Bennet: Energy Price Increases ‘Caused by an Economic Recovery’ and War, Trump’s Policy Was ‘Inflationary’

During an interview with “Pod Save America” released on Thursday, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) argued that rising energy prices “have been caused by an economic recovery and by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.” And also stated that, going into the Biden administration, American energy policy “was inflationary, terrible for our national security, and awful at reducing emissions.”

Bennet said, “I think the bill that we recently passed that the president signed, the CHIPS Act — to my mind anyway — may be the first step to trying to say, we’re going to privilege some other stuff and we’re going to bring the semiconductor supply chains back to America, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is our national security. But, I think we ought to be thinking about other things too, in the wake of the busted supply chains that really have caused the inflation that we’re dealing with now, in addition to the rising energy prices that have been caused by an economic recovery and by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”

He also stated that we should “have an energy policy in this country, unlike the one we had going into this administration, which was inflationary, terrible for our national security, and awful at reducing emissions. I mean, coal is up 20% since Biden became President. We should have an energy policy in place that allows us to, over time, reduce costs, create energy independence and economic independence, keep Europe in the fight against Putin for Ukraine and that reduces emissions. And I think the combination of what we’ve got in hand with respect to natural gas and the Inflation Reduction Act puts us in a position…to lead that transition that I think, over time, is going to make a huge difference to people’s pocketbooks in this country.”

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