President Joe Biden remains open to banning the import of Russian oil and natural gas in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military campaign in Ukraine.
Biden briefly addressed the subject on Wednesday while departing the White House for Wisconsin, claiming that “nothing is off the table.”
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To date, Biden has imposed escalating rounds of sanctions on Russia’s oligarchs, banking system, and Putin himself, yet the administration and its allies have yet to touch Russia’s energy sector.
White House officials, and the president himself, have repeatedly claimed that the carve-outs for Russian oil were necessary for two reasons: limiting the economic burden placed by sanctions to Russia’s ruling class and not its everyday citizens and preventing further price increases at the gas pump for Americans. Gas costs have risen roughly 40% since Biden entered office.
Still, as Putin has escalated both his attacks on Kyiv and retaliatory threats against Western nations, a growing number of Republicans have urged Biden to ban all Russian oil imports.
“Just look at some of the steps that President Biden took since he’s been president that have given leverage to Vladimir Putin and put billions of dollars in his pocket to finance this war against Ukraine,” GOP Whip Steve Scalise said Tuesday.
“The United States of America, we are importing Russian energy,” House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Michael McCaul added at a press conference. “This needs to stop. We are funding Putin’s war machine.”
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The U.S. imported on average 405,000 barrels of Russian oil in December 2021, making up roughly 5% of all U.S. energy consumption for the month. That figure was down from 800,000 barrels per day in August.
