Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., appeared to distance herself from President Joe Biden's push for a gas tax holiday.
Warren made her comments during a Thursday interview on CNN's "New Day."
"Look, that's not the approach I would use," she said. "I would use a more systemic approach."
And she noted "I'm deeply, deeply sympathetic to the fact that families are paying a lot at the pump."
Her remarks came after she raised the prospect that oil companies are likely guilty of price-gouging.
"I always remind myself on this that the last time that a barrel of oil cost what it costs right now, that gasoline itself was about a $1.50 cheaper at the pump, so a big part of this is about concentration in the oil industry and price gouging," she said.
"But the president is trying to deal with these problems directly. And I think that's the right way to go about it. I think what we should be doing, instead of trying to get short-term pieces in, is we need to look at the longer arc of what drives prices.
"And when it's price-gouging then we need to give our administration more tools to deal with it. When it's that, we don't have enough workers. Then let's get childcare out there. We've got 1.2 million women into the workforce if they have childcare.
"We got a lot of tools at our disposal. Those are the tools that we need to be using."
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declined to fully support Biden's proposed gas tax holiday on Wednesday, saying the Democratic Party leadership would need time to gauge support for the initiative.
"We will see where the consensus lies on a path forward for the president's proposal in the House and the Senate, building on the strong bills to lower prices at the pump already passed by House Democrats including the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act and the Lower Food and Fuel Costs Act" Pelosi said in a statement.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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