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through our latest collection, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. there's something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. "the washington times" announcing that a deal that is supposedly coming down from lawmakers concerning russia oil, writing for "the washington times" saying the partisan action is forcing a crackdown on russian oil imports, it puts the white house in an uncomfortable position of following lawmakers' lead on foreign policy or engaging in a veto shutdown with democratic-run congress. the legislation which congress is expected to approve this week would mark a shift in domestic energy consumption away from russian oil as the u.s. looks to further punish the country economically. the proposal would take trade

negotiations with tariffs on products from russia and belarus. some of the thinking when it comes to oil and gas issues from members of congress via their twitter feeds, from the national resources committee, saying that doubling down on fossil fuels is a false solution. we can't let polluters scare us in a domestic drilling free-for-all that won't help the people of ukraine. senator lisa murkowski, according to reuters, 80% support a ban on imports as senator manchin and i have proposed, it's this simple. the vast majority of americans do not want their dollars. democrat congressman bill foster, i support banning russian oil imports to the united states. putin is betting that short-term higher gas prices will break our resolve to oppose his unjust war in ukraine. he will lose that bet. jackie on her twitter feed saying gas prices started skyrocketing long before putin invaded ukraine.

the crisis began when the biden administration shut down american-made energy production, ramped up regulations and killed good jobs. it's time to reverse course and unleash american energy. to those gas prices, which you've probably seen on the pump, but we go reported on in the papers today, "the wall street journal" offering a graphic of the average price, the national average as it currently stands $4.06 nationwide. $5.34 in california. $4.69 in hawaii. $4.59 in nevada. in oregon it's $4.51. washington state $4.44. alaska, $4.39. it goes on from there. the low is currently pennsylvania with $4.23 being that average. if you want to talk about the gas and oil price portion to what's been going on with russia and ukraine particularly the debate on capitol hill over these issues call us

202-748-8001. 202-748-8002. 202-748-8003. a topic at the press briefing from yesterday, here is the white house press secretary jen psaki responding about the white house's messaging to americans on high gas prices. >> what is the white house, what is the president's message to americans who are going to the gas station today and seeing prices so high? >> the president's message is that he is going to do everything he can, everything he can, to reduce the impact on the american people including the price of gas at the tank. what is also true is that because of the actions of president putin, because he invaded a sovereign country, that created instability in the markets. that is something the president talked about even before russia and president putin moved forward with their actions. but we have already taken steps. the president has already taken steps, historic release from the

petroleum reserve and clearly we will continue to have conversations with large oil producers and suppliers around the world about how to mitigate the impact. and consider domestic options as well. >> you said on friday the administration is looking to cut u.s. consumption of russian energy. when is the decision on that going to be made? >> i don't have a prediction of that for you at this point in time, but there is an active discussion. >> energy and gas prices, actions of russia in ukraine this is ronald in illinois starting us off, democrats' line. ronald, good morning. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. i'm 77 years old, a disabled vietnam veteran. i worked in an oil refinery for almost 25 years. people are being misguided in understanding the pipeline

issues. specifically the keystone pipeline. the keystone pipeline from canada that was supposed to go down to the gulf of mexico is sour crude. sour crude is crude that has a high amount of sulfur, sul fights in it. and that pipeline. the keystone pipeline was -- is being built to ship sour crude down to the gulf to be loaded on to tankers to go to other countries who have the capability in getting that sulfur out of the crude oil. >> so how does that background, or what you talk about, affect this debate over gas and oil issues with things going on in russia? how does it affect that?

>> caller: well, what's happening is the crude oil that comes from russia is sweet crude. and the country, our country, the refineries, the majority of them have facilities in refineries for sweet crude only. they're not set up to get the sulphites out of the crude oil like in south america, in europe, in other areas of the world. >> got you, ronald. got you. let's go to john in homerville, georgia. independent line. good morning. >> caller: good morning, c-span. it looks from news reports that i have followed that we have two sanctions that are working, one, the sanction that is are presently in place and one is a contemplated sanction of the

oil. biden has not yet decided what he wants to do there although it seems like from the two houses of congress there's the growing sentiment towards not buying oil from russia, whether it's crude, sweet or sour. but what are we going to do if we stop buying oil, we're still going to need oil. and where are we going to get it? we're going to get it from other dictators, despots and what have you. there has to be a better policy. >> that's john there in homerville, georgia. "the wall street journal" yesterday, if you saw it on its pages offered a chart as far as the share of u.s. monthly imports here to the united states of crude oil, petroleum products with most coming from

canada on a monthly basis. 51.3%. russian supplies a little under 8% with saudi arabia, colombia, ecuador, iraq and brazil following that including a category of all other countries. this is deandre independent line. >> caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, america. so it's very unfortunate where we find ourselves right now. we've seen this coming from a long way away starting with unilateral sanctions in 2014. the organization or a group or business that enables oil sales or oil business or whatever and

don't align with the global ambitions. and now we'll see where every country facing u.s. sanctions, they still have to continue and do their business. they're not just going to stop until they find another alternative, economic systems to where they're nonsusceptible to u.s. sanctions, where it will backfire on our economy and, for example, we sanctioned iran and venezuela the last five or six years trying to stop them. they continued to sell oil regardless of the sanctions.

now with this going on where we're going to see -- we're going to see the short-handed of the stick. god bless america, the american people, may the lord be with us all. >> that's deandre in florida. as of this morning cnbc reporting it was shell oil company apologizing for the purchase of oil from russia and pledging to stop that. it was on friday that shell purchased 100,000 metric tons of crude from russia. it was reportedly bought at a record discount with many firms shunning russian oil during the unprovoked invasion of ukraine by moscow and the purchase did not violate any western sanctions. the company faced heavy criticism for the purchase including from ukraine's foreign minister who has urged companies to cut all business ties with russia. it was the focus after tweet from senator bernie sanders saying that oil company revenue

since last year exxon up 57%, chevron up 84%, shell up 49% and bp up 45%. can't allow big oil companies to take advantage of the war in ukraine and make huge gas prices. we need a windfall profit tax. tom kloza tweets, today the highest price since july 24th of 2008. deregulationel reached $4.52 a gallon. both should break all time records this week. for context, when that happened the dow jones was 12.27 on july 24th, 1988. in louisiana, our republican line, this is shirley, hello. >> caller: good morning, c-span, good morning, america.

yes, as a concerned citizen, i can't even stretch my budget any farther than it is. for opening the pipeline and the discussions that go on like jen psaki, they don't know when, where, and how long it's going to last to keep the american people in chaos, confusion, and fighting. i'm for opening the pipeline. please, america, wake up and listen to what's going on. it's impacting our country. as far as shell purchasing all that oil, there goes our energy. keep our energy. why would we want to fuel a war? who is going to go fight that war? they definitely contact take the drug addicts. so who are they going to take to fight this war that eventually we're going to get into. >> okay. let's hear from willie and hyattsville, maryland, democrats

line. good morning. >> caller: yeah, this whole thing, it seems like an illusion. people are talking about the pipeline. i thought the pipeline was to export oil and not import oil. now, i'm an ex-soldier. i know things about combat and the difference between what goes on in politics. it seems like people are playing politics. it seems like we should stay out of the war and not even give them weapons. that's what we did with afghanistan, and we left weapons. as long as we keep giving people weapons and they get into the wrong hands, good guys, bad guys, you give them to the good guys, the bad guys somewhere will end up with them and it will turn around and backfire. >> what do you think about the conversation about higher gas prices and concerns about oil imports to the united states? >> well, the imports from russia is very little.

so it should not be affecting the gas price except for people just trying to make money off of it and jack up the price for profit. and this happens every time there's a conflict. >> that's willie in maryland. if you go to "the hill" this morning it talks about the efforts by democrats and republicans on capitol hill to pass their own form of sanction, democratic concerns over that. "the hill" story says economic reverberations of a proposed ban on russian oil and gas imports are fueling angst among democratic lawmakers over what to do with escalating gas prices. democratic and republican lawmakers are coalescing behind the proposal sponsored by senators joe manchin of west virginia and lisa murkowski of alaska to ban energy imports but some democrats worry it could boomerang on them if it leads to higher inflation, worrying that oil companies could use the ban

as an excuse to further increase gas prices and they'll wind up getting the blame. biden and his democratic allies don't want to open federal lands to oil and gas exploration. on our independent line, mike is next, somerville, massachusetts. >> caller: hey, good morning. i thought it would be a good time to call in and remind everybody that for at least my entire lifetime, over 30 years, the conservatives have been telling us that climate change isn't real and that alternative energy is some kind of whatever, communist/socialist grab or something. i want to send a big sarcastic thanks and say, hey, give yourself a pat on the back, because you are part of why we are here today talking about this, because this conservative wing here, you hear these people calling in and talking about the

pipeline. they don't know what they're talking about. we have a big problem where these are the things that people who have denied evolution, they told us the earth is flat, they told us the pandemic is a hoax. they don't exist in the same reality that most of the world lives in. and i don't know -- >> so do you think green energy as a definition to replace what we currently need as a country when it comes to oil and gas? >> my point is that had we started this conversation or had we acted on this conversation 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in this place. i mean, for an example, you know, during the obama years, they gave subsidies for solar panels. and over in mass, these solar panels, you can pay 60,000 bucks, get a federal subsidies. at the time massachusetts was offering a subsidy. over six years you break even. after that, you know, you can

run on solar power. you get so much energy that you get paid for it. and these are the kind of policies that would have helped us. >> okay. >> caller: we've had 30 years of people screaming about flat earth. >> you made that point, mike in massachusetts. let's hear from raymond in mississippi, democrats' line. hi. >> caller: hi, good morning. i was just thinking, you know, i was listening to some news on cnn about america was looking for oil, they've been talking about going back into venezuela and they was complaining about all that cash, they didn't want to do that. so i'm asking the question, since they're a poor country, can't we go in there, make a deal? that's my comment. >> okay, that's raymond in

mississippi. the topic of the story from "the washington post" yesterday, reporting that the biden white house inched closer monday to a modest rapprochement with oil-rich venezuela, a bitter know due to the oppressive policies of president knocks on. the potential thaw arrives. that's from "the washington post." the white house press secretary yesterday specifically talked about increased gas prices, some of you mentioning that this morning. here is a portion of that this morning. >> reporter: you guys are blaming putin for the increase in gas prices recently but weren't gas prices going up

