Editor’s Note: Morning Money is a free version of POLITICO Pro Financial Services morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 5:15 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.

Will the threat of economic sanctions help deter President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine, or serve as an effective cudgel if he does? It’s the question at the heart of the debate over how the U.S. and its allies should respond to Russia’s latest military threat.

A U.S. delegation is in Europe this week to discuss technical coordination around potential sanctions and export controls in the event Russia does take military action, an administration official tells MM.

Among the group — Liz Rosenberg, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing; Thea Rozman Kendler, assistant Commerce secretary for export administration; and Molly Montgomery, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.

The delegation will travel to the UK, France, Belgium and Germany to meet with European counterparts, including finance, foreign and trade ministries, the official said.

Previous rounds of sanctions, including those imposed following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, had only a modest negative impact on Russia’s economy, the Congressional Research Service said in a January report. (An oil price shock in 2015-16 and the Covid-19 pandemic took a bigger toll.)

That was largely by design: The U.S. and its allies have typically sought to limit collateral damage to the Russian people and to themselves by targeting sanctions at individuals and specific firms connected to Putin.

U.S. officials, a number of whom were involved in the 2014 sanctions push, have made clear this time will be different.

“We've learned a great deal of lessons,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And what I can tell you is the actions that we would take if Russia were to invade Ukraine this time would be far more significant.”

Some of those economic effects are already being seen, Adeyemo said — “The ruble is having the worst performance among emerging economies thus far this year. You’re looking at their borrowing costs increase.”

The new tool that could make the biggest difference, says sanctions expert Jeffrey Schott, is the use of stringent export and re-export controls. Those measures could limit Russia’s ability to obtain goods for its military or high-tech sectors, such as semiconductors or advanced machinery and manufacturing equipment.

What’s more, they are expected to apply to third-country exports — that is, U.S. technology that is exported to, say, China, that’s put in a product and shipped to Russia. That would go well beyond the steps officials took eight years ago, said Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“Those types of sanctions would have a corrosive effect over time on the Russian economy,” he said. “Not necessarily hamstring it immediately, but it would weaken the ability of the Russian economy to move forward as quickly with its development as it otherwise would.”

Adeyemo referred to these measures Sunday, when asked about the effectiveness of Western sanctions given Russia’s deepening relationship with China: “What I’ll tell you is that China can’t give Russia what they don’t have. There are critical technologies that Russia is dependent on the United States and our allies on, technologies that … China does not have access to.”

A key question is how comprehensive such restrictions would be — would they target specific firms, a particular sector or the entire Russian economy? The broader the scope of the controls, the more difficult it could be for U.S. partners to remain in compliance.

A senior administration official last month said the controls would “hit Putin's strategic ambitions to industrialize his economy quite hard,” and could affect areas from artificial intelligence or quantum computing to defense and aerospace.

Those measures would be coupled with financial sanctions, which Adeyemo said would cut off Russian elites from the global financial system. He said 80 percent of Russia’s daily financial transactions are in U.S. dollars.

Then there’s the matter of Nord Stream 2 — President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday emphasized they are united on a package of “severe sanctions” against Moscow if Russia invades Ukraine. But there seemed to be space between the two leaders on what to do about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, our Myah Ward reported.

Russia normally ships about 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe through Ukraine, and the U.S. has been working with allies to ensure that Europe has adequate energy supplies if Putin decides to cut off shipments.

Biden pledged to shut down the pipeline, but Scholz kept his answer vague, saying, “We will act together. We will not be taking different steps.”

IT’S TUESDAY — BU beats Harvard 4-3 to advance to their 55th men’s Beanpot Final. Making Monday nights in February a little bit more bearable. (Go Terriers.)

Have a hot tip or a story idea? We want to know: [email protected], [email protected], or on Twitter: @katedavidson or @aubreeeweaver.

Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang testifies at a House Financial Services hearing on the administration’s stablecoin report at 10 a.m. … White House CEA Chair Cecilia Rouse and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) speak at an AEI and Brookings Institution forum on childhood in the U.S. at 11:30 a.m.

FIRST LOOK: TOP ECONOMISTS ENDORSE BIDEN’S FED PICKS — Some of the world’s top economic policymakers and scholars, including Ben Bernanke, Alan Blinder, Robert Solow, Maury Obstfeld, Laura Tyson, Betsey Stevenson, Austan Goolsbee and Sandra Black, are urging the Senate Banking Committee to advance all of President Biden’s Federal Reserve nominees in a new letter shared with MM.

