In March 2022, President Joe Biden withdrew 180 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, reducing it to its lowest level since the 1980s. To listen to liberals’ explanations, it was an attempt to address high gasoline prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The pandemic and former president Donald Trump were also somehow to blame because…why not?
Conservatives were quick to understand it as an attempt to buy votes for the upcoming midterm elections. After all, it was the administration’s disastrous energy policies that caused Americans so much pain at the pumps in the first place.
It seems Biden wasn’t amused by the “I Did This” stickers found on gas pumps across the nation and found a way to make things even worse. In typical Democrat fashion, the administration kicked the can down the road, tapping emergency oil reserves without a plan to restock the dwindling supply.
The Energy Department has been frantically trying to refill the reserve, purchasing 6.3 million barrels and canceling 140 million barrels in congressionally mandated sales scheduled for the next three years. But in August, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm predicted that the SPR will not be fully restocked until after 2025, when Biden is out of office. This is, of course, the same Granholm that giggled uncontrollably when asked to comment on gas prices.
Hilarious.
But the Biden administration defends its mismanagement of the SPR, enthusiastically pointing out that the U.S. still has 351 million barrels in reserve. Granholm expressed confidence in these reserve levels, emphasizing that it is the world’s largest strategic reserve. Although it’s not as large as the Obama-era reserve, the Biden administration hopes that the current SPR stock, along with the 424 million barrels held by private companies in the U.S., will be enough.
The SPR now holds around 56 days’ worth of U.S. oil imports. As the Middle East implodes and the U.S. is heading into fall and winter, the United States has less than two months of oil stockpiled to keep houses warm, food in stores, and cars on the road.
Many remember the gas shortages in the 1970s that were primarily caused by disruptions in the global oil supply. The 1973 crisis resulted from the OPEC oil embargo, led by oil-producing countries, in response to Western support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. This led to reduced oil exports and skyrocketing oil prices. In 1979, the second crisis occurred due to the Iranian Revolution, which once again disrupted oil production and supply.
These events caused a severe shortage of gasoline and led to long lines at gas stations, rationing, and increased prices. In response, the United States built a significant stockpile of crude oil reserves to reduce dependence on foreign resources.
And Biden quickly depleted it because he had no other way to save face following his own failed energy policies.
Biden’s war on American energy started on his first day in office. Smoke poured from his pen has he signed one disastrous Executive Order after another. On day one, he increased emissions regulations and designated large portions of federal land as National Monuments to limit domestic energy production. He placed a moratorium on oil and natural gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, restricted energy production using the “social costs of carbon” metric, and he revoked the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Additionally, he rolled back Trump administration executive orders related to WOTUS and the Antiquities Act, which had previously reduced regulations on federal lands and expanded domestic energy production opportunities.
Americans immediately experienced pain at the pump, but Biden wasn’t concerned until he realized that the backlash of his policies might cost Democrats valuable seats in the 2022 midterm elections. He quickly tapped into the emergency supply to artificially lower gas prices, hoping voters would buy into his claims that America was doing just fine, nothing to see here.
At that point, the cost of oil was 1 vote per barrel.
In August, amid rising oil prices exceeding $80 a barrel, the Biden administration decided to delay its efforts to replenish the national emergency oil reserve. The Energy Department canceled a scheduled purchase of 6 million barrels for the strategic reserve, claiming it wanted to ensure a “cost-effective” arrangement for taxpayers.
Taxpayers under Biden, however, fully understand there is no “cost-effective” solution to any Democrat-caused problem the nation faces. And now that the unthinkable has happened in the Middle East, America is not prepared for a significant disruption of its oil imports.
Stay tuned for another episode of Biden’s Barrel Blunders, a real-life sitcom featuring the economic stylings of Carter and the criminal activities of Nixon in one brain-addled character. These 70’s reboots are out of control.