anyway because of post-pandemic supply chain issues? >> well, i think there's no question that as we have seen, and outside analysts have conveyed this as well, the increase and the anticipated continued increase, which i think is what some of your colleagues were asking about, that that is a direct result of the invasion of ukraine. and there is there was an anticipation of that, that was factored in as gas prices have gone up. >> reporter: so you say you're going to do everything that you can to reduce the impact that high gas prices have on americans. we're asking other countries to think about maybe pumping more oil. why not just do it here? >> to be very clear, federal policies are not limiting the supplies of oil and gas -- let me finish -- let me finish -- peter. >> reporter: they've halted new oil and gas -- >> let me give you the facts here, i know that can be inconvenient, but i think they're important in this moment. to the contrary, we have been

clear that the short term supply must keep up with the demand. we and around the here, we're making the shift to a clean energy future. we're one of the largest producers of a strong oil and gas industry, we've produced oil and at record numbers. we will continue to produce oil. there are 9,000 drilling permits that are not being used. the suggestion that we are not allowing companies to drill is inaccurate. the suggestion that that is what is hindering or preventing gas prices to come down is inaccurate. >> a story from cbs just to show you the headline, according to estimates, of how much increased gas prices could cost an average american family, as they define it, $2,000 a year. you can go to cbs to read more of that story. from michigan, this is todd, independent line. >> caller: good morning. back in the '70s, it was all

about iran. then it was about opec. and then it was about reagan and the sandinistas. it's always some excuse to raise the price of gas, always. the bottom line is it's agreed and it's just sickening. and maybe putin is on the right track, maybe he should shoot off a few nukes, give everybody a wake-up call. >> let's go to john in telford, pennsylvania, republican line. >> caller: good morning, pedro. i think it's ridiculous, what's going on here with the gas prices. here in pennsylvania, it's gone up another ten cents overnight. and, you know, i seen that report with shell with buying it at a discount, selling it on the market at the highest place, and then sanders, he's complaining

about, well, they're making record profits. well, of course, we knew this, because it happened during the bush administrations. they were making more money in a quarter than some companies make in their history of being a company. so you know it's price gouging. what i don't understand is how joe biden can stop the production of oil here in the united states, continue to let russia provide europe with 45% of their energy, gas, and oil, and yesterday, the republicans had a vote on the senate floor to start up our drilling again and every democrat, every one of them voted no. so you know what it's all about. he wants these electric cars, he wants gas cars off the road, and it's a war on fuel and -- and the oil companies are happy because they're going to make record profits off this. >> okay, that's john in

pennsylvania. there's a story in "usa today" about gasoline suppliers and what they have to go through in order to actually raise prices. it says, from the story, on the other hand it will be a violation of antitrust laws for many gas retailers to collude and lift their prices at the same time. he says there have been over 100 investigations and lawsuits alleging such conspiracies in the gasoline market. according to verleger, they all flopped. gas retailers do have some leeway in how swiftly they raise or lower prices in response to movements in oil and wholesale gas prices.

that's tom kloza who you heard from earlier. ken in clearwater, florida, democrats' line. >> caller: hi, how are you this morning? >> good, how about yourself? >> caller: i'm disgusted. i think it's very simple. i believe in renewable energy and it's time for that to come but it's going to take years and years and years and years. in the meantime, i think it's so simple why we have as much oil or more than venezuela, start drilling again, start producing oil again, be an exporter of oil, use that export money for renewables. that's my opinion. >> from pat, pinehurst, north carolina, republican line. go ahead. >> caller: as to ukraine, putin

is guilty of war crimes. all countries and leaders need to call him out for the barbarian he is for bombing civilians. as to gas, biden would like to see -- i'm sorry. putin would like to see us use up our reserves. so we rely totally on him for fuel. biden closed the pipeline in a day. he can reopen in a day and stop blaming everything on the pandemic which was created by fauci. >> that's pat in north carolina. one of the other things happening on capitol hill, aside from this debate on gas imports when it comes to legislation to keep the federal government open, "cq" claiming congress seeks to set up a vote in the

chamber wednesday. that end of week deadline is when stopgap funding expires. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle appear confident that a fourth continuing resolution won't be necessary to keep the government funded. this story adding from "cq" that lawmakers seem to be in agreement in putting $12 billion in supplemental funds for military, humanitarian, and economic aid to ukraine and nato allies. from buffalo, new york, democrats' line, this is eric. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. what's not being discussed is the profits the oil companies are making. just read an article, they made $100 billion in profits and most of that went to stock buybacks. also what about all the uncapped wells that aren't being -- or the capped wells that aren't being utilized? they just want to drill more, drill more. these people don't understand that the federal land is the

american people's land and we're leasing it out to corporations to drill. it all comes down to greed and money. there's a lot of factors that go into everything, but opec started raising oil prices two months ago. nobody said a word. saudi arabia has been quiet about this whole matter. what's going on there? there's a lot of avenues that can be taken that aren't being discussed. i don't know, that's my point. >> one more call, roberto in houston, texas, you are on the independent line. go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. we in houston are very concerned because i believe -- of course i can't prove it -- that the russians' next step may be a surprise attack on houston because we're the energy capital of the world, we keep insisting. that would be an intelligent move. they're not going to announce it. i would like you to consider

this, that c-span ask this question for the future. did nato begin this crisis? because if russian troops were stationed in canada and mexico, do you think we, the united states, would be very upset? so let's really think about this broad term. thank you so much. >> before you go, what's the average price there in houston? >> caller: $4.10. and the thing is, that's really making it different this time, our sympathy for -- our compassion for the ukraine people because in yesterday's "the new york times," the front page, it showed two bodies covered up and it said -- and the suitcase, they were trying to flee, and they were killed. this is the worst part for me, the child was also killed. so here was a couple that was trying to escape from danger in ukraine and they were killed as they were trying to escape. that was very, very horrible. thank you.

>> that's roberto in texas. two legislators will be joining us through the course of the day. first up, representative dan meuser, republican of pennsylvania, on the house foreign affairs committee. later in the program we'll hear from democratic congressman andy levin of michigan, those conversations coming up on "washington journal." the russian military has gun a brutal assault on the people of ukraine, without provocation, without justification. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of russia's invasion of ukraine, bringing you the latest from the president, white house officials, the pentagon, the state department, as well as congress. we have international

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♪♪ "washington journal" continues. >> this is representative dan meuser, republican of pennsylvania, members of the foreign affairs committee. thank you for giving us your time today. >> great to be with you, thank you. >> where are you on this reported deal on banning russian imports? >> the idea that we spend $2 billion a month and we send to putin's government, to putin himself, on oil that we could be creating and drilling for here in the united states, is upside

down and backwards logic and policy. makes absolutely no sense. under president trump 14 months ago, we were energy independent, on our way to becoming energy dominant as we should be with the reserves that we have. we are also the cleanest driller and developer of such energy. so the idea that we are buying 8%, 7.5%, $2 billion a month from putin, a tyrant, causing all kinds of -- creating all kinds of abuses and atrocities in the ukraine, in a completely outrageous invasion, is foolish. and it needs to stop. and i think it will. zelenskyy, president zelenskyy, asked for that on a recent call, among other things. and we should certainly appreciate the fact, being energy independent is a national

security issue. the biden administration has no understanding of this and refuses to accept this fact. umm, so we've lost leverage. now, on the same note, the -- europe is receiving 40% of its -- of its energy from russia. they put themselves in a terrible position. and they won't be able to wean off as quickly. we need to stop purchasing oil from russia. the private sector has already stepped up, exxon, shell, other u.s. oil companies have stopped purchasing russian oil since the invasion took place. >> as far as if this legislation goes through and these bans go into effect, already a concern about gas prices, you may have heard some of the calls from the previous segment. what would be your message to not only those you represent but the public at large?

>> you know what, call the biden white house and tell them to start drilling domestically, because it's an outrage. gas prices were $3.75 before the invasion took place. now of course they're spiking to $4.17. the highest ever, higher than jimmy carter, congratulations, president biden. so we're in dire straits because of this. the american people are dealing with this sort of inflation. oil prices going up affect manufacturers of plastics within my district, affect our farmers. it would be nice if the biden administration would get into the real world for a few minutes and not be so out of touch as to what the needs are. we're all for transitioning towards carbon-free energies. natural gas is the best way to make such a transition. this is serious stuff. unfortunately we don't have a serious administration. >> if it's 8% or so that we get monthly from russia and this legislation goes into effect, is

the impact symbolic as far as the act is concerned or are there real impacts from not buying russian oil? >> we should make up for it by drilling domestically, as i've stated, or doing our best to get more imports from canada, a friendly country. if the keystone pipeline was put back into place, that would cover more than the energy that we bring in from russia. the keystone pipeline alone would bring in more oil than we import currently from russia. meanwhile the biden administration, another upside down and backwards policy, they're in venezuela talking to a ruthless socialist dictator who seized our assets, by the way, years back, if they will please sell us some oil. look, i'm -- we've got to be constructive critics here in congress and in the house. but this is kind of outrageous. as you can probably tell by my

tone, these, umm, uh, these policy, uh, decisions, can happen very shortly and we can correct the situation. 30 seconds of joe biden and his administration speaking favorably about domestic energy production and the plan, even if it takes six months or seven months, will lower the price of gasoline by -- by -- by 20 cents overnight because so much of this is based upon futures. >> our guest is with us until 8:00. if you want to ask him questions,. you can text us thoughts. representative meuser, this idea of energy independence, if we're still getting our oil and canada and other sources, how do you define energy independence in light of that? >> again, we were energy independent.

