Senators Joe Manchin and Mark Kelly, of West Virginia and Arizona respectively, are reportedly pushing the Biden administration to create a new five-year oil and gas leasing plan for the Gulf of Mexico.
Both senators are Democrats and are bucking trends in their own party by criticizing the Biden administration's policies.
"Increasing domestic oil production to meet demand is a critical step to lowering gas prices and reducing our reliance on foreign sources" Sen. Mark Kelly said, according to an April 1 E&E News report.
Kelly and Manchin reportedly went into greater detail in a letter they authored laying out how rising gas prices are impacting the lives of everyday Americans.
"Americans are facing record-level gasoline prices every day when they commute to work, drive their children to school and buy groceries and medicine" Manchin and Kelly's letter said, as reported April 1 by Daily Mail.
The two senators reportedly do not believe current legal policy is helping matters and talked about why they feel that way in their letter.
"Allowing energy projects to languish in court or remain suspended in years of bureaucratic limbo is not addressing the pain at the pump or the climate crisis," the letter stated, according to E&E News.
Manchin and Kelly believe the U.S. should strive for balance in its energy policies and that such an approach would alleviate some of the problems with gas prices.
“The United States can and should increase its renewable energy production and lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but this must occur responsibly, pragmatically and through an all-of-the-above energy approach that takes advantage of our resources at home," Manchin and Kelly's letter said, as reported by E&E News.
