 people die of “excess winter deaths” as people began reducing the temperatures in their homes due to cost, Palmer said.
Some New England states refuse to buy American natural gas just across their state line and instead are buying natural gas from Russia, and Russian gas has 41% more emissions than American gas, Palmer said.
“I don’t know how you define crazy, but it sounds like this is crazy,” he said.
Even as Biden shut down the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the United States, he gave Russia a waiver to complete construction of another pipeline, which is making Europe more dependent on Russian natural gas, Palmer said.
The energy purchases from Russia are providing the revenue Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to pay for the war against Ukraine, Palmer said.
The United States needs to re-engage its energy production, he said.
There is an oil formation out West that has 3 trillion barrels of recoverable oil, which is three times the amount of oil used by the entire world in the last 100 years, Palmer said.
“That could very well be the superweapon in the arsenal of democracy if we were willing to use it,” he said.
That doesn’t mean the United States should give up its pursuit of low-emission or zero-emission energy production, Palmer said. Technology will make that happen, but in the meantime, “we could lose our future by making some really dumb decisions,” he said.
Palmer also talked about the importance of unity in the United States, saying he couldn’t remember a time in his lifetime when the country has been more divided.
“We’re divided over politics. We’re divided over race, gender, income. We’re inventing new ways to divide ourselves in a most destructive way,” Palmer said. “We’ve got to come to the simple realization that at the end of the day, we all live on this one piece of dirt, and the future depends on whether or not we can figure out a way to live on it together.”
There will have to be some compromises made and coming together, “or we’re not going to make it,” he said. “There are other people around the world that will take full advantage of it, most notably China.”
Palmer quoted both Martin Luther King and Paul in the Bible about the importance of love and forgiveness and said people in the United States need to return to their common values and common faith. “You can’t be a Christian and be a racist.”
