Suspending Energy Imports From Russia Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, in the face of death and destruction, President Zelensky and the Ukrainians are showing the world the true meaning of courage.

While the most immediate need is for additional military equipment, we could respond tonight by taking another step to isolate Russia from the world economy and ensure that Americans are no longer contributing the revenue to fund his war machine. To take the energy out of Putin's brutal assault, we place energy on our sanctions list. It may cost more to fill your tank, but we must work to stop Putin's tanks from crushing families and freedom.

Our legislation also calls for expelling Russia from the World Trade Organization. Russia should not be permitted to benefit from the world order and stability that it is destroying with each bomb dropped and each Ukrainian murdered. The financial pain we are imposing cannot ease the pain of Ukrainian families, but it is one way for us to demonstrate our solidarity with them.

Putin and his apologists here in America and abroad must know that those who support democracy and combat aggression are united like never before. As the flow of Ukrainian dead and wounded grows, so must the economy of Russia shrink.

This bill is both more and less than the original version which Representative Blumenauer and I introduced the week before last in immediate response to Russian aggression. It now omits the most-favored nation treatment provision.

Throughout Putin's initial saber rattling and subsequent bomb dropping, the administration has wisely rejected the go-it-alone approach that lead America to disaster under previous administrations. The President has united our allies and is determined to keep them united. I believe as he continues to work with our allies we will be able to move forward, as Canada has, as our original bill proposed, and eliminate this most-favored nation status for Russia.

I am very pleased that the bill adds to what we had initially, the extension and revitalization of the Global Magnitsky Act. This has done a tremendous job in reducing human rights abuses, and with its inclusion in this bill we reauthorize it remaining united against aggression.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, Putin thought he could divide us because our last President served Russian interests so very well--fawning over Putin, unrelenting criticism of our allies, undermining NATO, preferring Putin's word over American patriots, repeatedly pitting one American against another.

Recently, as Putin amassed tanks on the Ukrainian border, President Biden was not the one who hailed Putin's action as ``genius.''

As Putin ordered troops into Ukraine, it wasn't President Biden who called Putin's terror a ``peacekeeping mission'' and who then called Putin ``very savvy.''

Last Friday, as Russian bombs were killing hundreds of Ukrainians, it was not Biden's trusted adviser who said Putin had been ``too gentle'' and called President Zelensky ``a puppet'' and blamed him for failing to appease Putin by declaring a ``neutral Ukraine.''

As Biden has tried to unite, Trump and his cronies cannot stop licking Putin's boots, even as Putin was using those boots to kick Ukrainians in the teeth. Sadly, many of those who come to criticize our President and his efforts to bring us together have been sadly and totally mute, unable to voice a word of disapproval of those who would divide us, Putin's apologist-in-chief here in America.

Let's unite and stand with Ukrainian patriots and approve this bill.

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