WASHINGTON (WV News) — During a virtual press conference Thursday, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito continued to criticize the Biden administration’s handling of border control and the public health order widely known as Title 42.

Title 42 is the part of federal code that allowed the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue the order in March 2020 under then-President Donald Trump.

The order, which officials said was aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19, allows the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to prohibit “the entry of certain persons who potentially pose a health risk, either by virtue of being subject to previously announced travel restrictions or because they unlawfully entered the country to bypass health screening measures,” according to the agency.

Under the order, the Customs and Border Patrol can expel persons subject to the order to their country of last transit or can work to return them to their country of origin, rather than allowing them to remain in a congregate setting in the U.S. to await processing.

The CDC terminated the public health order on April 1, with Title 42 set to be lifted on May 23.

In response, a bipartisan group of legislators, including Capito, R-W.Va., and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have co-sponsored a bill — the Public Health and Border Security Act — to block Title 42’s lifting until another border plan can be put in place.

Capito said Thursday that the nation’s current plans for after Title 42 is lifted are less than satisfactory

“They put a plan forward, but their plan is basically how to process people quicker and get them into the country,” Capito said. “That’s not a plan. In my mind, we need a plan for expedited removal, quicker hearing of asylum claims, the ‘remain in Mexico policy’ and to keep building the wall.

“All of these policies are deterrence policies that I’m looking for, and the administration and the president have really fallen short here, unfortunately. It’s a crisis that’s going to be a catastrophe, and it’s of the president’s making.”

Capito also claimed that lifting Title 42 seems contradictory to the Biden administration’s other initiatives and plans regarding COVID-19.

“The administration is saying that there’s no emergency, so no more Title 42 on May 23, but we can’t detain people because we have to social distance because of COVID. So is it over or not?” she asked. “They don’t have consistent policies here at all, and that’s a big problem.”

Capito said sponsors and supporters of the Public Health and Border Security Act hope to tack it onto an upcoming COVID-19 relief bill.

Also during the virtual press conference, Capito was asked about the continued high price of gasoline and what she thinks the federal government can do to mitigate the impact on consumers.

She claimed that Biden hasn’t attempted to properly address gasoline issues and is actually “exacerbating the problems” with certain policies that his administration has put forward.

“The first thing I’d do is unleash the power of American energy,” Capito said. “We can drill for more oil. We can refine more oil here, which would help contain the price and would also have much better security.

“They won’t certify pipelines. This administration is doing everything they can to keep any kind of fossil fuel from getting out of the ground, and that’s impacting our gasoline prices. …

“The other problem is our supply chain. We have hems and haws in our supply chain and real deficits in certain areas, and I think that is attributable in some part to energy prices. … I’m disappointed that it’s taken what I think are Band-Aid approaches to looking at price-gouging and realizing the price of the commodity is partially what drives this.”

Capito also noted her support for the availability of the overdose drug naloxone over-the-counter, something that she, Manchin and other federal legislators have urged.

“That would help families and communities face this,” Capito said. “There is no negative effect to taking Naloxone. In other words, if you’re not (having) an overdose and happened to take it, it doesn’t have an effect on you. There’s no danger there … so I say let’s have it over-the-counter and let’s save some lives.”