The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, was established by an act of Congress in 1975. Unlike most programs to come out of Congress, this reserve was meant to do exactly what the name indicated: act as a strategic tool for the United States to deploy in wartime to offset a catastrophic disruption in our nation’s oil supply. The first deployment of this reserve was during the Gulf War, when President George H.W. Bush announced a release of 2.5 million barrels per day, but quickly capped the deployment to a total of 17 million barrels when it was discovered that no more was needed to counterbalance the effect of the war.
President Biden has released around one third of the oil reserve since his inauguration, but military strategy has nothing to do with it. Contrary to what the left might think, our nation is not in a war with Russia or any other nation right now. The only pertinent war that the left is fighting is a war on fossil fuels. Even their poorly named Inflation Reduction Act did much more to destroy domestic oil production than to restore it. If America were really in crisis, we would be focused on ramping up production rather than killing industry and selling off our reserves.
The real reason President Biden is selling off America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve is because Americans would never go along with the left’s phony green agenda if they knew just how expensive it would be to average Americans. Middle class and poor Americans cannot afford radical energy policies, so Biden’s handlers hide the horror by artificially influencing prices.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a valuable part of our nation’s military readiness, but President Biden squanders it for his own political gain. Even worse, he squanders the greater military asset of our domestic energy industry. To truly be ready for any conflict, we must go back to the days of President Trump when America had the ability to produce all of our own energy and then some. That keeps prices low, unemployment low, and profits high for American energy producers.
