Photo Courtesy of Sen. Schumer
“Consumers need immediate relief at the gas pump, and so I am urging the administration to approve fuel sales from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve,” Sen. Schumer said.
By Forum Staff
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday called for the tapping of the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to help ease prices at the gas pump.
Schumer called on the Biden Administration to move forward with sales from the reserve as he also doubled down on how critical it is to implement Build Back Better.
Schumer said we need a real solution to this problem of price shocks from wildly fluctuating fossil fuels and that implementing Build Back Better would help all Americans move off our dependence on fossil fuels to cleaner, cheaper and more reliable electric cars and appliances. Schumer said, in the meantime, tapping some of the reserves’ 600 million barrels right now can help pump relief into current prices.
Last week, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said that President Biden was considering tapping into the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve amid rising crude oil prices. In an interview with CNN, the Secretary said Biden is “looking at all of the tools that he has” to address high prices at the pump, including tapping into U.S. oil reserves. Schumer, today, said this is a tool worth tapping. Schumer said he has urged former presidents, like President Bush, to tap the reserves during specific moments, with success.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the world’s largest supply of emergency crude oil, according to the SPR website. “It was established primarily to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products and to carry out obligations of the United States under the international energy program,” the website reads. The oil is stored underground at different sites along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. Altogether, the SPR can hold 714 million barrels of oil. Right now, it is holding roughly 600 million barrels.
According to the SPR website, an emergency withdrawal has only happened three times in its history. The first time being 1991, during President George H. W. Bush’s administration’s Operation Desert Storm. The second time was in 2005 as part of President George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina. The third and most recent withdrawal happened in 2011, a response to a loss of crude oil due to supply disruptions in various countries. Schumer says that COVID-19’s pandemic supply chain disruptions include a similar emergency fact pattern, and that approving fuel sales from the SPR –to ease pricing on the heels of the worst of the pandemic—should be done.
According to AAA, today’s national gas price average is $3.41, up from $2.12 a year ago at this time.
“COVID has wreaked havoc on all of our supply chains, no industry spared, with fuel supply and prices at the top of the list,” Schumer said. “Consumers need immediate relief at the gas pump, and so I am urging the administration to approve fuel sales from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve. The plan is not a cure-all, because we also need a real solution to this problem of price shocks from wildly fluctuating fossil fuels, but it can help ease prices ahead of holiday travel.”