30% of our imports come from canada which works out, it's a very friendly ally to us, however, again, 14 months ago, no, we were gaining all of our energy resources from our own energy resources. and that created a lot of things. it was a national security issue. it kept the price of gasoline very stable. gasoline has a lot to do with inflation. we see soaring inflation, highest levels, again. so it creates that stability, it gives us national security. and when geopolitical events occur, we don't see these spikes that occur. during president trump's time, because we were in office, we were energy independent. there were world issues that were taking place. iran was doing its terrible deeds. there were terrorist acts, there are other things taking place, isis was rearing its rotten head, we had a syrian issue. but you didn't see spikes in

gasoline as you would if we were not energy independent. >> as far as the omnibus bill and keeping the federal government funded, that's expected to take place or at least action is expected to take place by friday. where are you as far as supporting that? >> well, we've got to see the text. uh, you know, we haven't seen the omnibus, uh, appropriations bill. i do look forward to being supportive. we need to analyze it. i understand many positive developments have occurred through our republican appropriators on the committee over the last couple of days that the senate is being reflective of. so i'm, uh, i'm, uh, optimistic, uh, but we shall see. as you stated earlier, the deadline is the 11th. because the democrat leadership that controls the senate, controls the house, and controls the white house, has passed three crs, continuing resolutions over the last year or so, umm, so they can't even,

you know, come up, uh, with a budget, but now we seem as if we are there, and, umm, i'm -- i'm -- hopefully i can support it, hopefully there's no poison pills in it that, uh, make it impossible or -- or forget about impossible for me to vote for it, that make it not in the aggregate interests of the vast majority of americans. that's pretty much my litmus test. is it in the interests of, of -- uh, america's, uh, strength economically and national security, uh, and, you know, frankly from a public safety, law and order standpoint. >> what poison pills, what would be something that would raise a red flag for you? >> well, uh, in the past, when we saw the rescue act, we saw the compete act and things of that nature, we had -- we had amnesty put in there, we had billions and billions of dollars going to, uh, the u.n. for a slush fund, umm, we -- we had

additional subsidies for wishful green energy projects. you know, as long as there's nothing glaring and trust me, it's never perfect, but i'm not in the business of making good the enemy of perfect, right? i mean, if it's -- if it's close to -- uh, if it's -- overall within the interests of our, uh, american economy, and our national security, uh, i'm going to be favorable to it. >> a viewer from our twitter feed this morning asks the question, as far as the oil and gas leasing i believe it was in the united states, what guarantees do you have that the oil companies would lower gas prices with implementation of these new leases? >> well, it's market -- it's -- it's supply and demand. so if they're opening up -- and there's more investment taking place in our domestic energy, and that is understood, uh, by the institutional investors and

others, that there won't be this, frankly, assault on our domestic energy industry, that's a very encouraging prospect. and the futures markets would -- uh, would reduce the price of a barrel of oil. and, you know, that's taking place right now, right? the level of permits that the biden administration has issued, my understanding is they haven't issued one permit since being in office, the biden administration. we of course have -- he did his executive order prohibiting any development, any new development on federal lands. okay. but then he cancels the keystone pipeline and we basically have a, umm, a situation where the administration is, to an extent, threatening and putting all kinds of requirements on our banks, uh, to wind -- wind back the level of -- of business and investments that they make within the fossil fuel industry.

that's pretty outrageous and frankly, it is taking place. so those, uh, those inhibitors to our domestic energy need to be rolled back. >> here is henry in michigan, democrats line, for our guest, representative dan meuser, republican of pennsylvania. >> caller: dan is another russian/putin/trump agent spreading misinformation. jen psaki just told us that there are already permits for wells that the oil companies are refusing to drill in. they are already operating at full capacity levels. the said of the s&p says the united states is now a net exporter, exporter of oil. dan, you're such a liar. and for the russian -- hey, listen, enough, i'm not going to sit here and be called a liar, here, in all due respect, and

i'm not going to be call you a little naive to be listening to jen psaki all the time. those 9,000 wells existed well before oil was at $45 a barrel. >> hold on. caller, go ahead, finish up your comment or question, please. >> caller: okay. now, i have another take on this putin and ukraine thing. look at the timing of this. with the truckers going to dc, with the insurrectionists planning another insurrection, this time an armed insurrection, putin and trump have gotten together and are plotting to give time to these -- >> caller, where do you base that assertion on? >> you know, words versus actions, right? when president trump was over in europe, he schooled the europeans, the eu, stating how could you put yourself in such

jeopardy of purchasing oil from russia in that capacity, putting yourself in such a position of weakness, should putin weaponize his energy resources. and let's face it, a country can't operate without its energy. so along with that, president trump on his way to go visit putin, announced then an executive order to continue the shutdown or to keep the shutdown of nord stream 2, okay? that's not exactly somebody looking for a friend. before he went and visited with putin, right before, right as his plane was taking off, he said we're shutting down nord stream 2 which -- which putin invested billions in and was going to receive billions in return. okay? that set the stage of what their negotiation was going to be like. that's how you deal from strength. the united states is 15 times larger gdp than russia, okay? so the united states, we need to be dealing from strength. putin seems to have the -- the,

umm, not the cards, but at least the will to -- to deal from strength. and we've -- we've -- uh, haven't done that with afghanistan. we've made, uh, significant mistakes there. and we made significant mistakes, "we" meaning the biden administration, leading up to, uh, the, uh, the surrounding, uh, and the invasion which took place, of the ukraine. i mean, this has been going on for months, since august. it's not monday morning quarterbacking. many of us have stated to the biden administration, to secretary of defense austin, what are being done, are we fortifying the ukraines, zelenskyy has been asking for assistance ever since. we didn't. do you think we were calling putin's bluff? >> representative, let me roll in another call, this is from

sarasota, independent line, go ahead. >> caller: good morning, congressman. i'll try to sound a little more sane than that last caller. i think what we need to do is like you said, open up the energy sector completely and i'm hoping for a veto-proof majority come november with the gop. i would ask for $2 a gallon ask, for 87 octane, and put that into law along with diesel for the truckers, then they can sell whatever we export but do us first. this global market stuff has proven to be detrimental to america's national security. i think we just need to take care of ourselves first, if there's something else to sell after that, fine. but if our economy was booming then we would have the revenues from taxes and people working to be able to get the american strength back to where it used to be and just override everything biden done if it's at all possible. >> okay. that's the nick in florida. >> you know, biden's policies are inverted to what actually

works. if we take on -- uh -- a, uh, aggressive approach towards drilling and accessing our energy resources, in pennsylvania we have the fourth largest reserve of natural gas in the world. new york state actually has one of the top, that can fuel all of the united states for the next 70 years. we've got these reserves. we've got access to oil. we need to develop the pipelines. we need to set a plan on how we're going to utilize our current energy natural resources in the most pollutant-free manner, carbon-free manner known on earth so as it's clear that drilling oil here is far cleaner than drilling in venezuela or russia or saudi arabia or iran. we're actually talking to iran, the center of terrorism, about purchasing oil from iran. somebody's going to tell me that's not an inverted, upside

down and backwards policy, rather than drilling here, safely, creating jobs, lowering the price of oil, creating national security, energy independence, doing it in the most pollutant-free manner possible, we're going to purchase from iran, a country that funds terrorism throughout the world, okay, that is calling for the annihilation of israel, and they would call for the annihilation of the united states if they thought they could actually do it, that's what this biden administration is working on? so yeah, yeah, we need a serious plan that puts country first and has -- looking out for america's interests for the short term and the long term and energy as a big part. >> this is kenneth from wilmington, delaware, democrats' line. >> caller: hi, representative, my name is kenneth.

the domestic oil supply could easily be supplied with the 33,000 oil wells that are in the gulf of mexico. it's a simple fact that american oil companies have 33,000 wells in the gulf of mexico. also, in relation to a domestic carbon-free energy, we have a nuclear reactor under construction in wyoming that could use 700,000 metric tons of nuclear west in paducah, kentucky. all it has to be is be reprocessed, the reactor does not produce fissile material. i don't understand why our government isn't seizing upon

these energy resources. >> well, you know, first, with the wells, back to the wells, look, we're at over $100 barrel of oil price. wouldn't it be logical that these companies if they were sitting on these wells will now access them and start, uh, bringing, uh, oil reserves from there, uh, and then if the conspiracy that's being stated is true, then, you know, shut it down when -- when prices got low, because it's -- with the price of oil right now, 140, $147, sky high, making, you know, the days of jimmy carter look like the good old days. so -- so, you know, let's just, you know, look at -- we're in a -- we're in a supply and demand free market economy. companies are going to invest where they can get a return. and as long as it's not crazy regulations that add to those costs and to the access, which actually do exist, but to an

extent they figure it out. but if there's no pipelines, if there's no other -- if there's not refinery capacity, things of that nature, then they're -- they're -- they're not going to drill. but on the nuclear end, sure, i -- i -- i agree with you. we should have a long term energy plan and nuclear should certainly be a, uh, a part of that. i would love to see a ten-year energy plan or even 15-year plan. to be honest with you, i was in business for close to 25 years and, boy, we didn't start a day, certainly didn't start a month or a quarter or a year without a plan, a vision, a plan, and then the team executes. you know, you don't -- you certainly don't see this out of this white house. umm, and, you know, i go back to the trump administration, we knew what their plan was. we knew what the priorities were and what the plan was to strengthen our economy, strengthen our national

security, secure people with their freedoms, and, umm, uh, and, uh, be, uh, the united states of america on the world stage. >> representative, you talk a lot about supply and demand. what would you support as reducing demand for oil in the united states and oil supplies? >> well, that's -- that's going to happen over a transitionary time period. you know, yesterday, i think it was, kamala harris and pete buttigieg said, everybody go buy an electric car. that's really, umm, you know, naive, and out of touch, and, you know, first of all, most electric cars are pretty expensive, secondly, 97% of american has -- has gasoline-driven cars. and so it's really -- the charging stations aren't there. most electric cars only go about, what, about 250 miles on a charge. by the way, those charging stations are powered by coal plants and oil plants and

nuclear plants, by the way, so it's -- it's -- it's little -- uh, they're not appreciating the larger picture here of, uh, of evs. i got nothing against evs. who would? we've got nothing against cleaner energy. we've got to do it in an economically feasible way. we can't do it in a manner that weakens the united states, weakens our allies and gives strength to clear adversaries, not just adversaries, how about -- how about, umm, tyrannical, brutal dictatorship-style, umm, leaders such as putin and, you know, uh, china, uh, the ccp isn't exactly a, uh, a bastion of -- of -- of human rights. right? genocide is taking place there.

