Biden's Russia oil ban: Energy industry reps laud move, say it's 'befuddling' president won't back US energy

HOUSTON – Energy industry representatives Tuesday said that President Biden's ban on Russian oil underscores the need to increase domestic energy production and panned the administration's lack of interest in doing so as "befuddling."

National Ocean Industries Association president Erik Milito touted the resources available just off the United States' coastline as an asset to help keep the U.S. and its allies from being reliant on countries like Russia. 

"That simply highlights the importance of producing and getting our industry here domestically in the U.S. We represent the Gulf of Mexico offshore sector, and we've been getting, you know, a million barrels a day from the Gulf of Mexico for the last 25 years," he said. "Peak production hit right before the pandemic at 2 million barrels per day. So this is a really important asset that we have strategically in our backyard that we need to continue to rely on." 

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Milito made the comment at the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston. 

Biden announced the ban on Russian oil imports, which make up just a fraction of U.S. oil imports, on Tuesday morning after more than a week of building pressure from Congress. The president slammed "the Russian Federation’s unjustified, unprovoked, unyielding, and unconscionable war against Ukraine" as the justification for the ban. 

He denied that his administration had stymied oil production in the U.S. It's "simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production," Biden said. "We’re approaching record levels of oil and gas production in the United States, and we’re on track to set a record of oil production next year."

"Certainly this administration needed to do more if it really wanted Mr. Putin and the Russian economy to be affected by his actions in the Ukraine. It's certainly unsurprising, although it did take him a little longer to come to this conclusion," Port of Corpus Christi CEO Sean Strawbridge also said. 

He added: "Industry has recognized that Western Europe's dependency on Russian energy has been growing. And yet, at the same time, discouraging American production is certainly something that's befuddling for us."

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Others have highlighted that the administration delayed banning Russian oil imports for about two weeks after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. 

A source close to a bipartisan bill in the House of Representatives that would have banned Russian oil imports told Fox News the Biden White House worked to block that bill — and a similar one in the Senate — over the weekend. The source said they believe the White House did not want to appear boxed in by Congress on the issue. 

Former Acting Deputy Energy Secretary Jeff Kupfer, who served under former President George W. Bush, told FOX Business Tuesday that despite the fact he agrees with the ban on Russian oil, it still appears Biden was forced into the move. 

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"I think it was the right move. They ultimately in some way got pushed into it," Kupfer said. "I mean, they weren't necessarily supportive of it at first, but with the bipartisan pressure from the Hill, it sort of left them no choice but to do it."

Kupfer served as an executive at Chevron and Atlas Energy after his government service. Now he works for the right-leaning group ConservAmerica, which aims to promote "sound environmental and conservation policy."

Kupfer also said that the oil ban won't necessarily be as "disruptive" to gas prices as it may have been at the beginning of the war because markets "had already begun to reflect and price in the ban on US imports of Russian oil." 

Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.