About that Russian oil

There’s a ton being written about this right now, but I thought this simple explainer from Tom Malinowski was useful. The Republicans want to bash Biden with the usual lies and propaganda on this subject and it’s important to remember that oil is a world market. So much of this talk, starting with our old friend Emperor Manchin, is just stupid.

Responsible members of Congress are trying to maintain bipartisan consensus on Ukraine.

But those who seek partisan advantage have a clear game plan right now:Tell Biden to stop Russian oil exports, while preparing to blame Biden for the inevitable rise in gas prices.

.@POTUS's sanctions on Russia are weak & inadequate. If we're going to sanction a tyrant like Putin, we must take actions that will knock him down. We spend roughly $50M on Russian oil each day. We must sanction Putin’s oil and gas exports & revive American energy independence.

— Rep. Mike Garcia (@RepMikeGarcia) February 28, 2022

Despite what you may have heard, US oil production is up, by some 5%, since President Biden took office. We are at capacity for LNG exports to Europe (till more LNG terminals are built). We are exporting oil AND importing (including from Russia) – this is how oil markets work.

I think we should stop importing Russian oil now. But if that’s all we do, others will buy it. So if we want Russia to make less money, we’d have to try to shut down their exports to everyone.

Here’s the harsh reality: Russia is the second largest oil producer and exporter in the world. You can’t take that much oil off the market overnight — no matter how much we drill at home — without an even bigger spike in gas prices in the United States.

You can be for the Keystone Pipeline. You can put hundreds of oil rigs off the Jersey shore (though I’l fight you) and lease all our public lands to drillers. But it would take years to ramp up our already record production to begin to make up for shutting down Russia.

If we really want to be serious about denying Putin oil $, count me in.

But Republicans & Democrats had then better be ready to explain to Americans TOGETHER what this will cost us and that the sacrifice is worth it.

Don’t demand an oil embargo & then politicize gas prices.

Meanwhile, Democrats should support doing what we can to increase oil production in the short term. But Republicans should acknowledge: the ONLY way to defeat Russian energy blackmail is to end our dependence on oil and make America the world’s clean energy superpower.

Originally tweeted by Tom Malinowski (@Malinowski) on March 1, 2022.