For the week of July 7, the United States' Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) held 346,758,000 barrels of oil in its underground tanks located in Texas and Louisiana. That may seem like a lot of black gold, but the SPR's current authorized storage capacity is 714,000,000 barrels, according to the Department of Energy.
That means the SPR could hold an additional 367,242,000 barrels, and that America's emergency backup supply of oil is more than half empty and at its lowest level since 1983 — and it's all thanks to President Joe Biden.
Joe Biden played politics with our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, lowering it to its lowest level in decades with no plans to refill it.
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) July 17, 2023
Now, our reserves are half empty. pic.twitter.com/VJG6jnIzPH
The week Biden took office in January 2021, there were 638,086,000 barrels in the SPR. After taking office — and, on day one beginning a campaign of canceling energy and pipeline projects and pursuing a strict regulatory regime to punish oil and gas companies — Biden succeeded in destroying America's energy independence.
In response to his self-inflicted energy crisis that drove the national average gas price to its highest level ever recorded, Biden announced that he would be tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to wrangle soaring gas prices by artificially increasing the oil supply in the U.S. by using SPR stocks that are normally used only in the event of natural disasters or foreign chaos.
🧵When gas was nearing $5 in Montana, Biden drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to hide the fact his policies were killing production and skyrocketing the price of gas. Now, the SPR is the lowest it has been in four decades.
— Rep Ryan Zinke (@RepRyanZinke) July 17, 2023
Instead of the usual causes, Biden tapped the SPR as a response to his own devastating energy policies and burned through 291,328,000 barrels due to a crisis of his own creation.
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