President Joe Biden's call to release 180 million barrels of oil from the nation's strategic reserves will make just a "minor difference," but that's not why the reserves are there, Rep. Buddy Carter said Thursday on Newsmax.
The reserves, the Georgia Republican told Newsmax's "National Report" were never intended to bring down the price of petroleum in the nation, but to be available to use in the event of emergency.
Carter acknowledged that families in the United States need "any help we can get" on the price of gas, in addition to the inflation that is costing families thousands of dollars a year, but said the higher gas prices could have been avoided.
"It could have been avoided and should have been avoided," said Carter. "If not for Joe Biden and this administration's war on fossil fuels, we wouldn't be in this mess right now that we're in."
But now, there is a war on energy independence, said Carter, as the administration, from day one, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and stopped oil permitting on federal lands.
Meanwhile, polls are showing a majority of Americans are blaming Biden for higher field prices and not the war between Ukraine and Russia, which the White House has blamed.
"The poor policies that this administration has implemented have resulted in the situation that we see, and it goes to prove to you that elections have consequences," he said. "We are suffering the consequences of the policy of this administration. Right now. We're suffering the consequences of the last election."
Carter also spoke out against the administration's plan to lift the use of Title 42, a public health policy that keeps people from crossing the border, saying that lifting the Trump-era provision will allow both more people and more illegal drugs to enter the country.
"We have got an epidemic in this country right now," said Carter. "Over 100,000 people died last year as a result of overdoses, much of it attributed to fentanyl. There's enough fentanyl coming across that border to kill every American over eight times. That is just ridiculous."
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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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