(RepublicanInformer.com)- On Tuesday, President Biden announced that he was ordering the release of 50 million barrels of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve ostensibly in an effort to combat rising fuel prices.
However, many are questioning whether this move will have any significant impact at all.
While fifty million barrels sounds like a lot, it is merely a drop in the bucket when you consider how much oil the US consumes. In 2020, the United States consumed on average 18 million barrels of oil a day. Fifty million barrels released from the SPR would amount to less than three days’ worth of oil.
Critics also question whether this is a legitimate use of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve at all.
Carol Roth, a former investment banker and the author of “The War on Small Business,” pointed out on Tuesday that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is for an emergency, “not for stupid governance decisions.” Roth argued that Biden’s own energy policies have caused the increase in gas prices and the lack of domestic energy supply. Roth said instead of releasing reserves, Biden should restore US energy independence by reopening the Keystone pipeline and allowing oil and gas leases on federal lands.
No doubt such actions would have much more impact on US energy prices than releasing less than three days’ worth of petroleum reserves.
Roth’s views were shared by former President Donald Trump.
In a fundraising letter on Tuesday, Trump blasted Biden’s decision, arguing that the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is “meant to be used for serious emergencies, like war, and nothing else.”
The former President boasted that, unlike previous presidents who didn’t want to spend the money to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, he filled it “right to the top, when oil prices were very low.”
Trump pointed out that just a year ago when he was President, the United States was energy independent. Now, he continued, the US is at “the mercy of OPEC” and gas prices are rising throughout the US, adding “is this any way to run a country?”
