Under President Joe Biden’s leadership, Americans never seem to get a break from the spiraling prices they face. Now, they are beginning to see the price for gasoline rising higher and higher – again. This is troubling news for working-class families who are struggling just to put food on the table, clothes on their backs, and gasoline in their cars because of the cost-of-living crisis, which Washington Democrats created with their reckless, $10 trillion spending spree. And it was entirely predictable because of the way Biden played politics with our Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
Among the most mind-boggling parts of Biden’s disastrous climate agenda was his decision to drain the SPR. He’s sold off an unprecedented 250 million barrels of oil, or more than 40% of the stockpile – and interestingly, most of it was sold before last November. The SPR was created to help America get through a severe energy crisis. But thanks to Biden, the SPR is at its lowest level since 1983. Adding insult to injury, a significant amount of the oil he’s drained from the SPR was sold to China. It’s outrageous, and absolutely unacceptable!
The energy crisis could have been prevented if Biden and Washington Democrats supported an all-of-the-above energy agenda. Instead, they’ve spent the last two years waging war on American energy. On day one of his administration, Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, which could be supplying 830,000 barrels per day of oil from Canada to U.S. refineries. As gas prices were at record highs over the summer, Washington Democrats decided to drive prices even higher by including a $12 billion tax on U.S. energy in their Inflation Act – their massive, $745 billion tax-and-spend climate bill. And then there’s Biden’s regulatory assault, where he is using burdensome regulations to stifle the creation of new large-scale refineries.
Fortunately, the new Republican House majority is fighting back. This month, the House passed the Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act, which would block the Biden administration from selling oil from the SPR to the Chinese Communist Party. Last week, we passed another bill – the Strategic Production Response Act – to allow U.S. energy to take advantage of the vast oil and gas reserves located under federal lands and waters, force the Biden administration to refill and maintain the SPR, and help our nation prepare for real energy supply emergencies.
Biden claims that releasing oil from the SPR had a direct impact on energy prices here at home. In reality, his actions did nothing to bring relief to working-class families. The oil he released from the SPR doesn’t have anywhere to go because our pipelines and refineries – the ones he hasn’t been able to shut down yet – are essentially full. As a result, the oil drained from the SPR often ends up on the global market, including China. In other words, draining the SPR was nothing more than a political move – one that only benefited the Chinese Communist Party, the U.S.’s top adversary.
This new House Republican majority will protect working-class Americans from the Left’s radical, costly climate agenda. We will continue fighting tooth and nail to advance policies that will help lower energy costs and put our nation back on the path to energy independence – just like we were under President Donald Trump.
