Six months into admin’s ‘replenishment strategy,’ Biden has purchased zero reserve barrels
President Joe Biden in December began working to replenish the 180 million barrels he sold last year from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Nearly six months later, he still has zero barrels to show for it.
Biden’s Energy Department on Monday announced its intention to purchase up to three million reserve barrels as a “continuation” of the president’s “replenishment strategy.” So far, however, that “strategy” has seen the Democrat fail to purchase a single barrel of reserve oil. The administration first tried to purchase three million reserve barrels in December, when Biden kicked off his “plan to replenish the SPR.” One month later, Biden’s Energy Department revealed it had rejected all offers it received to purchase the oil because those offers “were either too expensive or didn’t meet the required specifications.”
Republicans have hammered Biden for his management of the reserves, which sit at their lowest levels in four decades after the Democrat last year sold 180 million reserve barrels in an attempt to lower gas prices ahead of a difficult midterm election. While Biden responded by pledging to “refill” the reserves with oil his administration would purchase this year, the Democrat has so far made no progress. If Biden’s Energy Department does manage to fulfill its recently announced purchase plan, the oil would be delivered to the reserves in August, meaning Biden would have secured just three million reserve barrels in eight months. At that pace, it would take the Democrat 40 years to procure the 180 million barrels he sold.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, whose office did not return a request for comment, has confirmed that the administration will be unable to refill the reserve to the levels Biden inherited. “We will begin that process this year, but to refill the full amount is impossible,” Granholm admitted in March. For Wyoming’s John Barrasso, who serves as the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, that answer is unacceptable.
“Joe Biden treats the Strategic Petroleum Reserve like a political piggy bank instead of a critical piece of American energy security,” Barrasso told the Washington Free Beacon. “He has no real plan to refill it. America has never been more vulnerable to a true energy emergency because of President Biden.”
Facing the “impossible” task of refilling the reserve to its past levels—the stock held 638 million barrels of oil when Biden took office and now holds just 362 million—Biden’s Energy Department is now channeling its replenishment efforts toward a more modest goal. The department in May touted its “significant progress toward replenishment,” citing its role in canceling congressionally mandated sales that would have seen the department sell 140 million reserve barrels between 2024 and 2027. As a result, the department says, the reserve will be effectively replenished by 2027—not because the barrels Biden sold will have been bought back, but rather because the reserve will save barrels thanks to the canceled sales.
“This cancellation … will allow the SPR to have the same number of barrels in reserve by the end of FY 2027 that it would have had emergency barrels not been sold in 2022,” the department said.
barack hussein obama and joe obiden have no intention of refiling the oil reserves. They are trying to slide the U.S. into a war with russia and china while ill-prepared. We also have an understaffed military that has had weapons given to Ukraine that were intended for our national security. The DEEP STATE is taking our country down through the back door and nobody sees it.
COMRADE BIDEN and the DEMON DEMOCRATS forgot to admit they destroyed US RESERVES and they have to DRILL BABY DRILL and it will fill quickly