Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) explained how President Biden’s order to release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a “Band-Aid” Wednesday on “Your World.”
JERRY MORAN: …Once again, [this administration is] trying to avoid doing the things that really need to be done, things that actually would make a difference by opening up the supply from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That’s a Band-Aid, it doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t make us more independent. And…as your previous interview indicated, that just sends a message to OPEC and others that they’ve got us over the barrels. No pun intended. So this needs to be a policy that’s about energy independence. And I can tell you that as I’ve traveled to Kansas the last couple of days, this is the topic of conversation: increasing costs, the supply chain problems and making sure the people go back to work. So inflation is front and center with Kansans, and I think with Americans. Even [in] my own life, I filled up my pickup truck this week [for] over $100 to fill up my truck. I’ve never had that. And we know that this inflation hurts the poorest among us more than others. And so I hope this administration changes course. And I appreciate the senator from West Virginia (Joe Manchin) taking a strong position in regard to energy independence. This is my view, is that the president is using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve…for just a political release valve, trying to make things look better. And that’s what happens too often…in Washington. We just do things that make us look like we’re doing something that doesn’t really solve a problem. And the president did that with the reserve.
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[O]ne of the things I’ve discovered in my time in Washington, D.C., is those people who often profess to care about the poorest among us are the ones [who] promote policies that are the most damaging to the poorest among us. And again, I shake my head. There’s lots of people who are hurting from this. No one’s immune from it. But I would expect something different from this administration, except they have been on this issue of environmental change from the very beginning. And again, if other Democrats in the Senate would do what Joe Manchin has done, perhaps they would get the president’s attention. But time and time again…I’ve been to the Senate floor in the last few weeks trying to convince the president on a number of things to do something that is…common sense and not harmful. And you know, …it has fallen on deaf ears. But maybe he would listen to a Democrat senator, not a Republican senator.
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