(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) In 2022, Joe Biden began depleting the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, ordering the release of one million barrels per day in an attempt to head off rising gas prices, without planning to refill the SPR anytime while he will be in office.
“North American energy development is critical to U.S. national security and to the economic and national security of our allies throughout Europe and the world,” James “Spider” Marks, a retired Major General of the U.S. Army, said.
Marks also said that the U.S. is a hedge against foreign enemies who may weaponize their energy supplies, calling Biden to increase the production and transportation of U.S. energy resources, Timcast reported.
More than five million barrels of American oil obtained from the SPR — the world’s largest known emergency oil supply — were exported to Europe and Asia in May 2022. Meanwhile, the average price for gas across the U.S. hit $5 for the first time in history.
The news source also reported that at least one million barrels were sold to Unipec, a trading subsidiary of Sinopec, a state-owned Chinese gas company in which Hunter Biden’s private equity firm held a $1.7 billion stake.
Even though the oil releases were to continue through October, the Biden administration extended them through November of last year.
A White House fact sheet revealed that 180 million barrels were emptied from the SPR, which means that Biden’s policy drained the U.S. emergency oil stockpile to the lowest level it had been at in nearly 40 years.
In a letter to the White House, a group of lawmakers called the sale “potentially illegal.”
“The purpose of the SPR is ‘primarily to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products’ and supply crude oil to Americans during times of national emergency,” they wrote.
“The oil within the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was intended for the American people, not for adversarial countries, and certainly not to make the Biden Family richer at a time when our citizens are paying almost $5.00 a gallon for gasoline and $6.00 for diesel.”
U.S. officials initiated plans to begin repurchasing barrels of oil to refill the SPR in December 2022, adding that it could take months, or possibly years, to complete.
The Biden administration itself, however, doesn’t even bother refilling the SPR by the time Biden completes his term in office.
“The first term’s over in a year and a half. So, I’m not sure it’ll be fully replenished. But certainly, the plan is this term and the next term to be able to do that,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said.
