Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Under the agreement, Russia would supply millions of tons of diesel to US and global markets.
US Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said on Saturday that he and Nebraska Republican Don Bacon are drafting a bipartisan bill to prohibit US purchases of Russian oil and petroleum products, calling the measure the “Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act.”
“We will be introducing bipartisan legislation to block any and all purchases of Russian oil,” Fitzpatrick wrote on X. “It will be forced to the Floor via discharge and it will pass overwhelmingly.”
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The move is a direct challenge to President Donald Trump’s October 9 agreement with Moscow to supply the US and global markets with Russian diesel.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a temporary general license authorizing the trade just hours after the announcement, undercutting the sweeping Russia sanctions Trump had signed into law three weeks earlier.
Bypassing House leadership
Fitzpatrick plans to use a discharge petition, a parliamentary tool that forces a bill to a floor vote without the approval of committee chairs or Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.
The procedure requires 218 signatures, a House majority, meaning Fitzpatrick will need near-unanimous Democratic backing plus a cluster of Republicans willing to publicly break with the president.
Bacon has agreed to sign on as a co-sponsor. “Allowing the purchase of Russian diesel fuel gives money to the Russian economy and its war machine,” Bacon told Kyiv Post, framing the diesel arrangement as a mistake that channels revenue to Moscow’s military.
Other Republicans voiced similar objections. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the United States could “discuss Russia’s return to global energy markets once the war is over, but in the meantime, we need to cut off everything fueling it.”
Volumes behind the deal
Under the arrangement, Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel, 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons after that, with another 3 million tons to follow depending on the condition of its refineries.
Trump has argued the imports will push down US fuel prices before November’s midterm elections, although analysts and energy experts have argued that the number of barrels in the agreement will only cover a single day of the total diesel consumption in the US.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the deal, writing that “Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged.”
The House is not scheduled to resume voting for several weeks, and any discharge petition faces built-in procedural waiting periods that will consume much of the calendar before the current Congress ends in January.
