Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy argued on Tuesday that the American energy situation "keeps getting worse" due to the Biden administration’s energy policies.
"It just keeps getting worse when it comes to producing energy in this country," Dunleavy told "Cavuto: Coast to Coast."
"We're sending oil over to Europe out of our SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) and here in Alaska, we have millions of acres of land, we have billions of barrels of oil, we have a pipeline that's a quarter full – so we have the ability to transport oil down to the West Coast and to our allies," he said.
"And the Biden administration here yesterday just announced that NPR, the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, about 8 million acres of that, is now going to be taken off the table for exploration and potential development," he added.
Dunleavy's comments come on the heels of Biden administration officials in the Bureau of Land Management on Monday announcing their plans to return to Obama-era rules for oil and gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, according to KTOO.
That means the Bureau of Land Management is ditching the land-use plan finalized by officials in the Trump administration shortly before they left office, which opened an additional 7 million acres to industry leasing, or about 30% of the reserve, the Alaska Journal of Commerce noted.
"And so it doesn't get any better. It just keeps getting worse," Dunleavy told host Neil Cavuto. "And we're still scratching our head as to where these ideas and where this policy is coming from."
Oil rebounded on Tuesday afternoon, with U.S. crude rising to the $102 per barrel level, while Brent, the global benchmark, hit $105.
However, recently oil prices have fallen on expectations of weaker demand after peaking above $130 per barrel last month due to anxiety about the disruption of supplies from Russia, the world's No. 2 exporter.
Dunleavy told "Cavuto: Coast to Coast" last month that his state is ready to increase oil and gas production amid escalating tension overseas if the Biden administration allows.
In a series of orders aimed at combating climate change, President Biden temporarily suspended the issuance of oil and gas permits on federal lands and waters and canceled the Keystone XL oil pipeline project on his first day in office.
According to the Energy Information Administration, Alaska's proved crude oil reserves of 2.4 billion barrels are the fourth largest of any state and Alaska ranks third in the country in natural gas gross withdrawals.
Dunleavy argued on Tuesday that "the chaos and uncertainty right now in the world with the war in Europe" and the "potential COVID lockdowns in China" will impact oil prices, but stressed that "what started this was the Biden administration's war on fossil fuels and their desire to go renewable."
He noted that he is for an "all-in energy approach," which includes renewables, but not shutting down oil and gas; Dunleavy explained his rationale, saying, "as was demonstrated in Europe, especially Germany, you have to have a bridge."
"You have to have a coherent policy to get from here to there and what we're seeing is a lot of chaos, a lot of uncertainty," Dunleavy explained. "And I think you're going to see prices all over the map.
