Authorizing the completion of the Keystone XL pipeline to lower fuel prices and give the United States more leverage against Russia would amount to “galloping after permanent solutions to immediate short term problems,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview with MSNBC late Wednesday.
Amid skyrocketing oil prices accompanying Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Republican governors and lawmakers are urging President Biden to reverse his cancellation of Keystone on his first day in office and use some of the 9,000 untapped oil leases on public lands to counter dependence on Russian oil.
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, the host of “The 11th Hour,” acknowledged the president “does not set the price of gas,” but she argued “he can influence it.”
“And while releasing some strategic reserves matters, given how much has been released, it is really just a drop in the bucket,” she said. “Are there things, and I realize this is controversial, it has huge environmental impacts, could the president possibly consider authorizing the Keystone Pipeline? Or working something out with Iran?”
“Look,” Buttigieg replied, “the president has said that all options are on the table. But we also need to make sure that we are not galloping after permanent solutions to immediate short term problems, where more strategic and tactical actions in the short term that can make a difference, like what you have with the strategic reserve, which exists partly in order to respond to situations like this.”
This post originally appeared on WND News Center.