President Joe Biden should have announced during his State of the Union address that the United States was going to stop the import of crude oil from Russia, as "we right now have the ability to replace those supplies," Rep. Matt Rosendale said Thursday on Newsmax.

"The Keystone pipeline would have provided 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day," the Montana Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "About 150,000 barrels a day would have come from the Montana-North Dakota region, so it would have helped our economy and helped our security. It would have been a win all the way around."

His comments come after West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, pointed out the United States buys more than 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Russia and called out for the administration to reverse its drilling decisions.

"By closing down the leases on the oil and gas properties that the federal government has, we're also experiencing those shortages as well," said Rosendale. "We could provide the oil, and we could stop funding the Putin military operation and help our own economy as well."

He added that farmers and ranchers in Montana are being hurt by the increase in gas prices, and called the rising costs "all self-inflicted."

But if Biden would reinstate the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, "that's 800,000 barrels a day of crude oil that we could be refining right here in the country," said Rosendale.

He added that even more domestic oil could be produced by opening oil and gas leases for federal properties.

"The court ordered these leases to begin again, and this administration has completely ignored that," said Rosendale. "They are ignoring the rule of law as far as what the courts asked them to do to begin re-leasing those properties again, the same as they're ignoring the rule of law down in the southern border."

However, the congressman said the Biden administration won't take action.

"We heard [Biden's] statements at the State of the Union address," said Rosendale. "The hard left is pulling them completely away from utilizing these fossil fuels at a time that we need them the most."

Biden announced that oil will be pulled from the national reserves, but "that is only going to help us for about three days," Rosendale added. "We know that it may drop the price of crude oil for a couple of days, and that's going to be it. We have to take a long-term look at this."

Further, many of the people who oppose using U.S.-produced fossil fuels also oppose using nuclear energy here, said the congressman, adding that "the hypocrisy that we continue to see from this administration and from the Democrat Party is just stark."

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