Texas congressional candidate Wesley Hunt backed calls from lawmakers to stop importing oil and other energy products from Russia in an effort to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine.
Hunt, an Army combat veteran, won the Republican nomination for a House seat in Texas’s 38th Congressional District this week, one of two new congressional districts in the Lone Star State, defeating a field of nine rivals.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Hunt said the district leans heavily Republican, “so I like our chances going into the general election, but obviously, we’re going to continue to work tirelessly to get there.”
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Asked how Congress should respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Hunt argued that “if we buy a single barrel of oil from Russia, then we are funding this war against [Ukraine]. It’s just that simple.”
Hunt also echoed calls from Republican lawmakers to make energy independence a part of the U.S. response to Putin’s aggression.
“Especially when we’re sitting on a permanent base, and right here in Texas, we have the opportunity to produce our own oil and our own natural gas,” he said. “We should not be importing blood oil from Russia. That’s it, especially when we don’t have to and we don’t need it.”
A bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers led by Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska introduced the Ban Russian Energy Imports Act on Thursday, which would prohibit importing crude oil, petroleum, and other energy products from Russia. They argued that targeting these imports would be financially devastating for Russia and would deter its aggression. There is a growing consensus on the proposal to ban the import of Russian oil to the United States on Capitol Hill, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week that she would support the move.
But on Thursday, the White House said it would not support a ban on importing Russian oil. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the same day that there is no “strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy” for the U.S. But on Friday, the White House was reportedly considering such a ban.
Hunt criticized the White House for not backing the effort.
“I am concerned that that they are so tied to climate change and the Green New Deal that they are willing to allow innocent people to be murdered and slaughtered and bombed in order for them to hold on so dearly to this climate change agenda,” he said.
Some opponents of the plan have argued that halting Russian imports would drive up energy prices amid record-high inflation. Hunt argued that would only be a temporary setback if the U.S. increased its own domestic energy production.
“In the short run, if we stopped taking 10% of our oil from Russia, we’re going to see a spike in prices,” Hunt said. “But when we turn on our production, then that spike will come back to this normal steady state.”
Hunt previously ran a close congressional race against Democratic Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher in 2020 in a different Houston-area district. This year, he was seen as a front-runner for the new 38th District and was endorsed by prominent Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Should Hunt be elected to Congress, he would be one of just three black Republicans in the House, joining Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida and Burgess Owens of Utah, at a time in which the party is seeking to increase the diversity of its members. There are currently 56 black Democrats in Congress.
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Several of the nearby congressional districts have a black majority, but Hunt said the 38th District is a majority-white district and quipped that “the Left will tell you that there was no way a black man can be the congressman in a white majority district [former President Donald] Trump would have won by 20 points, yet here we sit.”
“What I discovered is that people really don’t care what I look like at all,” he said. “They voted for me because we share similar conservative values.”
