Saturday, 05 March 2022 12:32 PM
Tesla CEO Elon Musk urged that the United States needs to increase its domestic oil production in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Hate to say it,” Musk tweeted on Friday, “but we need to increase oil & gas output immediately. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures.”
“Obviously, this would negatively affect Tesla,” he added, “but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil & gas exports.” The tweets from Musk come against the backdrop of bipartisan lawmakers who support a ban on importing Russian oil.
On Thursday, Sens. Joe Manchin, D- W.Va., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, presented legislation to ban Russian energy imports.
“The United States has the ability to backfill and help all of our allies around the world as they [Russia] use this energy as a weapon,” Manchin said on Thursday, according to The Hill. “We have to make sure that we’re doing ours [energy production]. We do it cleaner than anybody else. We do it in a better fashion [than] anybody else. And we have the ability with a reserve to do much more during this crisis.”
On Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House is currently looking over options to decrease Russian oil while keeping prices low. “We are looking at options we could take right now to cut U.S. consumption of Russian energy, but we are very focused on minimizing the impact to families,” Psaki stated. “If you reduce supply in the global marketplace, you are going to raise gas prices.” However, despite the White House’s concern, other lawmakers have announced their positions in favor of a Russian oil ban.
On banning Russian oil, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “I’m all for that — ban it. Ban the oil coming from Russia.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Co., tweeted that “America is funding Russia’s war by buying Russian oil and gas rather than producing our own.”
