The U.S. Department of Energy announced recently it will start buying back oil to resupply the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. There is close to 380 million barrels left in the reserve – the lowest amount since 1984.

U.S. Rep Jerry Carl (R-Mobile) said Thursday on Fox Business Network the Biden administration needs to be held accountable for depleting the reserve.

“It’s there for a purpose. It’s not for the purpose of raising or lowering the fuel prices for the consumers,” said Carl, a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources. “It’s for our national defense, and we’ve got to hold the president’s feet to the fire on that. He used it for political purposes, bringing the prices down for election time. And, of course, now it started back up.

“Everyone has told him what was going to happen on the Republican side and all the committees, but no one seems to listen, no one seems to listen.”

The congressman said higher energy prices were predictable because of Biden’s policies.

“We should’ve never used the reserve for political reasons,” he said. “And that’s the reason where the situation we’re in now. On natural resources, we gave them fair warning when they started shutting the pipeline down, what was going to happen. It’s just been a domino effect. Now we’re in a situation where we’re going to pay more for it.”

Carl said he’s not against using more green energy, but implored that it can’t currently and completely take the place of fossil fuels.

“I’m all for alternative energies,” he said. “There is no doubt we need to try and stretch and move in that direction, but you can’t do it all at once. You can’t just arbitrarily just shut down petroleum and the development and expect it to just switch over, this is what happens.

“The technology is just not there yet, you have to grow with the technology.”

He also believes it’s time to start making sure the reserve is filled back up and is no longer used for partisan political reasons.

“The prices are projected,” he said. “I saw that same article that you saw, obviously the Wall Street Journal. I believe it was in at $4 a gallon. We’ve got to get our reserves back up. This administration has made the mistake over and over and over again of poor judgment. But this one we need to do.

“We need to get that reserve back up and leave it alone.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee