An energy crisis spawned by a Middle East war 50 years ago spurred the U.S. to create a huge crude oil stockpile to shield the country from threats by unfriendly nations.
Now the oil lying in half-filled salt caverns along the Gulf Coast is posing a political quandary for President Joe Biden.
Biden’s administration sold off more than 40 percent of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve last year to help limit rising fuel prices after Russia invaded Ukraine, leaving the stockpile at its lowest levels since the early 1980s. That’s fueling Republican accusations that Biden has left the U.S. vulnerable to a disruption of global oil supplies — at a time when Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel are stoking fears of a wider regional war disrupting fuel shipments from the Middle East.
“That’s Joe Biden’s fault for trying to lower the price of gas before the election,” House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) told POLITICO.
Earlier, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) lamented to reporters that “our Strategic Petroleum Reserve is down to nothing.”
Continue here: Politico
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