The approval of domestic drilling permits has decreased under the Biden administration. As of February 2022, the Biden administration stopped issuing new permits.
McCarthy was asked if there is merit to the Democrats’ argument that oil and gas companies are allowing prices to remain high even though the price of a barrel of oil has dropped below $100.
“It just begins to go to show how they don’t understand the industry,” he replied. “Things don’t change overnight. You’ve got to produce the oil. You sell the oil. You have to refine the oil and you pass it through.”
McCarthy told reporters that leading Democrats have been saying since the 2020 election cycle that they wanted to stop the production of oil on public lands.
“Joe Biden, in his campaign for president, said he would eliminate the production of crude,” he said. “You then had on the very first day when he got into office ending a pipeline. So you add transportation to that, and when inflation goes up, if you can’t move it by a pipeline, you’ve got to put it in a truck, or you’ve got to put it in a tanker if you bring it from somewhere else — that costs a lot more, you can’t get things off the port, so they raised the price themselves.”
