reached a national average of $4 a gallon. the highest in over a decade, as the biden administration considers banning russian oil. we are now talking to our european partners and allies to look in a coordinated way at the prospect of banning the import of russian oil while making sure that there is still appropriate supply of oil on world markets. that s a very active discussion as we speak. steve: okay. let s bring in host of varney and company on fox business. stuart varney. stuart, now the administration is considering sanctions on russian oil. it didn t make we had sanctions on everything but russian oil. that is correct. if we go ahead and ban the export of all oil and gas from rickenbacker. you will get another energy price spike on top of the one we have got. we re in the middle of one. as of right now. we just put it up on the screen. 4.07 is the average price for a gallon of regular gas as of right now. that s only 4 cents away from the all-time record of 4.11
this energy price spike and supply shortage? yeah, it s really bad. right now, for instance, natural gas prices there are about 5 pounds higher than they were a year ago, and this is entirely self-imposed, paul, as you just suggested. europe years ago went all in on a climate agenda. they are phasing out coal. germany s gotten rid of its nuclear, most of them have banned fracking, they ve gone all in on renewables and hope they don t get cloudy days. it s made them hugely dependent, as a result, on natural gas and that has given russia which supplies about half of that gas all the cards. russia says, oh, just say yes to our i mline, but they re basically holding europe hostage to just today quiet about its aggression towards neighbors and other problems. so europe s really got themselves in a pickle.
all-of-the-above approach. do the facts bear that out? well, in fact, a lot of the extra drilling and the extra oil production that we now have in america is the result of president bush opening up all kinds of properties to drilling that were closed down by president obama. so the oil production, the extra that we re now getting, is a direct result of president bush s policies and not president obama s policies. i just want to make the point, by the way, megyn, that we haven t yet seen the full economic impact of this spike. diesel has just gone to an average $4.11 a gallon. that hurts truckers and farmers. those costs have not yet been passed along. so the full impact of this energy price spike has not yet made itself apparent in the economy generally. megyn: yeah. and typically the prices only go up when you hit the summer months. guys, thank you both so much. you bet. megyn: some democratic lawmakers are using soaring gas prices to criticize wall street. lawmakers suggesting th