President Joe Biden on Wednesday pushed oil companies to use their record profits to ramp up production to bring down the gas price for American consumers, Politico reported.

“My message to the American energy companies is this: You should not be using your profits to buy back stock or for dividends. Not now. Not while a war is raging,” Biden said during his speech at the White House, noting that profits at the six largest publicly traded oil companies topped $70 billion in the second quarter.

“You should be using these record-breaking profits to increase production and refining. Invest in America for the American people. Bring down the price you charge at the pump to reflect what you pay for the product,” he continued. “You’ll still make a significant profit, your shareholders will do very well, and the American people will catch a break they deserve and get a fair price at the pump as well.”

In another move to tame elevated gas prices, Biden announced a planned release of fifteen million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in December. The administration has released about 165 million barrels of crude from the reserve since the beginning of the year.

Despite his calls for boosting oil and gas production, Biden asserted that such plans are consistent with his administration’s pledge to transition to clean energy.

“We can lower energy costs” for American consumers and “enhance our national security at a very difficult moment,” he said.

“Right now the process of getting clean energy projects approved is too cumbersome and too time-consuming. So I’m asking the Congress, pass a permitting bill to speed up the approval of all kinds of energy production, from wind, to solar, to clean hydrogen. Because we need to get this moving now,” he added.

Biden also told reporters that his plea to the oil industry is not politically motivated, even though the midterm elections begin in only about three weeks.

“It’s motivated to make sure that I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on, and that is making sure there’s enough that’s being pumped by the companies, so that we have the ability to be able to produce enough oil that we need here at home, and at the same time, keep moving in the direction of providing for alternative energy,” he said.

According to AAA data, the national average pump price for a gallon of gas is currently sitting at $3.85, seventeen cents higher than a month ago and fifty-three cents more than a year ago.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Finance and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.