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Canadian Energy Official To Biden: Why Look To Venezuela, Saudi Arabia For Oil? ‘We’re Right Next Door!’

   DailyWire.com
Oil Well, Maricopa, CA,USA
Mark Segal via Getty Images

With gas prices soaring, President Joe Biden and members of his administration have reportedly sought to woo despotic nations like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia in a desperate search for oil.

“The Biden administration has flirted with lifting oil sanctions on once-shunned Venezuela to temper surging oil prices, yet it appears unwilling to encourage investment in domestic energy production,” Fox News reported.

Meanwhile, Biden’s advisers “are discussing a possible visit to Saudi Arabia this spring to help repair relations and convince the Kingdom to pump more oil,” Axios reported.

But one Canadian energy official last week expressed frustration with the Biden administration for not just turning to its neighbor to the north, which is among the world’s top oil producers.

Sonya Savage, the energy minister for Alberta, sat down for an interview with Lisa Fletcher of WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C. “What did you think when President Biden called on OPEC and other oil drilling nations like Saudi?” Fletcher asked.

“I thought ‘What?’ ‘We’re right next door. We’re here!’” Savage said, according to a report by The Blaze.

“It’s extremely frustrating when we see the United States administration reaching out to Saudi Arabia to ask for more oil production, to ask OPEC for more oil production, to look at Iran, to look at Venezuela when we’re right next door here in Alberta,” Savage said. “They should be looking at us as the solution to energy security, not around, not Venezuela.”

With Biden cutting off all oil imports from Russia, which provides about 8% of the oil America uses every day, Savage said Canada could easily provide that amount, offsetting the loss.

Savage has been a critic of the Biden administration for quite a while. “U.S. now looking to replace Russian barrels with Venezuelan? You can’t make this stuff up – desperate times require desperate measures,” she tweeted earlier this month. “A reminder of the folly of energy policy over the past decade. Canada, with the 3rd largest reserves, could have supplied the U.S. and the world,” Savage added.

Americans are getting hit on all sides. The consumer price index increased 7.9% over the past 12 months, hitting a 40-year high, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. “The February acceleration was the fastest pace since January 1982, back when the U.S. economy confronted the twin threat of higher inflation and reduced economic growth,” CNBC reported.

A recent poll from ABC News/Ipsos showed Americans blame Biden for just about everything. “On inflation, President Biden has a 70 percent disapproval rating, compared to 29 percent who approve. On gas prices, 70 percent also disapprove, while 28 percent approve,” ABC reported.

“Over the past several months, Americans’ wallets have been hit by skyrocketing inflation, and now, Biden is feeling that crunch in his approval numbers. Seventy percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of inflation,” ABC wrote.

Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent, and ran the Drudge Report from 2010 to 2015. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

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