putin is murdering at will in the ukraine, okay? umm, i mean, we got a leader in the ukraine, zelenskyy, was offered a ride by the biden white house to get out, all right? he said, i want bullets, i don't need a ride, umm, i mean, they're -- they're fighting for freedom. putin is fighting against freedom. and -- and probably that's the most -- perhaps the most important thing, that's what putin fears most, people having freedom. >> let's hear from mark in st. charleston, missouri, independent line. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. first of all, congressman, i want you to know that i agree with just about everything you're saying, it's really unbelievable what's going on. i would like you to comment on the economy under this biden administration. the way that i see what's going on, i look at this inflation, we haven't seen this in over 40 years. our gas prices are going through

the roof. in california i'm seeing prices of 7 and $8 a gallon. our food prices have just gone up tremendously because of the inflation and our goods as well. our open borders, which is unbelievable, we've got millions of people crossing our border, we have terrorists coming into our country, and they don't even count all the ones that get away. and not only that, but all of the fentanyl that is coming in and killing hundreds of thousands of united states citizens and the biden administration just allows it to happen. it seems as though to me he walks around a little bit incoherent, does not take questions, uh, from people, won't answer them, and -- and as well as the afghanistan debacle, the withdrawal there. >> okay, caller, let me stop you there, you're putting a lot there. the point about the economy, if you want to respond to that, representative, and factor in the jobs report from last week,

678,000 jobs created. >> first of all, you didn't hear any of what the gentleman brought up in the president's state of the union. he referenced the border once and jumped to the dream act which most would support if we had border security, security first. so it was really wasn't a state of the union, it was a state of denial throughout it. but look, related -- related our economy and what needs to be done, we need to have a vision, set a goal for the united states to be the most competitive place in the world to run a business, to sustain a business, to grow a business, and to start a business. and that comes through, uh, taxes, regulations, energy independence, so we have stability there, umm, the right permit processing initiatives, you know, we have a fourth branch of government, it's known as the bureaucracy, at the state

level and the federal level. those tens of thousands of employees within those need to get on board with helping being on the side of job creators and -- and -- and all americans and not thinking their job is to -- is to inhibit and -- and give them tassels, frankly. that's a system that can be better corrected on the state level. so we also need, through -- through -- through government to assist in the areas where we have lost specific industries to china, frankly, when it comes to the ingredients in pharmaceuticals or pharmaceuticals as a whole. certainly in microchips, in semiconductors, uh, there's a bill, uh, called the, umm -- excuse me -- chips usa that i'm very favorable to -- sorry --

chips usa. it will help us develop more semiconductor businesses within -- within the united states. and some of the large semiconductor companies are getting it, umm, and -- and they're willing to -- really out of patriotism take some of the added costs of doing business in the united states and they're building here in the u.s. so a lot of these corporations are stepping up in a, you know, frankly, a patriotic manner. intel, for instance, and others. >> is that last report an encouraging trend for you? >> first of all, it was terrific, i was very happy to see it, it was three times what even the biden administration thought was going to come out. i will tell you on the same note that a lot of the entitlements and extras and supplements that were created during covid and during the, uh, rescue plan, uh, that the biden administration

thought was a wonderful thing to do, spend another $2 trillion of the taxpayers' money, most of those extra benefits ended at the end of, uh, 2021. so january, i think, a lot of people, not all, 5%, 6%, is enough to change the unemployment and create a higher level of -- of employed, umm, and bring people back to our workforce. and that's probably what it was, about 5% of those who could afford not to work came back to work and -- and i think it's pretty clear what happened there. and -- and that should -- that should continue. >> okay. one more quick call from john in baldwin, maryland, democrats' line. go ahead, john. >> caller: hi, representative, i just wanted to point out a couple of misrepresentations that you've made. but there's many, it's unbelievable. but you talked about opening up

the keystone pipeline and pumping the oil again. the keystone pipeline is only 10% complete and it wasn't pumping any oil. and the tar sands oil that is up in canada is coming through by rail. so that's a misrepresentation. >> it will bring in 100,000 barrels a day, so i don't know what's a misrepresentation. >> congressman, let him finish his thought, please. >> sure. >> caller: you've been talking a lot, congressman, let me just say something. the other misrepresentation is, you're talking about stopping the oil leases. there are 7,000 oil leases currently held by the oil companies that they are not pumping oil. they are making record profits. they're refusing to pump oil on the leases that they have. and that is why that's what's going on there. you're either misrepresenting -- >> caller, thank you, we'll -- >> i certainly would never, and

i promise anyone this, okay, republican, democrat, i would never deliberately misrepresent. there's a chance i could be wrong on occasion. but sir, if you're pleased with the biden administration's handling of our energy policy, well, then, you know, good for you, umm, i am not. i don't like that we have $4.17 or whatever it is for a gallon of regular gas. i think it's highly detrimental to american families. i don't like that russia has us over a barrel, so to speak. and -- and has europe. i don't like that we could be creating our own energy here, far cleaner, by the way. and create many more jobs. i don't like that the heating oil in someone's home, including natural gas, is up two or even three times, okay? again, diminishing the

disposable income of families in my district. i'm going to not only voice, but work for legislation that corrects that. >> we have only a minute, but i wanted to ask you about the supreme court decision to let the reworked congressional map in pennsylvania stand. >> it's more than just disappointing. uh, we have a legislative process in pennsylvania as per our constitution on how a congressional district map should be derived and it wasn't followed. umm, and it went to the supreme court, they've done this once before, the state supreme court, that is, they drew up their own map, okay? which is not favorable to republicans, as you would imagine since the governor is a democrat as well as the supreme court and pennsylvania tends to be very political and happens to be democrat. so what's done is done, okay? i won't say it was a, uh, a terrible map in the end,

although -- although -- let me even retract that, yeah, in many ways it was, it was worse than it was positive. in my district i retained 70% of my district but i have to tell you, that's no consolation when we lose a fabulous republican member of, umm, of the u.s. house who is a friend and colleague of mine. so no consolation there whatever. it's wrong. the constitution matters. not only does it matter, it should be followed in a very strict way, both state constitutions and u.s. constitutions and if it is to be changed, it needs to be done by a referendum by the people. so, umm, yeah, uh, when you see something like that happen, uh, it diminishes trust in our government system because the rule book, i.e. the constitution, is what we must be able to rely upon for the rules of government and for our

individual freedoms. >> representative dan meuser, republican of pennsylvania, thanks for your time today. >> thank you. >> we'll continue on for the next phone segment, taking a look at the question we started this morning, particularly your thoughts on gas prices, oil prices, oil supplies, all of those topics as related to what's going on in russia and ukraine or the invasion of ukraine by russia. 202-748-8000 for democrats, 202-748-8001 for republicans, and for independents, 202-748-8002. we'll take those calls when we continue. the russian military has gun a brutal assault on the people of ukraine. without provocation, without justification, without necessity. this is a premeditated attacked. >> c-span has unfiltered

coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine, bringing you the latest from the president and other white house officials. the pentagon and the state department as well as congress. we also have international perspectives from the united nations and statements from foreign leaders. all on the c-span networks. online on c-span.org. or on the free c-span now mobile video app. now available for preorder in the c-span shop, c-span's 2022 congressional directory. go there today to order a copy of the congressional directory. this compact, spiral-bound book is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of congress including bios and committee assignments. also contact information for state governors and the biden administration cabinet. preorder your copy today at c-spanshop.org or scan the code with your smartphone. every c-span shop purchase helps

support c-span's nonprofit operation. ♪♪ "washington journal" continues. >> the associated press takes a look at what happens if the u.s. acts alone in banning imports of russian oil to the united states. in their story it says, if the u.s. alone were to ban those imports, the impact on moscow would likely be minimal. the united states imports a small share of russia's oil

exports, doesn't buy any of russia's natural gas. the united states imports 100,000 barrels a day from russia. last year roughly 8% of u.s. imports of oil and petroleum products came from russia. the u.s. could replace russian crude with imports from saudi arabia or the united states arab emirates. such a step, quote, would introduce massive inefficiency in the market, which would escalate prices. that's according to the senior vice president and analyst. you can read more about that from the associated press. one of the people talking about russian oil imports on the senate floor yesterday, republican senator from ohio, rob portman, calling on the biden administration to stop those imports. here is a portion from yesterday. >> here in congress, we can do more to tighten the sanctions. we can do more to provide more military assistance to ukraine. there is bipartisan agreement on

so much of this, including the need to cut off the funding that is going to the putin economy and its war machine. one example of this but one important one is not to buy russian oil and send blood money to russia. why would we be importing russian oil? sending russia 40, $50 million a day, that makes no sense. let's use our natural resources here in north america. we have the resources here. we should not be dependent on russian oil. we should not be sending them this blood money. by the way, there's bipartisan agreement on this. last week i joined legislation with republicans and democrats alike, equal number, with senator murkowski and senator manchin, to do just that. >> "the new york times" taking a look at prices of regular gasoline on monday in several states, $5.34 in california, massachusetts, $4.16.

the national average at $4.07. $3.96 in idaho. texas the lowest with $3.76 as far as the average for gasoline. for the next 20 minutes or so, your thoughts on this topic, particularly when it comes to gas and oil prices in light of what's going on overseas. tracy in texas, republican line, you're up first. go ahead. >> caller: hi. the first thing i wanted to do was ask about the united nations and what they can a do to take away russia's voting rights for a temporary or set amount of time for not listening to the charter's rules or anything, they broke every single one, i read them all. and then i found out because they're permanent, they would have to veto the whole united nations. so i'm just wondering, in 1940, they really wrote a bad rule

there, because russia can actually veto the thing about them getting the sanction. so you can't really do too much with that. then my other question is, are the oil companies still storing oil because the price of gas is too low for them to actually put it on the market? >> okay. greg in chattanooga, tennessee, independent line, hello. >> caller: i was just trying to catch on the gas prices being so high. and the fact that a lot of the news hosts are really doing us a disservice because they're padding the democrats' way of looking at things and not the republicans but, uh, did you hear about biden who -- he's in the hospital or something, they said, he couldn't stop putin. >> i don't know what you're talking about. what are you talking?

