Psaki Spars With Fox’s Doocy Over Keystone Oil Pipeline: ‘It Would Not Address Any of the Problems We Are Having’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Fox News’ White House Correspondent Peter Doocy sparred over gas prices for the second time this week – and it’s only Wednesday.

Doocy kicked off the exchange by asking Psaki “Why did you guys decide to rebrand the rise in gas prices as the #PutinPriceHike?”

Psaki hit back, jesting, “I mean if you want to use that on Fox, I welcome that.”

Doocy responded, “Oh, I think it will get a lot of airtime.”

The exchange continued from there as Doocy asked about the Biden White House “talking about producing energy here, saying ‘that oil and gas companies have 9,000 permits to drill now, they could be drilling now,’ would President Biden cut red tape to make that possible?”

Psaki hit back asking what red tape needs to be cut. Doocy responded by saying that oil and gas industry experts are saying that not all leases have viable oil and gas in them.

“First of all, nearly 60% of leased acres remain non-producing, that’s a lot, in the range of 20 million acres. So there are 9,000 unused, approved permits to drill in, that should not require us inviting them to do that, they should do that themselves,” Psaki responded.

Doocy jumped in saying, but they “can’t get additional permits.” Psaki interjected, “What additional permits do they need? The leases are there, the permits are there. I don’t think they need an embroidered invitation to drill, they are oil companies.”

Psaki continued to say “what is happening here” is that these “private sector companies, we recognize that, many of them are making record profits. We see that, that is all publicly available data. They have pressure to return cash to investors and their shareholders. What we are saying right now is, there is a war, we are asking them to go use the approved permits, use the unused space, and go get more supply out of the ground in our own country.”

Doocy moved on asked for a “quick yes or no” is a “restart of the Keystone XL construction completely off the table as long as Joe Biden is president?”

Psaki hit back, “Well, why don’t you tell me what that would help address?”

Doocy responded by doubling down on the question, noting that the administration has said: “all options are on the table.”

“If we are trying to bring about more supply, that does not address any problem,” Psaki responded.

Doocy responded, “It’s supply from Canada, a friendly ally instead of Saudi Arabia.” Psaki jumped in saying, “We are already getting that oil, Peter, the pipeline is just a delivery mechanism, it is not an oilfield, so it does not supply more supply into the system.”

Doocy continued to push, asking if Biden will ever greenlight Keystone XL construction: “Is it on the table?”

“There’s no plans for that and it would not address any of the problems we’re having currently,” Psaki concluded.

CNN did a fact check of whether or not the Keystone XL pipeline would lower gas prices in the U.S. Anchor Ana Cabrera explained what the Keystone XL pipeline would have done, noting it would be a “shortcut” to get Canadian oil from the tar sands to refineries in the Gulf.

Cabrera noted, however, the claim that the pipeline would lower U.S. gas prices is dubious and dubbed it “unlikely” to have had an impact. Even if Biden not stopped its construction, Cabrera noted, the pipeline was only scheduled to be finished next year and thus would have zero impact on the current energy situation.

Watch the full clips above