Despite waging an unpopular war against Ukraine, Russia continues to be one of the globe’s top exporters of oil. Among the nations continuing to import oil from Russia is the United States.
Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), the ranking Republican on the House Armed Service Committee, called for that to end during an appearance on Mobile, AL radio FM Talk 106.5.
Rogers said the Russian oil had “Ukrainian blood on it ” and insisted there were more suitable sources of energy for the United States to consider.
“Russia — their economy is basically, they’re a gas station,” he said. “That’s literally where almost half of their money comes from. They’re selling gas and oil to other countries. The fact is we’re still buying a lot of Russian oil here in the United States. At a minimum, we should stop that because it’s got Ukrainian blood, every bit of it. Every barrel we buy, it’s got Ukrainian blood on it.”
“There’s no reason for us to keep funding his illegal war,” Rogers continued. “Even Nancy Pelosi has come out to call for us to stop buying Russian oil. Biden ought to get the message pretty soon. The fact is, and this is true of all your listeners, our gas prices are going to go up because of what’s happening in Ukraine because of the disruptive nature it has had to the energy sector, period.”
“And when we stop buying Russian oil, it will go up even more,” he explained. “It is going to be painful, but we should not be giving money to Russia to kill Ukrainians in this illegal war. What we need to be doing is reopening drilling on federal lands, reopening the XL pipeline that Biden stopped when he agreed to open the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We’ve got a lot of resources in this country that we can dramatically increase our production of natural gas and oil and be self-sustaining.”
“But he’s got to be willing to have the strength to tell the environmental climate change lobbyists that we’ve got to do this because he’s the one that cut them all off when he took power, when he took the presidency, and now we’re paying a price for it,” Rogers added. “And so, all the things that are about to happen as far as higher energy prices can be remedied here at home if he’ll just have the will and the leadership to make the decisions to make that happen.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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