he hung up. let's go to david in st. peterberg, florida, democrats' line. >> caller: how are you i'm just going to call and i wanted to let you know, i saw joe manchin the other day and he summed it all up. until this administration starts working for the american people, you know, it's like joe manchin was saying, it seems like everything the biden administration does is just detrimental to us and they don't see the damage it's doing, you know, they feel like $4 a gallon isn't even harmful, even five, $6, you know, they make really good money but it hurts the middle, you know, guys like me. i think we should stop any kind of oil, you know, buying oil

from putin. that's just a no-brainer but he just won't -- anything that is good for america, biden's against. and -- >> wait a minute, david, you're calling on democrats line, i just want to assure that you're a democrat. >> caller: i am a democrat, but joe manchin -- he was on the old chris wallace show. >> okay, jennifer jacobs reporting from her twitter feed, u.s. announcement forth coming that the u.s. is going to ban imports on russian oil according to sources. a white house announcement is expected as soon as today. so look and stay close to c-span for more on that. republican line, daniel, stanford texas, go ahead. >> okay, let's talk about the gas prices.

for four years, we had gas prices under $2 a gallon. for the past year and a half it's been steadily climbing up. it's up to five, $6 a gallon. okay. i live on social security. okay i pay my bills, lucky if i got 40 or $50 left, but it's $100 to fill up my truck, i won't have nothing left. >> that's daniel in texas, new york times, part of the reporting on the gas aspect what's been going on the last couple days, even before russia invaded ukraine, rapidly rising gas prices contributing to the largest inflation in 40 years, including not just gasoline but home heating and electricity as well, contributed to total increase of consumer price index over 12 months ending in january, recent jump in prices will only make it worse, the factset expects the report the

labor department will release thursday, shows consumer prices rose.7% last month, up 7.9% over the past year, in march will top 8% since the first time since 1982. brian, democrats line, new york. >> caller: thanks, pedro. yeah, to the question of gas prices as it relates to the current state of the world and, you know, the one thing that i keep hearing over and over again is like our politicians that seem to be in charge of all this, and yet we fail to realize, you know, how corporations have a huge control over the supply and demand of oil in this country, and we've even heard on this show, i mean people talk about drill, baby, drill, well, there's thousands and thousands of unused permits

they don't need right now because it's not in in their best interest to drill more, it's to raise prices what they already have. in 2020, they realized how little we were actually consuming at the time, due to the pandemic and due to, you know, other factors they keep people off the road and see people staying home, gas prices were all-time low, and they didn't need to increase supply then, so now they're basically gouging us and blaming it on politicians. nothing politicians can do in this sense but we got to wake up to the reality that it's not all one person that holds the blame here and we got to hold these companies more accountable, one way or another. >> okay, independent line, john in alabama, hello.

>> caller: good morning, paid , pedro, i guess previous caller stole my thunder but i had the same thing, the previous guy that represented pennsylvania, you point blank asked him about so-called energy independence and he basically said 14 months ago americans were reducing all the energy we use. it's a, he's a liar, outright lie, been importing 20 million barrels of oil around the day, everyday around the world for 14 years. he talked about where's supply and demand, supply and demand isn't driven by patriotism, it's driven by profits. . it's a completely money motivated process to sit on because they're making money. they have a profit margin to

keep oil prices high. they can tap into the strategic oil reserve, whatever, it won't make a difference because they're sitting on it. last week, all oil isn't made equal. just because we have oil we can drill doesn't mean it's suited for making gas. different types of oil have different purposes so it's not as cut and dry as we need to draw more oil, yeah we can drill a lot of oil but it's not the best for in this case, making gasoline or some making plastic or whatever it may be. so i think it's incumbent upon people to pay attention and not let people come on there and just lie to them even when they say one thing, oh he wasn't honest at all. >> that's john in alabama on our independent line here. on oil imports, reportedly by the white house, couple other things to watch out for on our network today, related topics,

security threats on u.s. and allies, that's the topic of the house permanent select committee on intelligence, annual report taking a look at these threats you can see live 10:00 eastern c-span 3, c-span.org and full coverage at c-span now, also the response to russian invasion of uk under secretary of state victoria newland, and u.s. update on international response, you can see the foreign relations community 3:00, on c-span 3, our c-span app as well also looking at president biden to travel today to talk in texas on the issue of burn pits, highlighting his state of the union address, a lot happening in light of also the tweet concerning the announcement, stay close to our website for that. in georgia, riverdale democrats line this is wallace. >> caller: good morning, pedro,

thank you for taking my call. yes, pedro, if you could, could you schedule an individual to come on and talk about the eia? this will answer many of the questions in regards to petroleum and other liquids the united states imports and produces. >> that's the energy information agency. >> caller: yes, it is, you can go online american citizens and oil these statistics on oil prices, different countries we import and export. >> what did you learn specifically from that website? >> caller: prices, gasoline from 1920 all the way up to today. you could see the statistics of every president that's been in office and how the prices of

fuel, liquidation have been produced under each presidency from this time period. if you look closely, you'll notice that every time a republican president comes into office, we produce less oil. >> okay. let's hear from willy in cincinnati ohio, independent line. >> caller: yeah, do you hear me? okay, pedro, i got one, maybe two issues here. can you get honest republican to come on and speak the truth, because you allow them to gaslight a whole lot of information and you don't cross examine these guys and makes people think biden ain't trying to do the right thing, only a republican can do the right thing, and for gas prices, that's nothing but profit.

pure profit. it goes up in anticipation of a crisis. it doesn't go down when a crisis comes about. they go up to meet the demand and they can't even justify the demand, but they can justify the profit. so if you ask the oil companies who are fighting to pad their pockets right now because the electric cars are a threat to them and you got these republicans coming in who would back putin and they know that. >> okay, mike in north carolina, republican line. >> caller: hello, sir, i got a few things but i'll make it really quick. like the gentleman just said, how about the gas jumps 10 cents a gallon in a day, instead of two cent how about they reduce it the 10 cent, and the government officials flying

every, governor from texas, that takes a lot of fuel. how about they stop flipping their own bill. >> many administrations have used those same types of transports for presidents and public officials. >> caller: correct i'm not saying democrat or republican but how about these senators and presidents start flipping their own gas bill. >> okay to kim in edgewater florida, democrats line. >> caller: good morning, pedro, thank you for taking my call. one thing i have not heard mentioned and i may have missed it is the fuel efficiency of cars. several years ago, and i'm not sure who was in office at the time, we began producing in this country cars that got 40 plus miles per gallon. somewhere along the line, gas got cheap, the manufacturers began building these big suvs and giant trucks and of course

people are going to buy what's available. so with the small cars going out of fashion so to speak, we now have very inefficient cars in this country. granted we can purchase electric but there's quite a few people who cannot afford a brand new electric car and there's few used electric cars on the market so i would love to have someone come on and talk about that a little bit and the gentleman you had on earlier mentioned we import 7% of our fuel. the figure i heard was third but, 3%, i'm sorry, but no matter what the percentage is, i believe that just by being more efficient and cutting back instead of whining, drive a little bit less, if everyone pitched in and attempted to do that, we could make a huge difference in this country. >> from lee in mulberry,

tennessee, independent line. >> caller: yes, i would just like to remind folks of the all reserves from alabama through mississippi into northern louisiana, biden's not stopping the drilling in those areas and they're not being used. what would have been wrong with building a refinery instead of a pipeline and that's all i've got to say. >> okay, one more call. this is going to be from ronald in troy, north carolina, republican line. ronald in north carolina, hello? >> caller: hello? >> you're on, go ahead please. >> caller: okay, i've called in to talk about putin the way he's acting. he's playing monopoly with the

world and chess with our president and our president, he's playing chess with him, he scared him, he, what they feared donald trump would do. and donald trump had putin scared. and he was scared, too, but you see what's going on. that's my opinion. >> that's ronald in north carolina, up next, we'll hear from another legislature about the themes we've been talking about today, this is congressman andy levin of michigan. we'll talk about the latest of ukraine and energy prices as well, that conversation when we return. the russian military has begun a brutal assault on the people of ukraine, without provocation, without justification, without necessity, this is a premeditated attack. >> c-span has unfiltered

coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine, bringing you the latest from the president and other white house officials, the pentagon and the state department, as well as congress. we also have international perspectives from the uniques and statements from foreign leaders, all on c-span networks, online, at c-span.org or the c-span now mobile video app. >> now available for pre-order in the shop, c-span's 2022 congressional directorate, your guide to the federal government with information on every member of congress. also, contact information for state governors and the biden administration cabinet. preorder your copy today at c-span shop.org, every purchase

helps support c-span's nonprofit operation. representative andy levin serves the 9th district of michigan, member of foreign affairs committee, thank you for joining us sir. >> good to be with you, pedro. >> i don't know if you've seen it but announcement set that the u.s. is about to ban imports on

russian oil. what do you think of that on its face. >> well we got to hurt putin where it hurts and they get most revenue from the export of oil and i don't think the u.s. should be part of giving that kind of money to putin so i'm in favor of it. >> as far as then, talk about where it hurts you saw stories about gas prices and the like, do you think this will exacerbate gas prices and oil supplies to the united states? >> i do, but i think we got to look at these oil companies and see what they're doing. they're making record profits, executives are making outrageous compensation packages. i think they have to step up and contribute to what is really a patriotic effort and an effort to save democracy here in ukraine. the ukrainians are standing on the front lines of protecting democracy worldwide and i think everybody has to do their part, but in terms of americans, we got to lower cost for americans.

