Psaki: Calls to Enhance U.S. Oil Production a ‘Misdiagnosis’ — ‘We Need to Reduce Our Dependence’

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that calls for the United States to increase fossil fuel production and open up the Keystone Pipeline in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “misdiagnosis.”

Anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “Senator Tom Cotton says the United States should be doing more to crack down on the Russian energy sector.”

On FNC, Cotton said, “How about we impose those sanctions, but lift the restrictions on the production of American oil and gas to stand drilling on American lands again. We can re-open the Keystone Pipeline, which will bring more oil into America from Canada than we impact from Russian.”

Stephanopoulos said, “The president open to those proposals?”

Psaki said, “On the energy sector, the way that the president, President Biden, has approached sanctions is we want to take every step to maximize the impact and the consequences on President Putin while minimizing the impact on the American people and the global community.”

She added, “The Keystone Pipeline was not processing oil through the system. That does not solve any problems. That’s a misdiagnosis or maybe a misdiagnosis of what needs to happen. I would also note that on oil leases, what this actually justifies in President Biden’s view is the fact that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, on oil in general, and we need to look at other ways of having energy in our country and others.”

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