OPINION:
It may be February, but it is already a scorcher down in Texas. Media outlets nationwide are turning up the heat on state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst after she introduced SB 147, which would prohibit land ownership in the state by the governments, business entities, and citizens of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
While some describe the bill as xenophobic or anti-Asian, the reality is that it remedies the burgeoning national security crisis that has resulting from massive investments by the Chinese Communist Party and its operatives in the United States.
The CCP is openly and actively undermining the United States on every front because it recognizes that the nations’ economies are at war.
This may sound harsh until one understands the realities of the CCP’s Belt and Road initiative. The CCP is using trade and investments around the globe to control nations that rely on its funding — and the CCP is using that influence to attack the United States.
The CCP has done this via investment in oil, natural gas, and rare earth minerals in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, to name a few.
While exports to China from the U.S. and other Western powers declined in recent years, the CCP was importing sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. After Russia invaded Ukraine, China moved to strengthen its partnership with the Kremlin and has been caught buying heavily sanctioned oil and natural gas from the embattled nation.
After President Biden was inaugurated in 2021, China and Iran signed a $400 billion, 25-year agreement that centered on the sale of sanctioned oil to China. As one of the only countries that buys Iran’s oil, the deal gives the CCP massive control over Iran’s oil-dependent economy.
The CCP is not content to merely challenge America’s global economic supremacy and enrich America’s enemies. It also wants to loot America of its natural resources.
In 2013, Chinese-owned businesses spent over $17 billion buying U.S. oil and gas holdings, including the purchase of 50% of the Wolfcamp Shale play near Midland, Texas. In 2023, the CCP continues to invest in American natural resources, especially in the oil fields of Texas. For example, Chinese-owned Surge Energy is one of the fastest-growing operators in the Lone Star State.
Ms. Kolkhorst said that SB 147 will be amended to rightly exclude legal permanent residents of the United States from these prohibitions. These people gave up everything for a chance to rid themselves of the shackles of the CCP and other tyrannical regimes. They came here to pursue the American dream and should be afforded the same rights as every other legal resident and citizen.
With that amendment, SB 147 is good. It could be great with another amendment that specifically prohibits China and other hostile foreign entities from buying, leasing, investing in, or in any other way taking control of mineral rights — which are the rights to extract oil, natural gas and water, among other resources, and the related infrastructure — while never technically owning any property.
Without this amendment, these hostile nations and their actors can legally take control of America’s natural resources, further tightening their grip on our economy.
When oil and natural gas production booms in the United States, great things happen: It lowers taxes, gas prices, grocery bills and home heating costs. It also puts food on the table for millions of proud, hardworking oil and gas workers. Oil and natural gas must be protected and produced in the United States to fuel the economy and strengthen national security.
SB 147 must be passed with these critical amendments. Americans from all political backgrounds must stand together to protect control of our resources. Make no mistake, this is economic war — and it is time for America to treat it that way.
• Matt Coday is president and founder of Oil & Gas Workers Association, a grassroots, independent, nonpartisan trade association working to secure, grow and sustain American oil and gas jobs. A fourth-generation oil field worker, Matt got sick and tired of watching the U.S. government sell out American jobs and families to foreign countries. He founded OGWA in 2015 to fight for American oil and gas workers. Join and support OGWA’s legislative, regulatory, educational and legal work at www.ogwaUSA.com/join.
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