i think people realize that gas prices will be volatile. and i feel like we got to do everything we can to keep prices low and at the same time, i think americans have a really patriotic feeling about this, that we're not about to allow putin to run over countries willy nily so it's a very tough situation, pedro, but we're going to do everything we can to keep prices down. >> what's the ability then, under doing everything we can, what else can be done? >> obviously, there's our reserves. i think we got to look at the oil company's behaviors about prices and make sure there's no gouging going on. i think that's an important aspect too. >> i don't know if you heard the last guest, probably heard the sentiment about doing here domestically more in the united states, to produce and manufacturer oil supplies, what do you think about energy independence and increasing that? >> well the real energy independence is for us to hurry up and transition to renewables. none of this would be happening if we had way more off-shore

wind, on-shore wind, solar, geothermal, battery storage. this is a lesson in ukraine of dictators holding the world hostage because of the fossil fuel economy aim so i think we got to accelerate our transition to renewables and meanwhile, produce the oil we have and we have lng terminals that, you know, could be built more quickly to help europe with natural gas, so there's a lot we could do but it's long-past time to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. >> you have a background in the energy field, what convinces you so-called green energy can supplement what we need here in the united states and possibly replace it? >> i mean there's no question about it. just to give you one example, if we could figure out the issue of ice with off-shore wind turbines in the great lakes, and i think

we can, off-shore wind in the great lakes could produce way more electricity than in michigan we need all together so the capacity of the sun and wind is virtually unlimited and supply is free so let's get going. >> president's forth-coming announcement reported, does this stop the effort of congress to pass its own sanctions reported up to this point? >> no, i mean we'll have to see exactly what the president is doing, but we, i guess, pedro, i can't tell you the sentiment, republicans, democrats, all united that we're going to do whatever it takes to come to the defense of the people of ukraine, military, sanctions and humanitarian, all three angles and of course we got to keep diplomacy going because at some point, diplomacy is the only way to end wars and bring people together, but we are very strong on supporting ukraine with weapons, with humanitarian aid and with sanctions.

we are working very closely with the administration and we'll see the exact details but i still expect us to try to pass a robust package of aid on all three of those fronts this week if possible. >> our guest with us if you want to ask him questions about this topic you can do so at 202-748-8000, sir, being in the committee, the no-fly zone, what do you think on that front or the possibility of that or should that be an option. >> you know, my heart breaks for ukrainian people. as i said we need to do everything we can but we don't want to take a step that would turn a tragedy of this huge scale into unimaginably larger

one by starting a war between nato and russia, or united states and russian nuclear powers. i think we need to not cross that line, and a no-fly zone sounds simple but when you have u.s. or european and russian planes engaging in fights shooting each other down, that crosses a line, where i think an act of war with russia and i think we ought to avoid it. >> the spending package you referenced later on this week, includes that aid to ukraine specifically. what does it do on the weapons and support front. >> you know, we've already given ukraine $4 billion since 2018, or since 2014, and one 1/2 billion, just about, in the last year. we are pouring weapons as fast as we can into ukraine. people have compared it to the berlin air lift, and so we are targeting more weapons for them. the kind of things they need the

most. antiaircraft weapons, antitank weapons, the kind that are small enough to learn quickly and also to use in an insurgency, or when, you know, you're on the run which is what their situation is, unfortunately. >> if all those things are being played out, at some point, what more can we do, i guess, as far as that support is concerned or that type of support? >> i literally think, pedro, we're trying to do everything we possibly can. we're trying to, and it's not just the united states. our allies are deeply involved in this. history is being written here because of how germany changed its posture, how finland changes its posture, even how switzerland left neutrality behind and allies around the

world stepping up and contributing so i think the effort is very important to isolate russia and also in providing support for ukraine in terms of weapons and humanitarian aid. >> by the way, look for that announcement coming from the president, possibly at 10:45 this morning, stay close to our networks for that. mr. levin as a member of foreign affairs then, as a way for replacing what we might lose from russia, venezuela on the front for that strategy, what do you think of that? >> i don't really have a comment on that, today, pedro, we need to look at all angle to see deal with this and i think we need, you know, we're actively in talks about all oil-producing nations about stepping up to meet the needs of this historic and tragic moment. >> as far as concerns about previous sanctions and some on the senate side concerns even having these talks.

again, do you think that's a valuable effort? >> with venezuela, no, i'm not -- i don't really have any comment about venezuela in that regard. >> let's hear from the audience. this is steven, in florida, you're on with our guest, representative andy levin from michigan. good morning. >> caller: good morning to both of you, i just wanted to make a comment regarding our oil reserves. the oil companies had over a thousand wells pumping before the pandemic and then after the pandemic shut that down to less than 300 and i read they opened up less than 700 of those wells and we still have reserved another 300 that could be opened. why haven't they opened those up and why haven't anybody talked to the oil companies about doing their part to help bring down the price of gas? there's my question.

>> mr. levin. >> yes, well i really agree with the sentiment of steven's question. we need to work with the oil companies to open up production maximally, to look at not things that are exploreitory because that takes too long, look at production now domestically and around the world so i think steven is right on in this regard and any sense that production is being withheld to maximize profits is unacceptable in this crisis. >> republican line, go ahead. go ahead, sir. >> caller: i would ask the is senator, how much money he is

invested into green energy, that includes blind trust. also, why do they not address the war that's going on in the southern border, the drug war, where they're pouring drugs across the border and literally hundreds if not millions of people pouring across the border? >> so carlos, i don't have any blind trust or anything like that. i'm not a wealthy person. i only have money invested in like neutral funds or index funds, that kind of thing that has i don't even know what the individual stocks are so i don't have investments like that. and let's see, what was his second question, pedro? >> issues along the southern border. >> yeah, i mean, i think we need to make sure that we deal with drug trafficking.

it's a huge problem, the fentanyl coming into this country. it's not, you know, it's not mostly pouring over the southern border and to the extent it is, it's coming through ports of entry, not through the places in between and really most coming from china, a lot manufactured here domestically. pedro, the war on drugs has been a total failure and what we need to do is deal with this epidemic of opioid and really help people deal with this crisis in their lives, got to deal with treatment. we've got to deal with, really, helping americans. we have to look ourselves in the mirror and reduce the demand side and help people in trouble. >> troy is in fredericsburg, virginia, independent line, go ahead, you're next. >> caller: good morning, my question is, sir, one thing i

would like to see, actually, i know the future is electric cars but one thing i've never heard anybody mention is i would like to see them pass, put solar panels on the cars and actually pass something where they use a standard size so we don't have a lot of, you know, panels sitting around that don't fit anything anymore, and at that point, i mean when the car's sitting still could actually be charged somewhat, but like in california, places like that when you shut down the power grid, how are you going to charge these cars? >> yeah, so that's a really fascinating question, james. so the relationship between the size of solar panels and the needs of cars for energy, doesn't make panels on cars, you know, super effective from the research i've seen. what's really interesting and what we're working on is the idea of charging cars while they're moving by putting

charging infrastructures into the roadway itself, so every, you know, once in a while you have a mile of charging while the car is running down the highway, so there are a lot of innovative ways we need to look at to charge cars more efficiently and reduce the time people need to charge. but i really agree with you also. one important thing about dealing with grid issues is distributed generation and having production of energy distributed as widely as possible so that people are getting it closer to home and it takes energy out of things like war, but it also deals with if there's a storm in one place, less people are affected. >> when it comes to electric vehicles, do you think that kind of car is cost prohibitive for americans at this point? >> if we get to passing the tax

incentives already passed in the house in build back better and pass in the senate, one way or another, i mean that, we provide major incentives, up to $12,500 and it's not something that the buyer, the tax payer has to figure out. the dealer deals with it so you just take that price, that amount right off the price of the car. also, ev, electric vehicle prices will come down as production ramps up so we're in the early days as they're mass producing greater and greater numbers, their prices will continue to come down and incentives ultimately won't be necessary. but for now, we have to make them more affordable for everyday americans, absolutely. >> do you think the sentiment for these type of vehicles is there or at least the trust in these type of vehicles versus a conventional gasoline car? >> so now, you're really talking about, you know, how rapidly we can change and pedro, i have my

electric vehicle freedom act which i first introduced in the last congress and it would provide high-speed charging infrastructure throughout the entire u.s. highway system, not just interstates but the smaller roads, including alaska, hwaii and puerto rico so you could get in electric vehicle anywhere and not worry about running out of juice so that's the thing we need to do to allow people to trust it. even though, pedro, the vast majority of miles people drive are local and 80% or more of charging is done at home. i own a chevy bolt and we charge it in our garage. we just have to make sure charging is available for roadtrips and people who don't have a garage. people who live in cities in poor neighborhoods, people who live in apartment buildings, so that's all tackled in my ev freedom act and we need to get about it but let me tell you

something, when people drive an electric vehicle they don't want to turn back, they're so quiet, so fun, acceleration is awesome and performance is amazing, even not a fancy car but a chevy bolt like i have. i think ev cars are the future and they're coming fast and people will love them. we just have to make sure the infrastructure is there. >> andy levin joining us for this conversation, butch, republican line, go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call, i think my question was already answered. no one ever talks about the price of these batteries, my son was telling me some of these batteries on these bigger vehicles can cost close to $10,000 and i was wondering if that's true. you know, they keep pushing it with the, you know, i could never afford, i'd have to wait ten years to buy a used one and then be able to afford it and,

you know, i'm 65 years old so that's not going to happen, but, you know, was wondering about if these windmills, are they able to be active too? you know, i mean, to factor anybody could knock our power out that way too. so i think we do need the fuel. you know, gas and stuff, because we always have to have options. >> okay, butch from illinois, thank you. >> thanks, butch. it's absolutely true the batteries are a big part of the cost of electric vehicles. on the other hand, electric vehicles have many fewer parts and for a uaw-supporting guy like me, auto workers union guy like me that's an issue to look at because there may be less jobs in production and we want

to make sure there are good union jobs and the workers don't lose out as we make this transition so that's very important to me, but the cost of batteries is significant but then you have a lot less other costs. there's literally no transmission, many fewer parts, and we got to drive the cost of batteries down. even with, you know, the price of these pick-up trucks, people are paying 70, 80, thousand more for these luxurious gas or diesel pick-up trucks so it's, i don't think that the electric pick-up trucks need to cost more than the gas ones. and in terms of sabotage, obviously, if a refinery or, you know, a pipeline or anything can be hacked or disturbed or interfered with by sabotagers or something the same is true for

other energy sources. it doesn't speak to which energy source we need, it speaks to the need for cyber security, which is an important thing butch is referring to. >> our guest serves the 9th district of michigan, next call is from michigan, anthony, thank you. >> caller: all the way from detroit, thank you, i'm having trouble accepting the united nations main stream events in russia, you seem you would have to ignore everything that happened eight years previous with the coup, and also supposes the usa never invaded a country, i mean just the hypocrisy with this russia thing is through the roof. >> well, so anthony, the united states has a long history, going back centuries of imperialism, of invading other countries, so does england, portugal, spain,

