One on One With Congressman Garret Graves

Life as Locust
May 1, 2021
From the Top | Christine Aucoin
May 1, 2021
Life as Locust
May 1, 2021
From the Top | Christine Aucoin
May 1, 2021

U.S. Congressman Garret Graves (R-La.) represents Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District, which includes areas of Lafourche and Terrebonne. The Baton Rouge native visited with Bayou Business Monthly to give his thoughts on the last COVID-19 relief bill, the state vaccine rollout, the energy industry and more.

U.S. Congressman Garret Graves (R-La.) represents Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District, which includes areas of Lafourche and Terrebonne. The Baton Rouge native visited with Bayou Business Monthly to give his thoughts on the last COVID-19 relief bill, the state vaccine rollout, the energy industry and more. 


Q: What are some inclusions in the latest COVID-19 relief bill that you agree with? 

A: There are some good things in that bill: additional funds for vaccines, additional funds for testing, helping to get the assistance to our schools to where we can get them up and running again, funding for broadband. We know people all over Louisiana, as we’ve pivoted to virtual schooling and remote working, don’t have the broadband access to be able to do their job or for their kids to get an education. So, these are fundamental things that I totally agree with and couldn’t be more supportive of. And I even agree with things like the stimulus payments, if they’re targeted — meaning targeted to people who need it, not just going out there and throwing money to everybody. 

Q: What are some aspects of the bill you don’t agree with?


A: We’ve done eight COVID bills. Every single one of them has been bipartisan until now. This was the most expensive spending bill in the history of Congress, and it was done entirely on a party-line vote. I think that’s awful because the coronavirus isn’t partisan; it affects all of us. 

If you look across all the different committees that had to have to vote on certain sections of the bill, there were probably somewhere around 700 to 800 amendments offered. There were 220 amendments offered just on the House floor. All of the amendments were rejected.

I talked about some of the things that were in there were good, and there were some other things that we supported. But somewhere around 8 to 9 percent of the bill was COVID resources. 


Not every American gets a stimulus check under the bill, yet some citizens of other countries get a stimulus check. That’s crazy. Not all Americans get a stimulus check, but prisoners get a stimulus check. I don’t think that that policy is really sound. 

If you divide the amount of money by the number of taxpayers, it comes out to an average of $13,200 per taxpayer is how much we spent on this bill. Again, some people get $1,400. This isn’t Monopoly money; this is real stuff. There’s still a trillion dollars in the previous coronavirus bills that haven’t been spent yet. 

I am all for looking at a new COVID bill and providing assistance to people. But if you still have a trillion dollars that hadn’t hit the street yet from previous bills, if you’re spending 116 times the amount that states have lost in tax revenue — what are we doing? How is this spending that we can say is legitimately needed? 


Q: With the vaccine rollout continuing to expand, do you believe this is the last COVID-19 relief bill that will pass? 

A: I hope so. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that this summer by July, without a penny of extra money — including what we just did — that by July the economy would be back to pre-pandemic levels. That’s promising. For the first time, you’re actually beginning to see what looks like a light at the end of the tunnel. We’re just going to have to wait and see what happens. 

Q: How do you feel the vaccine distribution is going in Louisiana? 


A: I think it’s actually going pretty well. I think that they’ve been really aggressive in trying to get the vaccines out; we’ve been one of the top states in terms of how quickly the turnaround is, meaning when we get it to when it’s actually in people’s arms — which is great.

Q: The House’s passage of the Equality Act has generated a lot of discussion among our readers. The Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter U.S. Senate, urging its member to oppose it. What are your thoughts on the bill? 

A: First of all, everyone deserves respect — that’s really important. But this bill doesn’t stop there, and that’s the problem. It actually establishes special status. When you start establishing special status, you start creating these really murky legal criteria and discrimination criteria that are really hard to define. 


It comes down to the fact that as a father, as a brother to three sisters, I don’t think it’s okay to suddenly tell guys that you can compete in girls sports or you can go into the girl’s bathroom if — and let me be clear — if that’s how you feel. I’m not okay with that, and I don’t think that the far majority of our community and our country are. We’ve got to base our decisions upon medicine and upon science — and this bill isn’t grounded in that way.

Q: What was going through your mind when the Biden administration’s executive orders on the energy industry, such as the 60-day moratorium on oil and gas leases in the Gulf, came down, and what long-term effects do you see them having? 

A: I knew very well that the consequences were going to be earth-shattering because while the words didn’t do this, the sentiment conveyed a game-changer policy from this administration. It’s conveyed to the financial markets that this is an anti-oil-and-gas administration.


We saw in 2020 for the first time, since I think 1953, that where we were a net exporting country — you are going to see an absolute reversal of that trend. Just because you’re decreasing supply by stopping production, doesn’t mean the global demand decreases. Other countries will benefit. You’ve already seen the prices go up. [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] recognizes that you’ve got an anti-oil-and-gas administration. So if they keep their production cuts a little on target, it causes prices to go up. The strong message to the market is going to have a lasting effect. 

Answers edited for clarity and brevity.