“In addition to representing among the best legal and economic minds in our country, this slate of nominees has demonstrated sound judgment and collegial professionalism throughout their careers,” they wrote. “The current nominees also are the most demographically diverse slate of candidates ever proposed to the Federal Reserve Board. They would bring needed perspectives on how Federal Reserve policies can contribute to better and more equitable outcomes in the United States.”

More than 180 economists signed the letter, which was organized by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

— White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended Raskin on Monday against criticism from Republicans, calling her “one of the most, if not the most, qualified person to ever be nominated to this position,” and said the president would be proud to have her in the role. (MM sidebar: Raskin is only the second person to ever be nominated for the position.)

Asked whether the White House is concerned it might not have the votes needed to advance Raskin’s nomination, Psaki said, “no, that is not an assessment or a prediction we’re making.”

FIRST LOOK 2: Meanwhile, a group of House Republicans is raising concerns in a new letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell about Raskin’s statements on climate, which they say “suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the Federal Reserve’s congressional mandate and a clear desire to expand its authority.”

“We encourage you to continue to focus the Federal Reserve on its core missions around monetary policy, financial stability and supervision of financial firms, and ensure that any focus on climate change remains within the Board’s narrow congressional mandate,” Reps. Andy Barr, Bill Huizenga, Blaine Luetkemeyer and French Hill wrote to Powell.

CRYTPO’S ASPIRING WASHINGTON KINGMAKER — Our Sam Sutton: “FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried — the 29-year-old billionaire who founded the Bahamas-based company in 2019 — is leveraging his new political connections as lawmakers try to understand crypto and will appear at his second congressional hearing later this week. He was a political nonentity until the last election cycle, when he spread $5.2 million across two super PACs backing President Joe Biden’s election.”

“I care about policy more than politics,” Bankman-Fried said in an interview crammed between meetings on Capitol Hill. “As the industry and our firm gets a higher profile, I think it becomes more and more important for us to be engaging with policymakers in D.C.”

— Also from Sam: Cryptocurrency proponents are raising alarms over a proposed SEC rule that could sweep popular trading platforms and decentralized finance protocols under the direct oversight of the agency.

NEW YORK FED BLOG CASTS DOUBT ON STABLECOINS — Ahead of today’s hearing on the administration’s stablecoin report, the New York Fed in a blog post this week said stablecoins are unlikely to be the future of payments despite their growing market value over the last two years, Bloomberg’s Yueqi Yang reports.

CRYPTO FIRMS LAUNCH COALITION TO PROMOTE MARKET INTEGRITY — Reuters’ Hannah Lang: “A group of major cryptocurrency firms including Coinbase, Circle, Anchorage Digital and Huobi Global are forming a new coalition aimed at cracking down on market manipulation in an effort to instill trust in the burgeoning digital asset industry.”

MCCONNELL MOCKS MARIJUANA BANKING — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday derided House Democrats for adding what he called "poison pills" to the China competitiveness bill. McConnell specifically criticized the inclusion of a marijuana banking amendment in the America COMPETES ACT, passed by the House on Friday.

"China has been steadily building up its military and economic might, and the Democrats answer is to help Americans get high?" McConnell asked during a floor speech, adding that House Democrats are "mistaken" if they think they can "yank the bill to the far left."

BIDEN’S REGULATORY DRIVE SPARKS PUSHBACK FROM BUSINESS LOBBYISTS — WSJ’s Brody Mullins and Ryan Tracy: “The Biden administration is preparing a wave of new regulations as it embarks on its second year, sparking resistance campaigns from business lobbyists representing financial services, agribusiness, medical-device makers and others.

“Lobbyists and business groups are responding to what some describe as the federal government’s most concerted regulatory push since the Obama administration.”

Steve Pavlick was promoted to partner at Renaissance Macro Research. He served as deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs in the Trump Treasury Department. He also previously worked at the Cypress Group, Northrop Grumman and Rolls-Royce North America.

Miranda Margowsky has joined the Financial Technology Association as vice president of communications. She most recently was a VP at Precision Strategies, and prior to that worked for Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).

President Joe Biden’s top advisers are repackaging his economic message to the American public as his approval ratings sink and his legislative agenda stalls in Congress, just months before crucial midterm elections. — Bloomberg’s Nancy Cook

The Biden administration is raising red flags about 33 Chinese companies whose legitimacy it cannot verify, imposing new restrictions on their ability to receive shipments from U.S. exporters and requiring extra diligence from American companies that want to do business with them. — AP’s Eric Tucker

Electric-vehicle startups and other green tech companies soared early last year. Now a wave of investigations, outside allegations and growing investor skepticism have sent shares down 75 percent or more for many of them. — WSJ’s Ben Foldy and Amrith Ramkumar