On Thursday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) called for a ban, with exceptions for exports to our allies on oil exports, to forbid things like the Biden administration selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China.
Khanna stated, “[H]ere’s one idea, why don’t we put a ban on gasoline — and the export of oil. I mean, that is something the White House is considering. Fox News runs about how we sold oil or gas to China, let’s ban it. Let’s have more domestic supply. That’s something maybe we can come to an agreement on.”
Co-host Becky Quick then said, “Congressman, I hear you about wanting to make sure we conserve all of our oil and natural gas here, but if we were to ban natural gas in particular, wouldn’t that really crush our European allies who are really feeling the worst brunt of what Russia is doing to them right now? I mean, it might help us, but it is going to crush our allies who are facing much bigger problems.”
Khanna responded, “That’s a very fair point, and I would have an exception on natural gas for our European allies. But we could still do a lot by having an export ban, generally, on gasoline and other refined products but have an exception on natural gas or some other things for our allies. I mean, that is a fair point. It shouldn’t just be a blanket ban.”
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