Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, said President Biden is to blame for the high gas prices that are hitting Kansans hard — despite Biden claiming it’s “Putin’s price hike.”
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR LIVE UPDATES
Both Biden and Marshall acknowledge there will be further pain at the pump after Biden announced Tuesday the U.S. will ban Russian imports to stop funding Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. But Marshall, who had been pushing for the Biden administration to give up Russian oil, said the pain could have been avoided if Biden had embraced domestic oil and gas production.
“This 25 or 50 cent hike has been created by Joe Biden because he made us depend upon Russian oil,” Marshall told Fox News Digital. “We’re funding that darn war over there. So the short-term solution is to give American energy certainty, and they will go to work.”
SEN. MARSHALL INTRODUCES BILL BANNING US IMPORTS OF RUSSIAN OIL
Americans are experiencing the highest gas prices since the 2008 financial crisis, with the national gas price average reaching more than $4 per gallon — the highest average to date, according to AAA.
Biden announced Tuesday a ban on Russian oil imports to the U.S. amid bipartisan pressure as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine.
Biden pushed back hard on the notion that his policies — including freezing new permits for oil and gas drilling on federal lands — have hampered domestic oil production.
DEMS URGE BIDEN TO INCREASE DOMESTIC ENERGY PRODUCTION IN THE FACE OF SKYROCKETING GAS PRICES
“It’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production,” Biden said Tuesday, noting that 90% of onshore oil production takes place on non-federal lands.
“That’s simply not true. Even amid the pandemic, companies in the United States pump more oil during my first year in office, than they did during my predecessor’s first year. We’re approaching record levels of oil and gas production in the United States.”
Fresh off of town hall meetings in Kansas over the weekend, Marshall said his constituents are very concerned about inflation and rising gas prices. They are willing to make sacrifices to help the people of Ukraine, but also think the situation was avoidable, Marshall said.
“The No. 1 sanction we could put on Putin’s war is to sanction his oil,” Marshall said. “And I think that Americans are willing to do that. But they also realize that Joe Biden has created this dependence, and this is really another tax on hardworking Americans by Joe Biden.”
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
