Nearly two and a half years after he released more oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the political name of lowering the nation’s gasoline prices, President Biden now wants more money to replenish the emergency storage.
If you recall, Oklahomans in the U.S. House and Senate were critical of the President’s move and said so repeatedly. Months later, U.S. Sens. James Lankford and Jim Inhofe even joined an effort to introduce the No Emergency Crude Oil for Foreign Adversaries Act to make sure that reserves sold from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve wasn’t exported to China.
“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. This is absolutely unacceptable,” declared Sen. Lankford.
“We should help American families afford gas and groceries by increasing domestic production, rather than handing over our emergency reserves to bad-actor nations.”
While the U.S. Energy Department has slowly refilled some of the Reserve after it hit a four-decade low, buying 43.25 million barrels of oil, it’s running out of money to continue the effort. After announcing its purchase of 4.65 million barrels on Monday, the Department explained it has only about $1.2 billion remaining in the special account.
Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk explained that’s enough money to buy about 15 million more barrels.
“— we do need additional funds to buy back even more and we’re in continuing contact with Congress to make sure that everyone is doing their part there,” he stated, according to a report by Bloomberg.
He did not indicate how much more money the Department might ask of from Congress. But he added that the Energy Department is also asking Congress to cancel future reserve sales that were mandated.