many countries. but it is 2022, the united nations was formed in 1945, 1946 at the end of world war ii. we've steadily moved towards trying to create a rules-based order in the world where a country's sovereignty is respected, where people have the right to self-determination. and so i don't, you know, i think what's happening in ukraine is the greatest violation of that rules-based order that we've seen in europe, absolutely since world war ii. basically you have a dictator saying i believe i can just have the country next door and i'm just going to overrun it. already, in 2014, vladimir putin violated ukraine's sovereignty, rolled tanks into crimea and

also supported insurgency in donbas and the border areas of ukraine that border russia so this is not something acceptable. behavior of the u.s. in the past is no excuse, or any other country is no excuse for russia doing what it is today and it's just something that the whole world is uniting around. this isn't something just being felt in the u.s. really, countries all around the world with just a few exceptions are standing up and saying we have to reject vladimir putin's horrifying war of choice where he's committing war crimes, killing civilians in large numbers, five hospitals were hit recently. there -- it's really, what russia is doing in ukraine is a

violation of the laws of war and of basic human rights of ukrainians and certainly a violation of the most basic principles of the international order which is freedom and self determination for people and sovereignty for countries. >> mr. levin it says you have a background doing work for asylum seekers and the like, what should united states be doing for those leaving ukraine? >> i'm grateful you mentioned that, first we need to look ourselves in the mirror and say we need to treat refugees from other regions well, as well, like from haiti where we've repatriated 20,000 people, inappropriately in my view but this crisis in ukraine is a great chance for us to say obviously these people don't want to leave their country. we need to do everything we can to protect them, to keep them

safe. the united states should, already is, and the administration is just doing a tremendous job of this, of supporting poland, and other countries bordering russia in financially to help the refugees but we also need to take refugees. if there's a need for refugees to leave the bordering countries, we got to welcome them with open arms and lift our caps and take them in. i know my vibrant ukrainian-american community in metro detroit, michigan has the eighth largest in the country, i believe, is ready to take their family members, take their friends and all welcome these refugees and we want to take care of them and make sure they're safe. >> are there discussions of any type on streamlining that process, to perhaps bring them to the united states? >> yes, and lifting caps. there are discussions on all those things that we need to expedite the process.

absolutely. >> nashville michigan, republican line, this is john. >> caller: we have a lot of push for renewables, the wind, the electric cars, charging systems. my question, is a lot of the minerals that create those batteries, i'm just curious what countries we're sourcing those through. >> hey john, yeah, really good point. we need to work on sourcing of rare earth minerals and all the supplies needed for batteries and other equipment in this push for renewable energy. we need to develop our own sources and work with countries around the world to diversify the sources of these materials.

it's something that secretary grandholme is working on, even the department of defense looks at closely because we don't want it to be a national security issue so it's something we have to work on intensively. because look, pedro, the united nations in the midst of this terrible crisis in ukraine, the united nations panel of scientists came out with a report that said the effects of global warming, the storms, the hurricanes, floods, forest fires, all these things are happening faster and more spensly than expected and we're in danger of having the overheating of the planet overrun us with disastrous consequences. so even as we focus on supporting the people of ukraine, we cannot lose track of the need to very rapidly transition to renewable energy.

and in fact, this war is a climate disaster. war in general is a climate disaster and we're seeing this play out before our eyes in ukraine. the cost, you know, fueling all these tanks and jets but also destroying infrastructure and then having to rebuild it, pedro, i mean first of all, it's just insane. as a general matter but a huge climate atrocity we have to be aware of as well. >> caller: sir, i just got a comment here, my own thoughts. putin, this war is about energy, not about oil, and he ain't going to quit until somebody takes him out of office. that's the facts. all that's been around, i'm 79

years old and i'll tell you what, if i was 20 years younger i'd be going over there myself because the man's got to be stopped and i don't understand why the world isn't over there stopping this madman. he's insane, just like hitler. why did we wait so long to take him out? let's get the job done and get it done now, it's not about oil. thank you. >> mr. levin, go ahead. >> you know, i really agree, with was that robert? with his sentiments. in the sense, i'm not sure vladimir putin is, you know, is really saying -- i think he lives in a bubble. i don't think he even listens to his advisers. i think it's been obvious from how poorly the war has gone for the russian troops that he is not the top of a chain of command that is effectively communicating up and down the chain of command.

and because he has his finger on nuclear weapons, it is extremely important that we handle the situation well. i agree this isn't all about oil. this is about vladimir putin's imperial designs, whether it's czarist russia or the ussr, he want to are reinstate some imperial vision of russia where it controls all the countries around it in some fashion of empire or like the soviet union and we absolutely cannot allow this to happen. i think it's easier said than done that someone should just go in and eliminate someone who is very carefully protected and, you know, we don't want to do anything that would lead to a nuclear war. let's remember, one nuclear weapon could incinerate millions

of innocent people. and we just cannot let that happen, which, pedro, lead to see a whole other topic i believe we need to work on not in the moment of crisis but over time, which is that we've fallen down and the world's fallen down on nuclear nonproliferation, on getting new treaties, on reducing the number of nuclear weapons, on dealing with nuclear weapons in the hands of non-state actor and see i think this is also a wake-up call on that level that we better get going with russia, with china, with other countries, to reduce the threat of nuclear war which is the ultimate in human folly. >> do you think the events occurring in russia, particularly as it might concern nato nations in the future have upped as far as discussions here in the united states about ramping up spending for the defense department, or considering that in light of recent threats? >> you know, pedro, i think this is a question of the military

budget needing to be bigger. we have an immense military budget, it's bigger than the next 10 countries combined and there's no sense at all that we lack resources. the countries that have spent far, far less than us on military like germany all of a sudden germany has said you know what, we're going to invest much more heavily in this area. i think one of the things you're really pointing to, pedro, is this situation has strengthened nato tremendously, it has brought us together, and it's doing the exact opposite of what vladimir putin wants. you know, one thing i don't really agree with about, what robert seemed to be saying is people are sitting around or just talking. the sanctions we are imposing on russia, many of them are unprecedented and we're continuing to add sanctions on, targeting putin himself. the oligarchs around him personally, their families,

we're kicking banks out of the s.w.i.f.t. system, the ruble is basically worthless. stock market in moscow can't even function and we'll continue ratcheting up the pressure and isolation and it's so important that we're doing this with all of our allies. go-it-alone approach would be a complete failure in in situation and president biden has done an amazing job, secretary blinken, defense secretary austin, of uniting all of our allies around the world to come to ukraine's defense so i don't think it's really about us spending more on the military. i think it's about reinvigorating the forces to protect democracy around the world. >> representative, before we let you go, you have a background in labor issues. there's been reported over the last couple of weeks an effort to unionize house aides on capitol hill, how's that going

and do you think that will happen? >> i do, i'm the person who introduced the resolution to allow our own staff to form unions, a great honor to be asked to do that, i'm the union organizeener the congress, spent years helping all kinds of workers form unions so i know a little about some bostons saying unions are fine for other workers but not my workers. we can't do that in congress. pedro, 26, or 27 years ago, congress passed congressional accountability act then 26 years ago got implemented and applied the ability to form unions to the library of congress, the capitol police, the architect of the capitol, all the workers who take care of this place except our own staff in our district in dc offices and on our committees. literally, for 26 years, they have not had this fundamental human right. i believe it's part of the first amendment, freedom of association, that they can, if

they want, they can form a union and bargain collectively. so chair zoloughren held a hearing, very quickly after i introduced the resolution and i'm looking for it now to be taken on, voted, passed so the staff of the house can long last have the right to form a union and bargain collectively with us, their bosses. >> representative andy levin on foreign affairs committee, member there, democrat from michigan, thank you sir. >> thanks, pedro, take care of yourself. >> next you learn how sanctions are formed not only at white house level but in congress, joining us brian owe, brian otoole we'll have that conversation. >> the russian military has

begun a brutal assault on the people of ukraine, without provocation, without justification, without necessity, this is a premeditated attack. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine, bringing you the latest from the president and other white house officials. the pentagon, and the state department, as well as congress. we also have international perspectives from the united nations and statements from foreign leaders, all on the c-span networks, online at c-span.org or on the free c-span now mobile video app. >> now able for preorder in c-span shop, c-span's 2022 congressional directorate, this book is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of congress including bios and

committee assignments, including the biden administration cabinet, order your copy today at c-span shop.org, or order on your smart phone, every c-span shop purchase supports c-span's nonprofit ofrpgz. operation. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us is brian o'toole, a senior fellow at the atlantic council, senior vice president and director of sanctions and screening >> washington journal continues. >> joining us, brian otoole,

senior vice-president and director of screening, thank you for joining us today. >> just atlantic counsel for the purposes of today. >> as far as the purposes of sanctions are concerned, explain a little of your background in terms of what you've done in the work of sanctions? >> yeah, so i've spent much of my career doing work in kind of elicit finance, started at central intelligence agency in 2003, joined treasury department in 2009, there eight years, a variety of sanction-related matters, essentially as chief of staff, adviser at the control at treasury, office that implements u.s. economic sanctions. >> we're expecting an announcement from the president today concerning, potential announcement as far as sanctions for russian oil. could you walk us through, up until this point, how that has formed when the white house

decides to impose sanctions on a body. >> yeah, so there's a whole bunch of ways it can happen, from top down, from ambassador, from the white house, trying to figure out options for solving any sort of foreign policy crisis. or it can come from the bottom up, depending where people are seeing issues, right, whether a transnational issue like organized crime or narco trafficking, but basically, there are these interagency meetings that the national security council convenes to get everybody around the table discussing what are our options for problem x and problem x now is russia and its invasion of ukraine, but for a long time, it's been russia's aggression abroad, internally, and how to deal with that often involved the use of sanctions. you know, in this particular case with oil and the, you know, upcoming restrictions on that, what will happen typically is folks sit around the table and discuss the ways russia is weak

