Washington (March 8, 2022) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) released the following statement after news broke that the White House plans on announcing a ban on Russian oil, natural gas, and coal imports.  Senator Markey was the first Senator to offer a legislative proposal to ban Russian oil when he introduced the Severing Putin’s Immense Gains from Oil Transfers (SPIGOT) Act last week.

“The time of lining Putin’s pockets by buying billions worth of Russian oil and petroleum is over. I am pleased to see that the White House has joined the bipartisan consensus in Congress to ban Russian oil imports. We need to make this ban permanent so that we can finally separate ourselves from the Russian oil funding the corruption and human rights abuses of the Putin regime. We need to mandate reporting on the connection between Russian human rights abuses and the Russian oil and gas industry so that we can hold abusers accountable, as laid out in my legislation.

“This moment is a clarion call for the urgent need to transition to domestic clean energy so that we are never again complicit in fossil-fueled conflict. We can begin by passing $555 billion climate and clean energy provisions to supercharge the solar, wind, offshore wind, electric vehicle, battery revolution that will be union-made in America and free us once and for all from the shackles of fossil fuels.” 

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