Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was hit with backlash this week when she admitted she did not know how many barrels of oil the U.S. consumes per day.
“I don’t have that number in front of me,” Granholm told a reporter during a White House press briefing on Tuesday.
The question came in response to President Joe Biden tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an attempt to help bring down soaring gas prices.
WATCH:
Reporter: "How many barrels of oil does the U.S. consume per day?"
Biden's energy secretary: "I don't have that number in front of me" pic.twitter.com/Z0Zv7tHS2v
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 23, 2021
“File this one under ‘not qualified to be Energy Secretary,'” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) reacted to the jarring clip.
File this one under “not qualified to be Energy Secretary.” https://t.co/BuoGKxer7F
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) November 23, 2021
Notably, the 50 million barrels released by Biden is not enough to cover even three days of U.S. supply, The Federalist highlighted:
The president’s decision to tap the oil reserves maintained for emergencies such as a hurricane hampering Gulf Coast refineries underscores the administration’s desperation to bring down seven-year high gas prices. Soaring fuel costs engineered by the White House war on fossil fuels and compounded by inflation have helped tank the president’s approval ratings as Americans pinch pennies going into the holidays. Biden’s approval rating hovers at just more than 41 percent in the RealClear aggregate.
In the past, presidents have used the reserves at times of emergency, like following Hurricane Katrina and during the first Gulf War, The Federalist emphasized: “Biden’s use of reserves, however, comes at no such emergency. Instead, Biden is using the reserves as a political tool to alleviate the pain of his own making, where the price of oil has eclipsed $80 per barrel for the first time in nearly a decade. Prices, however, often exceeded $80 per barrel when Biden was vice president under President Obama.”
Earlier this month, Secretary Granholm raised eyebrows when she laughed hysterically over a question probing about the administration’s plan to increase oil production in America. The secretary insisted the oil market was controlled by OPEC and completely out of her hands.
Crenshaw called Granholm “a joke” and “a liar” in response. The Daily Wire reported:
Granholm was prompted by an interviewer for Bloomberg, who asked, “In Sturgis, Michigan, (gas) is $2.89 a gallon. I guess that’s better than in California. What is the Granholm plan to increase oil production in America?”
Granholm burst into uncontrollable laughter, then responded patronizingly, “Would that I had the magic wand on this. As you know, of course, oil is a global market. It is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is called OPEC. And they made a decision yesterday that they were not going to increase beyond what they were already planning.”
Crenshaw tweeted, “Our US Energy Secretary is a joke. And a liar. … No, prices are not controlled by OPEC. They have influence, but then again SO DO WE. Our vast increase in production over the past decade drove prices down. All we have to do is get the government boot off the neck of US producers, and let them do their job.”
He added, “But instead, this incompetent administration has done the opposite. They’re (sic) cancelled land leases and cancelled pipelines. They’re threatening the energy sector with more regs and taxes, and you wonder why no one wants to invest in more production?”