Biden Drains Our Oil Reserve For Partisan Gain

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was established by President Ford in 1975 in the wake of the first Arab Oil Embargo in 1973 and a quadrupling of oil prices from 1973 to 1974. The idea was to protect U.S. national security by building up a reserve that could be used in emergencies. These emergencies might include a new oil embargo (less of a threat today because the U.S. is capable of energy independence), a natural disaster, an infrastructure failure, war, or other calamities. The SPR has a total capacity of 714 million barrels. The actual amount of oil in the SPR has varied over the years. It is sometimes drawn down and then refilled. The reserve was at 100% of capacity in 2010. A series of drawdowns lowered the level to 600 million barrels in 2021. This year, Joe Biden implemented a wholesale drawdown of reserves so that the current level is approaching 400 million barrels. That's a 44% decline in this national security resource in just ten years and a 33% drop in just the last year alone. This article describes the recent actions of the Biden administration in this regard. Biden's drawdown might be acceptable if there were an actual emergency that required it. There isn't one. The U.S. achieved energy independence under President Trump and could easily do so again if Biden were to reverse his anti-energy policies including killing the Keystone XL pipeline, shutting down new oil and gas exploration permits on Federal lands, and other steps to handicap the fracking industry. If the U.S. has energy independence or is close to it, there's no justification for draining the SPR. Biden is doing this for purely partisan political reasons. He's trying to keep the price of gasoline down in advance of the mid-term election on November 8. This is stupid in two respects. In the first place, it's not working. The national average price of regular gasoline has risen from $3.69 to $3.80 over the past month, a 3% price increase. The second reason is that there is no shortage of crude oil. There's a shortage of refined products such as gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuel. Releasing oil from the SPR does nothing to alleviate the bottlenecks in the refining industry. In fact, much of the oil from the SPR is being sold to China and Europe and not used in the U.S. at all. Finally, the SPR will have to be replenished at some point. Oil in the reserve that was purchased at about $24.00 per barrel will have to be replaced with oil that is likely to be priced at $80.00 per barrel or higher. That's a dead weight loss for U.S taxpayers. Biden has damaged U.S. national security from Afghanistan to China to Ukraine. Now you can add the SPR to the list of Biden policy fiascos.

Jim Richards