compared to the united states, typically, those involve the financial industry, as the u.s. is kind of immensely powerful in that role, and then the ways that russia generates revenue. right? oil and gas account for something like 40% of the russian budget and, you know, far and away the largest industry in the country. and so you want to kind of take advantage of the sanctions, hurt the other guy more than yourself so you take advantage of the areas where the west has asymmetric advantage and then look at how you can mitigate impacts where russia might have some leverage and i think that's what the discussion has probably been for the last many days in the white house and across the pond with partners in brussels and elsewhere, this discussion of well, we need to go after the oil to really get to the heart of the russian economy in a lot of ways. at least, the power levers the kremlin controls and how we

mitigate the impacts downstream to western consumers and the global economy because as oil prices go up, economic growth goes down. >> when, then, those decisions are being made, who is at the table, so to speak, from the cabinet point of view and how much of this work is delegated to other people, when the sanctions are being developed? >> well, they do a lot of the research from kind of the experts civil service level and up, right, so you get these options papers that lay out we can do this, or this, or this, depending, and these are, you know, advantages or disadvantages of each, soap you have real experts, people with time on the job, spent careers working on these issues. then, the decision-making knows up to something of a more political level to narrow the options down or give approval to pursue you can further research on whichever option seems to be preferable and then ultimately, at the end of all the day, especially for something as important as this decision, it's the president who makes the call

sitting around the table with vice-president, secretary of state, secretary of treasury, secretary of commerce, and a number of other officials who have, you know, national security adviser jake sullivan in all those discussions, you know, people who really know the landscape here and understand what the reverberations are going to be with those decisions. >> brian otoole from atlantic council joining us with this discussion, if you have questions about the sanction process, you can ask about it, 2027488002 republican and 03 independent. how do they compare historically, or the amount, or impact of sanctions? >> so the amount is always a weird way to quantify it, because you can go by the number of individuals designated but,

you know, you can designate a thousand terrorists and not have the same impact as designating a large bank in terms of economic impact, that's a weird measure. look, i think the sanctions impose said on russia in the last several weeks are, i get tire said of saying this word, but they are unprecedented. nothing like it in the history of the world. russia's economy is 11th largest in the world, that's dropping dramatically. it is globally integrated. it has big sophisticated banks and financial institutions, you know, you can kind of go down the list. it is very, very different than other places. in terms of if you think about sanctions as kind of a continuum, right, of zero to 100% of the impact you can impose, i always think of kind of iran and north korea somewhere around 95%, i would say russia's probably around 70, 75% at the moment, still a lot

left to do including energy, but there's also, you know, those countries have a broad financial embargo you cannot do business with those countries with very limited exceptions and russia's not there yet, could end up there as the crisis unfolds but right now, as far as the kind of nominal impact is enormous because of the size of the russian economy but there's still a lot left to do. >> as far as financial institutions, ultimately, in dealing with these sanctions, how do they get brought into the process? >> so, i mean, u.s. financial institutions are often kind of the frontline of defense for u.s. sanctions, they're the ones who affect transactions over seas which is where a lot of the sanctions nexus occurs, you're transferring money to a company in russia you're conducting business. so banks are an obvious follow point and where the u.s. has a

huge strategic strategic niche, obviously a target because they're a proxy for the economy. while oil and gas have a huge budget and russian receivables, foreign exchange earnings, et cetera, banks have a ripple effect through the entire economy that not even those companies will have. so the u.s. a couple of weeks ago went after the largest bank in the country, the second largest ebt bank, and those two banks have huge presence in the economy. it depends a little bit on how you're measuring it, but in terms of total assets as a share of the entire russian banking sector, those two comprise something like 45, 50% by themselves. it's an enormous concentration of the second tor in those two banks, and so sanctions against those two have huge effects, and you know, among the other sanctions, especially the sanctions of the central bank of russia have caused the real kind

of panic in russian markets. russia's kept its markets closed for the last week. they will open up on wednesday, presumably to an absolute fire sale probably. that's going to have a big impact across the economy, it could have a big impact on whether those banks have enough money to pay people out at atms. there will be lines at atms. the banks are often a good target when we're thinking about sections because of that impact throughout the economy. >> let's hear from wall of, washington, d.c., for our guest brian o'toole of the atlanta council. >> this is absolutely insane. why don't you tell people that the price of fertilizer is going to go up three times, going to be paying 7 or $8 for gasoline or that our food processes are going to get more expensive. you know, you guys want to just put sanctions on everybody like it's an art form. we started this. putin, we had an agreement with russia that we would not put

nato on their border. then we keep pushing nato into ukraine. he warned us time and again. then i'm watching the news media with all these left wing clowns out there saying, oh, well, this is horrible. he invaded a country without reason. do we have to look back with the weapons of mass destruction didn't exist? you know, listen, they're about to launch attacks on russia from poland. poland is a nato country. what do you think russia is going to do once we do that? we're not just going to give them planes. we've decided we're going to launch them from a safe air base. this is insanity. you've got nuclear weapons -- >> ralph, thank you. mr. o'toole. >> yeah, look, ralph, your points are inaccurate in a few places not least of which the idea that poland is going to launch attacks on russia.

that is not true in any way, shape or form, nato promised there would be no troops on russia borders. setting that aside, there are real economic impacts when you talk about sanctions on a country like russia. that's absolutely a fair point to make. i think when you are a western policymaker, you end up a lot of times, or any policymaker you end up in kind of having to choose the least worst option. economic impacts are sometimes unavoidable, and in a case like this, the combined west including the g-7 countries, so canada, japan as well, switzerland has joined in on this, they have decided and made the calculation that what's going on in ukraine and the assault on kind of the western democratic order, the rules-based system that has kept this world largely peaceful since 1945 and provided unprecedented economic growth is worth defending, and that sometimes we have to pay an economic price as well while the ukrainians are paying the price with their lives. >> you talked about the impact,

mr. o'toole when it comes to those in russia, particularly vladimir putin himself. to what effect do you think he'll directly feel the impact from these sanctions? >> it's a little hard to figure out putin sometimes because he's -- it's highly unlikely he's going to choose to sacrifice any of his comforts or his wealth in exchange for helping out the russian people, but, you know, look, there's going to be massive economic repercussions across russia without a doubt. you've already seen the ruble is falling off a cliff. you know, russian stocks are in pennies, spare bank, the largest bank in russia had been trading at 21, $21.5 a share a couple of weeks ago. it's down at $0.50 or lower last i checked. these things have real economic impact. inflation in russia, there's going to be shortages of goods. there has been talking even of pegging russia's currency to gold since they have call it

about $130 gold reserves that just dramatically wipe out a lot of russian wealth. so you know, huge impacts to russian businesses, the russian economy, russian consumers. you know, it's -- i suspect there's not going to be a lot of impact to putin personally just because he will always control the levers of power as long as he sits at the head of that very, very long table he's got, and you know, that's a choice he makes. he chooses himself and his cronies over the russian people every single time, and i would not expect that to change, so it's -- i think the impact to putin is that he sees his army having trouble in ukraine. he sees his comedy struggling, he sees people around him potentially starting to get, you know, a little unhappy. there have been, you know, slightly louder from some of the rich oligarch class in russia about the impact of sanctions than there have been for other issues in the past where their

business interests have been impacted. but it's not amounted to much in terms of a real, you know, political challenge to putin. so we'll see how it plays out, but you know, he's still going to have his palace there on the black sea that he can go visit. he'll still have his planes and his long fancy table. >> one of the themes that you've probably seen is the fascination with super yachts and the like. how do they factor into all of this? >> they're symbolic in some ways, because my colleague dan fareed who's a former ambassador of poland and sanctions coordinator at the state department, symbols, and seizing $600 million super yacht, mega yacht, whatever you call it, you know, boats that have smaller yachts of their own attached to them. those are symbols that can be important. it's, you know, as the previous caller mentioned, sometimes what people see are, you know, increases in prices at the pump

and increases in prices in food and things of that nature, which is a downside. it helps to a certain degree to be able to see what these are having impact to, this very rich man who has made his money off the back of the russian people, also has some of his wealth taken away. >> julie in illinois, independent line for our guests. good morning. >> hi, i have a couple of questions. the first is that i wanted to know why it was so easy to put a sanction on the american people by cutting off the pipeline, yet it seems so hard to put it on other countries or that we cut off the pipeline. i'm not understanding why it's so easy to sanction the american people but not sanction other countries by stopping what we buy? >> i'm not quite sure what pipeline you're referring to and kind of statutorily the u.s.

can't sanction u.s. people that easily, so it's -- you know, if you're referring to the keystone pipeline, you know, that was an export pipeline for oil and -- oil coming down from canada i believe, but in any event, i think, you know, the -- it is hard to stomach increased prices, and while you don't like to think about domestic politics a lot of times in situations like this, it's unavoidable that people paying higher prices at the pump is going to have an impact in november. so that certainly is part of the calculation. but you know, there's a balancing act that the administrations have to take between environmental concerns, economic concerns, and then foreign policy concerns and those are not always the easiest choices. >> from arizona, this is james, republican line. go ahead. >> yes, hi. i'm calling from arizona, and i got a couple of questions or statements i want to make. when we do all these sanctions and everything and we're having

gas prices the way that we're going right now, what is going to be the repercussion on our navy ships and our military aircraft that need these fuels to fly? you can't put an electric data in an f-35. i'm sorry i'm phrasing it the way i am, but why aren't we sanctioning our southern border as well because of all the fentanyl that's coming into this country. this is insanity and -- >> more live coverage on russia's invasion of ukraine. under secretary of state for political affairs, victoria nuland testifies before the senate foreign relations committee. this is live on c-span3. >> conducted in this form could be answered so we appreciate you being there. in just 12 days, the world has changed as we sit here, ukraine is fighting for its life. a ruthless dictator is shelling civilians, refusing calls for

diplomacy, and threatening the stability of a region. as of this morning, at least 470 ukrainian civilians have lost their lives because of putin's brutality. at least 29 of them were innocent children. the last 12 days have been an entire lifetime for the people of ukraine, forced to leave their lives behind spending days in subways and makeshift bomb shelters, fleeing from mortars with their children in hand, and sometimes they don't make it. the rest of the world is being called upon to stand with ukraine to make this war untenable for the dictator in moscow. the united states and much of the world has rallied with impressive urgency and coordination, i commend the administration's efforts, the result of months of relentless diplomacy to build a strong international coalition that has stood up and imposed sweeping