President Joe Biden suggested that Americans may be negatively impacted at the pump as a result of a sanctions package targeting Russia he unveiled Tuesday.
“As we respond, my administration is using every tool at our disposal to protect American businesses and consumers from rising prices at the pump,” the president remarked at the White House on Tuesday. “As I said last week, defending freedom will have costs for us as well and here at home. We need to be honest about that.”
“But as we do this, I’m going to take robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russian economy, not ours,” Biden continued. “We are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption. We are executing a plan in coordination with major oil-producing consumers and producers toward a collective investment to secure stability in global energy supplies.”
Biden didn’t elaborate on the plan to cut pump prices, but said he wanted to “limit the pain” to the American people.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation about how the president planned to work with oil producers to keep gasoline prices low.
During his remarks, Biden laid out a first round of sanctions his administration would immediately levy against Russia in response to the nation’s invasion of separatist-controlled territories in Ukraine Monday. The Department of the Treasury later detailed the sanctions which target several major Russian financial institutions and powerful elites close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Among the sanctions against the state-run Promsvyazbank Public Joint Stock Company, the Biden administration took action against multiple Russian tankers that transport crude oil, the Treasury Department said.
Meanwhile, the price of gasoline reached an average of $3.49 per gallon nationwide last week, its highest level since 2014, Energy Information Administration data showed. While the Biden administration has attempted to curb pump prices and opened an investigation into fossil fuel companies over price gouging, gasoline prices continue to skyrocket.
The price of oil, the largest determinant of gas prices, continued its steady march to $100 per barrel both in the U.S. and in Europe on Tuesday.
Between January 2021 and November 2021, Russia exported the second-largest amount of oil to the U.S., behind only Canada. Russia is also a key player in the global oil market and is Europe’s largest supplier.
Biden, though, has taken an aggressive anti-fossil fuel approach toward energy policy since taking office, nixing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ditching an oil drilling project in Alaska, staying silent on a court ruling that prohibited an offshore drilling lease in the Gulf of Mexico and making it harder for utilities to gain approval for natural gas projects.
The U.S. has approximately 38.2 billion barrels of crude oil reserves, according to the EIA.
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