Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told Newsmax that President Joe Biden cost the economy billions of dollars when he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline.
Knudsen made his remarks on Tuesday's "National Report." His comments come on the heels of a report, released last week by the administration, highlighting the economic benefits that the nation could have reaped via the pipeline.
Biden had the federal permits revoked on the project early in his presidency.
When asked what sort of difference would there be if the president did not cancel the pipeline when he did, Knudsen replied: "I think the difference we would be experiencing would be tremendous. We'd be seeing lower fuel prices. We'd be seeing increased domestic supplies of oil.
"We'd be in a situation where the president would not have had to dip into our strategic petroleum reserves and send a lot of that oil to China.
"Domestic oil production equals energy independence, equals security for our country. We'd be seeing a lot lower gas prices sat the pump right now.
"I can speak with some expertise on this. This thing was right in my backyard, literally in eastern Montana. All those permits were in hand. All those easements were in place.
"That was the tough part. The legal hurdles had been cleared. Literally all that existed now was for the company to come in and put the pipe in the ground, and employ thousands of people.
"And that’s really what’s so frustrating here. Put aside the benefit to the economy, we’re talking about a lot of jobs Montana lost out on, that the country lost out on — billions of dollars in revenue, tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue for the state of Montana gone with the stroke of a pen. Just a staggering ignorance of simple supply side economics here out of the Biden administration."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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