Celebrating The Shining City Upon A Hill
June 30, 2025
Happy Fourth of July week from TEA! We hope you are taking this time to enjoy the lazy days of summer in our great nation with your family, friends and loved ones. While this is a great time to rest and relax, it also a time to reflect. It’s a time to remember that our everyday, personal freedoms are connected to much greater, hard-fought freedoms.
As President Ronald Reagan once summarized so eloquently, “If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth. It was because, here in this land, We unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before.”
There have been many fights for independence in America’s history, and we must still fight to this day. Our modern-day fight for freedom is a battle for our laws and our resources to achieve true energy security and independence that fuels our prosperity and keeps our families safe.
Energy Security Is Our Modern-Day Fight For Freedom
When we say the energy security and independence is our modern-day fight for America’s freedom, it’s not just rhetoric. This is already a battle that has been waged for years, and despite setbacks and short-sighted political adversaries, we have truly achieved so much.
By maximizing our resources, we have pulled ourselves out of an era where we depended on foreign adversaries, and sometimes outright enemies, to put gas in our cars and keep our lights on. Now, Americans can trust that we rely on our own energy resources and all the benefits that come from that. We truly have gone down a path of energy freedom and as a result we are safer and more prosperous than ever before. In 2018, the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s top producer of natural gas AND oil largely because of the hard work and ingenuity of the American energy industry.
In December 2020, we reached a benchmark in our country’s history many thought we’d never see again. For the first time in 35 years, the U.S. imported no weekly crude oil from Saudi Arabia. By November 2024, the U.S. had reached a new record of crude oil production in the lower 48 states. As a result, not only do we have the oil resources to support our own nation, but we are now setting records year after year for exporting oil to our allies around the world. No longer are the days of backed up gas stations and skyrocketing prices anytime there is a conflict around the globe. Now, we can keep our nation going without reliance on foreign oil.
The surge of American natural gas and its contribution to our growing energy freedom is even greater. The U.S. has been the world’s top producer of natural gas since 2011, when it overtook Russia, and it has been a net exporter since 2017. The U.S. is now the top producer of natural gas in the world. Energy expert Robert Bryce even goes so far as calling us a “natural gas superpower.” In 2023, we produced more natural gas than Canada, China, Iran, Norway and Qatar combined.
As a result we have now become a top exporter of natural gas as well. In 2023, the U.S. was the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by volume in the world. This is has been especially exceptional in Europe where the U.S. is now the top source of natural gas—providing stability at a time when resources from Russia and elsewhere have been anything but.
ARC Energy Security Act “Sets The Stage For An Energy Renaissance”
However, now is not the time to rest on our energy laurels and grow complacent. Our country has enjoyed this great energy prosperity and growth toward true energy independence despite damaging green-at-any-cost policies from the former occupant of the White House and some state governments. As we saw during the Biden years, enemies of our energy security will use any reason from climate change hysteria to false promises of green energy to set our American energy producers back and erase all the progress we have made. That is why we need a Declaration of ARC Energy Security.
ARC Energy Security is a model policy that will put into law the importance of affordable, reliable and clean energy for our security and prosperity. The law will set American natural gas as the standard by which all other energy source should be measured to achieve the ARC goal.
Just last week, the State of Louisiana adopted the ARC Energy Security Act, setting the stage for other states throughout the nation to follow their lead. As Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry put it at the bill signing, “This bill sets the stage for an energy renaissance not only here but in America.” We look forward to the opportunity to bring the Act to the federal level as well, hoping to pass ARC Energy Security legislation in Washington D.C. to celebrate America’s 250th birthday next year on July 4, 2026.
It’s More Than A Law, It’s A Promise
If there’s anything that every American knows, it is that freedom is worth fighting for. At TEA, we plan to lead that fight for energy freedom at every opportunity across this great nation.
ARC Energy Security shouldn’t be seen merely as a law; it’s a promise. To every family struggling with bills, we’ve got your back. To every worker wanting a good job, we’re hiring. To every kid dreaming big, we’re building your future. And to every nation watching, America is back and stronger than ever!