When oil prices hit the roof in November 2021, Joe Biden decided to tap into the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try and bring prices at the pump down. A year out from the midterms and sky-high gas prices were destroying the Democrat’s chances for the election.
Never mind that Biden was taking oil out of the SPR for a reason never contemplated by the Carter administration, who set the reserve up in 1977 as a buffer against an oil boycott by anti-Israeli Arabs. It was an emergency reserve for the West if the Arabs ever cut off the supply of oil.
But Biden made the SPR an adjunct to the midterm campaign by releasing 50 million bbls of crude oil in November. When that didn’t affect the price of gas at the pump — something any expert could have told him — Biden got serious about spraying oil around and mandated the release of one million bbls a day for a month.
When all was said and done, Biden had released 180 million bbls of crude. It’s a coincidence that the price of gas came down after that release. A far bigger impact on prices was the slowing world economy and a small increase in domestic production — after Biden had tried to drastically cut it.
There are currently about 398 million bbls of oil in the reserve, down from a high of 637 million barrels when Biden took office. Biden will be replenishing the SPR by buying oil that’s far more expensive than we paid for the oil previously purchased for the reserve. And now Republicans in Congress want to prevent Biden and future presidents from using the SPR as a political crutch.
Naturally, the White House is resisting.
“House Republicans will vote to raise gas prices on American families … and help Putin’s war aims by interfering with our ability to release oil,″ Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday, referring to the current GOP bill. “These extreme policies would subject working families to immense financial pain and balloon our deficit, all just to benefit the wealthiest taxpayers and big corporations.″
Well, no, KJP. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sponsored the GOP bill that “would require the government to offset any non-emergency withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with new drilling on public lands and oceans,” according to the Associated Press.
“At a time when gas prices are on the rise, Secretary Granholm and the Biden administration need to be transparent with the American people about their efforts to cover up how they’ve abused the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as an election-year gimmick,″ McMorris Rodgers said.
“Republicans want durable, long-lasting relief at the pump. The best way to do this is by unleashing American energy,″ which her legislation helps accomplish, added McMorris Rodgers.
The bill passed along party lines in the House 221-205 and now goes to the Senate, where it will never see the light of day.
Biden spent the first six months of his presidency doing everything he could to stifle energy production in America. Then, when prices shot up at the pump, he went from being a green warrior on fossil fuels to a Big Oil booster. He even went to Saudi Arabia to beg the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, to open the oil spigot and save his political hide.
Only the economic downturn earlier in 2022 along with increased domestic production allowed prices to moderate. Now, Republicans want to prevent a repeat of that scenario. It will have to wait for the Senate to flip in order to pass it.
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