By Sometimes the White House does a move that makes you wonder what they’d be doing differently if they were purposely trying to weaken the United States.
In 2022, New Conservative Post reported that “Joe Biden has been sending oil from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve overseas despite the United States facing the highest gasoline prices ever. Earlier in the year, the president released oil from the reserves to counter soaring costs, partly caused by his refusal to boost domestic oil production. The White House first released 60 million barrels on March 1, which ‘coincided with similar releases from other countries.’
Things have only gotten worse, and the strategic reserve is shrinking at an alarming rate.”
In November 2023, Biden still failed to refill the oil reserve, blaming conflict in the Middle East.
Now, as the conflict in Israel widens, Biden still refuses to fill up America’s gas tank, recently canceling a purchase of millions of barrels to replenish the reserve.
In canceling the SPR purchase, the Energy Department said it was “keeping the taxpayer’s interest at the forefront” of its buyback plan, which is to refill the depleted reserves so long as prices remain below $79 per barrel, writes The Washington Examiner.
Prices for global benchmark Brent crude and U.S.-based West Texas Intermediate soared well higher Tuesday, with Brent prices nearing $90 per barrel and WTI climbing slightly above $85 per barrel, amid worries about supply from Russia and producers in the Middle East.
“We will not award the current solicitations for the Bayou Choctaw SPR site and will solicit available capacity as market conditions allow,” DOE officials said, adding that they “will continue to monitor market dynamics” for future refills.
Energy Department officials first announced the Bayou Choctaw purchase last month, saying they would buy up to 3 million barrels of oil.
The strategic reserve’s levels remain drained to historic lows after President Biden‘s massive drawdown from it in March 2022, which he claimed was a move to stabilize energy costs for consumers in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It did not work and oil has slowly increased in price. Wth the new announcement, some fear that oil may rise by $40 per barrel.
🚨 Biden drained the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest level in 40 years.
Now, the Biden administration is CANCELLING their plans to refill it because oil is "way too expensive." pic.twitter.com/NYqEZ2Aosa
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 3, 2024
CNBC believes that Biden’s squandering of the strategic oil reserve to try and save the midterm elections in 2022 will become a “live issue” for Biden over the summer as conflicts around the world, particuarly in the Middle East, continue to escalate.
To make matters worse, Biden has also thrown up obstacles to oil production in the United States. Politico wrote in September that the White House canceled ” oil leases sold by the Trump administration in an Alaskan wildlife refuge and block new drilling in millions of acres in the state, setting up a new brawl with Republicans over access to fossil fuels on federal land.
Under the measures announced Wednesday, the Interior Department would revoke the ANWR leases sold by the Trump administration shortly before it left office. And it would propose banning drilling from 10.6 million acres inside the National Petroleum Reserve along the state’s North Slope — about 40 percent of total acreage in the reserve — while limiting drilling activity in another 2.6 million acres there. Those areas are home to significant intact habitat for wildlife, including grizzly and polar bears, caribou and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, the agency said.”
“It’s pure insanity to watch the Biden administration cut American oil production and then claim they can’t refill our critical reserve because of the price,” Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of watchdog group Power the Future told Fox Business.
“Joe Biden drained the SPR for political reasons, cut our domestic production for his climate agenda, and now he’s leaving our critical reserve more vulnerable because he’s incompetent,” he continued. “As a result, Americans are paying more at the pump, more at the grocery store and our SPR is less full during a time of rising turmoil in the Middle East.”
The reserve currently holds about 363 million barrels oil oil, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. That’s still down from the start of 2022, when levels stood at roughly 40 percent more.
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