Manchin Urges Biden to Restore Keystone XL Pipeline: ‘Americans Should Not Depend on Foreign Actors’

Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, urged President Joe Biden to restore the Keystone XL pipeline after the administration released 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

“I continue to call on President Biden to responsibly increase energy production here at home and to reverse course to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built,” Manchin wrote in a statement. He added that the pipeline would have “provided our country with up to 900,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada, one of our closest allies.”

“This is about American energy independence and the fact that hard working Americans should not depend on foreign actors, like OPEC+, for our energy security and instead focus on the real challenges facing our country’s future,” Manchin clarified. He was referring to the oil cartel made up of 13 nations that had rejected Biden’s plea earlier in the year when he asked for more oil production.

The Biden White House announced Tuesday the president would be releasing 50 million barrels of oil from the SPR since the “oil supply has not kept up with demand as the global economy emerges from the pandemic” and Americans are “feeling the impact of elevated gas prices at the pump and in their home heating bills.”

However, on the same day, Biden’s energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm — who oversees the United States’ energy supply — did not know how many barrels of oil the U.S. consumes per day when asked by a reporter about America’s daily oil consumption during a press conference.

The White House / YouTube

Releasing oil from the reserve is only a “Band-Aid” and “does not solve for the self-inflicted wound that shortsighted energy policy is having on our nation,” Manchin said. “With an energy transition underway across the country, it is critical that Washington does not jeopardize America’s energy security in the near term and leave consumers vulnerable to rising prices.”

In February, Manchin reportedly joined Republicans in urging the president to reconsider canceling the pipeline’s permit, claiming pipelines “continue to be the safest mode to transport our oil and natural gas resources, and they support thousands of high-paying, American union jobs.″

At the same time, as all of the gas prices hit a seven-year high, and Americans continue to struggle at the pump as Biden has still not found a permanent solution to the rising gas prices.

Breitbart News reported, “Biden started his presidency by canceling the Keystone Pipeline, halting energy exploration on federal land, and ending America’s energy independence, which was gained under former President Donald Trump.”

The report added that the Biden administration “has openly said it will not increase domestic oil production to help lower gas prices in the United States and, instead, has begged OPEC to increase its production abroad.”

However, despite canceling the permits for the Keystone pipeline, Biden removed Trump-era Russia sanctions so that construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany can be streamlined.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.