Senate Minority Whip John Thune told Newsmax on Thursday that record-high gas prices are not the result of COVID-19 or Russian President Vladimir Putin, as President Joe Biden has claimed, but rather the result of the White House's energy policies.
"What's affecting supply in this country are Biden administration policies," the South Dakota Republican said during an appearance on Newsmax's "Spicer & Co." "You can change this very, very quickly simply by sending the right signals and the energy producers in this country, who are currently sitting on the sidelines because of their policies, will get back in the game and start producing energy and restore America to energy dominance, which is where we were when President Trump left office.
"This administration has no one to blame but themselves when it comes to the high price of gasoline because it is a supply and demand issue, and they are doing nothing but trying to squash supply in America," he added.
Biden said Thursday that oil companies have a patriotic duty to drill on wells that currently exist and where they have current leases.
"There may be leases out there, but they have to get permits to drill, and they haven't been getting those permits issued," Thune said. "They've taken a lot of land off limits. They're making it very, very hard to site pipelines in the forms of transportation you need to move energy to its destination, and they are discouraging financial institutions and lenders from lending to people who are in oil [and] gas production.
"This is just a situation entirely of their own making, and they can fix it very simply by changing their strategy," he continued. "Quit listening to the people who worship at the altar of climate, and start getting realistic about what policies are impacting the American people."
Thune said that when former President Donald Trump left office, the U.S. was energy independent "for the first time in my lifetime."
"We were exporting energy, and that had everything to do with the policies, with the message that was being sent, with the incentives that were being put out there for investment," he said.
The Washington Post reports that Biden announced Thursday that he will release one million barrels a day from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to cut the cost Americans are paying at the pump.
"This is a wartime bridge to increase oil supply until production ramps up later this year," the president said. "And it is by far the largest release from our national reserve in our history.
"It will provide a historic amount of supply for a historic amount of time — a six-month bridge to the fall," he continued. "And we'll use the revenue from selling the oil now to restock the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when prices are lower so we'll be ready — we'll be ready for future emergencies."
Thune said Biden's plan wasn't likely to provide Americans with relief when they go to fill up.
"That reserve is there is for emergencies," the senator said. "Using it for this purpose isn't going to do anything — maybe a little bit of short-term relief, but it doesn't solve the problem."
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