OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is not a favorite in President Joe Biden’s White House and he does not appear to care about scoring any points with the commander-in-chief.
He has again taken sides against one of the president’s positions, this time pertaining to the import of oil from Russia, Breitbart News reported.
He appeared on the Fox Business Network show “Kudlow” this week and argued that Democrats need to start to comprehend that the United States needs to produce its own fossil fuel if it wants to continue to be a superpower.
“You cannot be the superpower of the world if you have to depend on other nations to produce your energy” he said, and he argued that he disagrees with the majority of his party and the president because “they have a hard time coming to grips that you’ve got to use everything you’ve got” or else you “end up like Germany did” and “in one heck of a mess.”
He talked about defending NATO and standing with allies, but he said that there was more that was needed.
“That’s all good. But…we have to have energy independen[ce]. You cannot be the superpower of the world if you have to depend on other nations to produce your energy. And I’m just in a different place than my caucus or the colleagues or the president and they have a hard time coming to grips that you’ve got to use everything you’ve got. You’ve got to use your gas, you’ve got to use your coal, you’ve got to use your oil, and you have to develop wind and solar and hydro and geothermal and hydrogen. All of these things I’m for. But I’m not going to leave us in a void, Larry, I’m just not going to basically go down that path and end up like Germany did, trying to get something — rid of something that you don’t think you like because you think something else will replace it. And then, when you get to that time period, it doesn’t replace it, so you’re in one heck of a mess,” he said.
Having clean energy is a nice dream for the future, but we are in a reality in 2022 where clean energy cannot run the world. An 18 wheel truck cannot run on solar power or electricity, not can an airplane currently.
“[I]f you want to do something with an all-in energy policy that does not leave us in a void, then do something that basically uses all of the above, and with the new technology, but basically not leave your fossils out of the mix. Because that’s the horsepower you need to run the superpower of the world,” he said.
His comments came the same week he responded to the president’s call in his State of the Union address to revive “Build Back Better” with a crushing blow.
After the president’s address to both chambers of Congress and to the nation on Tuesday, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin made it known that there was no way that agenda was going to be saved, The Hill reported.
The Democrat senator was asked by reporters about the parts of Biden’s speech that mentioned items on his Build Back better agenda and what he thought of him attempting to revive it.
“They just can’t help themselves,” he said.
“I don’t know where that came from,” he quipped.
“Nothing’s changed,” he said.
“There might be parts they want to talk about. I don’t know. That was a little bit far,” the senator said.
He also did not believe the president’s claims that his agenda would lower the deficit.
“I’ve never found out that you can lower costs by spending more,” he said.