President Joe Biden's claims that his administration has not limited domestic oil production are "not true," Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told Newsmax on Tuesday after the president announced a ban on Russian oil imports.
"All you have to do is go back to his first day in office," Sessions said on "John Bachman Now." "We recognize now that under this president, and the Obama presidency, that dependence on Russian oil increased to the highest level in the history of our country."
During his announcement, Biden promised that he would do "everything I can to minimize Putin's price hike here at home" but said lifting economic regulations wouldn't boost U.S. energy production, reports NPR.
He added that oil and gas companies "can be drilling right now, yesterday, last week, last year," as they have already leased millions of acres of U.S. land and received permits to drill, but have decided not to use them.
The administration in February said it was delaying decisions on new oil and gas drilling on federal land, as well as for other energy-related actions after a federal court ruled to block the method used to calculate the costs of climate change.
But now, with the Russian oil ban, the administration wants to replace those supplies with crude oil from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, rather than using what the U.S. already has.
"How far out of touch are the president and Democrats?" Sessions said. "They should today go back and build the [Keystone] XL pipeline. So what if it's some months away from completion? We need to start. The Russian problem is here and we're going to need to help take care of Europe without exports, which we can easily do."
And even with the administration's insistence that there are oil drilling permits that are going unused, the "bottom line" is that the American people "know where this president is."
The congressman also commented about Ukraine's call for a no-fly zone over the country and said he disagrees with Biden and NATO refusing to take that step.
"It is going to be a human sacrifice, and to not stand up to aggression ... this is wrong," Sessions said. "The bottom line is we could bring this to an end with what they're doing … I would inform [Vladimir] Putin that we are going to engage unless they back off right now."
Sessions added, "If we had a real leader, we would lead and [Russia] would follow."
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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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