Fact Checkers Said Biden’s Chinese Oil Sale Was No Big Deal. A Congressional Dem Just Moved To Ban the Practice.

Bills from Democrat Frank Pallone, Republican Dan Sullivan would ban sale of strategic petroleum reserves to China following Free Beacon report

Just months after fact checkers rushed to the defense of the Biden administration in the wake of its decision to sell U.S. oil reserves to China, a New Jersey Democratic congressman is moving to ban the practice.

Rep. Frank Pallone on Sept. 26 introduced the Buy Low and Sell High Act, which would help “us regain control of domestic gas prices” in part by banning the sale of Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to any entity “owned, controlled, or influenced” by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, the Washington Examiner reported. The move will likely come as a surprise to some of the country’s leading fact checkers, who tut-tutted a Washington Free Beacon report in July indicating that the Biden administration sold hundreds of thousands of emergency reserve barrels to a Chinese state-controlled company.

“There’s no reason for outrage. … The Biden administration is seeking to lower the global price of crude oil by bolstering supply around the globe,” the Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler wrote at the time. “Selling crude oil to traders, whether based in the United States, Europe, or Asia, is part of that effort. Anyone who suggests the Biden administration is doing something wrong here … earns Three Pinocchios.” PolitiFact similarly defended the sale, which it said “accomplishes the policy goal of lowering oil prices.” White House adviser Ian Sams quickly used those reports to accuse Republicans of “pushing false conspiracies about the president.”

Pallone apparently disagrees. His bill orders Biden’s energy secretary to “issue a rule” prohibiting “the export or sale of petroleum products drawn down from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve” to “any entity owned, controlled, or influenced by … the Chinese Communist Party.” That provision, the legislation states, would help “lower consumer fuel prices.”

Pallone is not the only member of Congress working to ban the sale of emergency reserve oil to China. Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R., Alaska) Replenishing Our American Reserves Act calls for the energy secretary to “only draw down and sell petroleum products from the Reserve to entities within the United States.”

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