Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith
As gas prices continue to rise Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith joins colleagues in calling for President Biden to accept responsibility.
Hyde-Smith, who sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, joined others in calling for Biden’s administration to reverse their course of action and adopt more Republican-backed solutions to increase U.S. oil and gas production.
The urgency comes as gas prices exceed $4 a gallon in all 50 states.
“I wish I could say cancelling these latest oil and gas lease sales came as a surprise; but it is no surprise at all. The day Joe Biden put his hand on the Bible and he was sworn in as president of the United States, he began this—to destroy American energy,” Hyde-Smith said. “It is just par for the course that he continues this war on American energy.”
She went on to criticize Democratic efforts that place blame on the prices on others, instead of accepting responsibility for poor policies that diminish oil and gas production.
“They blame Republicans. They blame Putin. They blame oil companies. But Americans know better,” Hyde-Smith said. “The Biden administration and Democrats need to take this crisis seriously, and stop finding every excuse in the book to shrink energy production. Until this happens, every family and business in Mississippi and around this country will continue to pay the price of Biden’s failed energy policies.”
Hyde-Smith supports legislation and policy changes to restore domestic energy production, including her own Domestic Energy Crisis Relief Act (S.3353).
She also cosponsored the Lease Now Act (S.4228) which would require the U.S. Department of the Interior to resume and maintain onshore and offshore federal oil and gas lease sales. S.4228 also directs the Interior Department to finalize a five-year offshore oil and gas leasing plan.
She and 20 other Senators signed a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo which calls for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to issue permits required to bring additional production online from existing offshore federal oil and gas leases. These permits are currently delayed within the agency, and clearing them would help boost offshore production.
“While the Biden administration and Members of Congress fault the domestic oil and gas industry for sitting idle on over 9,000 drilling permits and millions of acres in ‘inactive leases,’ NMFS’s permitting delays represent one example of the administration’s de facto ban on new drilling – impeding domestic oil and gas investment, exploration, and production,” the Senators wrote.
Sarah Ulmer
