When the Biden administration resorted to using the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to bring down gasoline prices two years ago, it led to heavy criticism from Oklahoma’s congressional delegation.
In no uncertain terms, they were angry about what they labeled a political move that put the nation’s national security at risk. In a column before he became a U.S. Senator, then U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin said the President had no one to blame but himself and his Green New Deal for pushing up the cost of gasoilne and diesel fuel.
In the summer of 2022, Sen. James Lankford was joined by then-U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe in the introduction of the No Emergency Crude Oil for Foreign Adversaries Act.
“While Oklahomans are forced by this Administration’s bad policies to pay more for gas and diesel, Biden continues to block US energy production. Now he’s outrageously selling our emergency oil supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to nations like China,” charged Sen. Lankford.
This week, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said while attending the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston that the SPR crude stockpiles will be back to its level from two years ago or even more and do so by the end of the year.
Biden’s administration sold 180 million barrels of crude oil over a six month period when gasoline prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Granholm indicated the Energy Department expects to replenish about 40 million barrels out of the 180 million by the end of the year. According to Reuters, another 140 million barrels that would have been drained from 2024-2027 will stay in the SPR due to the cancellation in 2022 of congressionally mandated sales.
The SPR holds about 362 million barrels of crude oil stocks, down from the 565 million barrels that were held in storage at the time of the March 2022 sale announced by the White House.
