thon than forward, matthew agron, isabella, joslin cannon, nicole, matthew park, and herald monroe. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: thank you, madam president. i am happy to come to the floor today to join my colleagues, the senator from alaska, senator sullivan, as well as my colleague from kansas to talk about where we are with this administration or where, unfortunately, we aren't when it comes to prioritizing american-made energy. as has been voted -- noted here on the floor by my colleagues, the president has just returned from the middle east and it wasn't for a sightseeing trip. it was for -- it was really all about oil. he was talking about oil. above all, the president made that trip to ask the leaders of several foreign nations, members of opec, to increase their production levels. okay, we get it. gasoline prices are way too high. we know that. we've hit national records in recent weeks. they're averaging right now about $5.32 a gallon in my state. that's actually down a little bit from where we were last month. but it's up over 50% from where we