The Biden administration has abruptly canceled a plan announced last month to purchase up to three million barrels of oil as part of its effort to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
The SPR – which Congress established for emergency situations – currently contains 363.6 million barrels of oil, a 43% decline from January 2021 when President Biden took office, federal data shows. Biden began depleting the reserve in late 2021 to combat high fuel prices.
The Department of Energy said that while it remains committed to refilling the SPR, it would pull back its most recent solicitation for oil amid increasing prices. On March 14, DOE’s Office of Petroleum Reserves announced the solicitation for three million barrels of oil to be delivered in August and September to its Bayou Choctaw site in Louisiana, one of four major SPR storage facilities.
“Keeping the taxpayer’s interest at the forefront, we will not award for the Bayou Choctaw SPR site in August and September, and will continue to solicit available capacity as market conditions allow,” a DOE spokesperson said.
“As always, we monitor market dynamics to remain nimble and innovative in our successful replenishment approach to protect this critical national security asset.”
The spokesperson added that the administration has already taken steps to replenish the emergency reserve, the largest of its kind in the world, and deliver “a good deal for American taxpayers.”
When DOE first announced the Bayou Choctaw refill plan last month, it said it would aim to purchase oil priced at $79 per barrel or below. Since then, oil prices have increased, with the U.S. benchmark hitting $85.71 earlier on Wednesday.
The solicitation, though, is one of several to be announced by DOE. The agency has in recent months executed several of those purchases, but the reserve still remains at a historically low level.
Overall, the president ordered DOE to release a total of about 260 million barrels of oil from the SPR in 2021 and 2022. Although the administration has recently initiated the process of refilling the reserve, Republican lawmakers and energy experts have warned its actions make the U.S. vulnerable to short-term supply shocks.
“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,” said Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of watchdog group Power the Future.
“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.”
“Keeping taxpayers concerns at the forefront, we will not be purchasing any oil at this time, because we are always doing our best to keep spending at a minimum”. In other news, we will be sending the Communist thugs in Ukraine another $50 billion, and China $50 billion for their sweat houses, another $25 billion for NASA to waste on frivolous scientific experiments, $100 billion on Climate Change, $75 billion on EV subsidizing, $80 billion to house illegals, and the Biden administration is looking for another $50 billion to try to eliminate his chief political rival from being on the ballot.
Benedict Biden is at it again. FJB
Sounds like a perfect campaign commercial. Explain why the SPR was created, why Biden misused it and how he’s leaving the country in danger by not refilling it.
Better get him out he giving the country away how are we supposed to defend are selves if attacked we have no fuel. And he just had a meeting with the Chinese in private. It’s pass time to wake up folks and run these sold out democrats out of the country. It’s past to late .
Just think. If President Trump was still in office, gas would probably stay around (or under) $2 a gallon, you’d never the nickel increase in fiid stuffs and supplies, no major conflicts, a guaranteed 85+ percent healthy economy from the Democrat/Socialist Covert-19 pre-plandemic.
Validated data proves Biden has terribly failed, like we knew it all along.
Times a changing. A shame all those in the 1960s protesting for peace and liberty, freedom and unity, are now the cowardice scumbucket motherfuckers in our government.
Goes all the way back to that bastard Lyndon Johnson.
I bet you Hillary Clinton was weaned off LBJ’s dick. And probably Biden giving sloppy seconds.
Biden needs what is known as a Brooklyn Beatdown and curb stomping until his teeth skid halfway across a Walmart parking lot!