The United States should not be doing anything to help Russia in its war against Ukraine, including buying its oil, Rep. Austin Scott said on Newsmax Thursday.
"Energy production inside the United States is extremely important to our national security," the Georgia Republican told Newsmax's "National Report."
"If you look at what's happening in Europe, you think about the position that our European allies would be in if they weren't dependent on Russian energy right now, and I don't understand why President [Joe] Biden wants to drive the price of a barrel of oil up, which, candidly, gives our enemies more money and Americans less."
And even though Democrats have "different gimmicks" to keep up oil production, none are long-term solutions that would return the country to energy independence, so "it is simply a matter of going back to the policies that were there under the Trump administration," said Scott.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin has been given "tremendous amounts of money to carry out his crimes against humanity" since the price of oil has gone up, says Scott.
Further, Putin was smart enough to accumulate reserves in foreign currency, not the ruble, so the attacks on Russia's currency are not having an impact on his "ability to carry out his war crimes," he added.
"We should have put the sanctions in many months ago," but Biden didn't move on the "impeccable" intelligence he had, said the congressman.
As a result, he continued, "Americans are paying the price at the pump, Americans are paying the price at the grocery store. As we go around the world we are witnessing a huge humanitarian crisis by the miscalculations of the administration."
Scott also said he agrees with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who on Wednesday called on reversing decisions that have been made that curtail domestic oil production, and who is proposing legislation that deals with climate change while producing energy.
"It's been possible for a long time," said Scott. "The use of natural gas in school buses and vehicles that start and stop at the same place every day could have been done years ago. But the left has got a war on fossil fuel."
But now, Americans are learning what happens in the world when a "pacifist" like Biden is elected and who makes decisions based on facts, said Scott.
"Not just Americans are paying the price for their pocketbooks and our economy, but the whole world is witnessing what happens when you have a weak president in the White House who allows pariahs like Vladimir Putin to go out and do what he's doing to the people of Ukraine and around the world," Scott said.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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