Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., told Newsmax Friday that President Joe Biden is causing the nation to lose 2 million barrels of oil production each day since taking office and reversing former President Donald Trump's energy policies.
"The Biden administration eliminated about 2 million barrels of domestic oil production per day," Rosendale said during "American Agenda" Friday. That's where they felt the necessity to deplete about 50% of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve."
The Guardian reported in February 2021 that Biden signed over 100 executive orders targeting Trump-era environmental policies in the name of climate change.
Among the targeted policies, Biden halted oil and gas leases on public lands, reduced offshore drilling, closed drilling in Arctic and Bering Sea waters, and blocked both the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines.
Rosendale said Biden's move to stop construction of the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office in January 2021 prevents the transmission of 850,000 barrels of oil a day, with 150,000 that would have come from his home state of Montana.
"The tax revenue from that pipeline alone in Montana, which would have gone through some of the poorest counties in my state, would have generated $60 million a year of tax revenue, just the pipeline itself," he said. "They have eliminated and froze the leasing or public lands that were earmarked for development of oil and gas and kept those leases from being awarded to individuals onshore and offshore."
Rosendale said the administration has also slowed the permitting process of building pipelines and export facilities for liquid natural gas.
"So, all of that not only shut down our domestic production and again reduced the oil production by just about 2 million barrels a day," he said. "But it also kept us from being able to efficiently deliver these products around our country, and to export them to our allies overseas."
He said that the decrease in production makes the United States more dependent on foreign nations, including adversaries, and makes America's allies turn to our enemies for energy.
"So, not only are we more dependent upon our adversaries, but also our allies in Europe are more dependent upon our adversaries as well," he said. "It's costing us how much more to refill the Strategic Oil Reserve? And then they're buying oil from Venezuela?"
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Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
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