Since 2021, the United States has endured an energy crisis that resulted in gas prices soaring over $5 per gallon and heating and electrical bills surging across the county.
Instead of incentivizing American companies to increase energy production to lower costs, President Biden authorized the release of 180 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) of the United States. The SPR is meant to be held on reserve and only utilized in emergency situations, like wartime or other crises beyond our control. By draining it, emergency American energy supplies are at risk in the event of a global supply crisis. When President Biden took office, the SPR was the world's largest stockpile of crude oil reserves. Now, it's at its lowest levels since 1984.
Perhaps the most scandalous part of this story, however, is that a subsidiary of Sinopec, a petroleum company that is wholly-owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was on the receiving end of a portion of the emergency SPR sales. It should go without saying that depleting our emergency energy stockpile for the benefit of CCP-controlled companies is a threat to national security and should be strictly prohibited.
In response to this disturbing mishandling of America's SPR, I am happy to tell you that one of the first bills passed under the Republican-controlled House was bipartisan legislation to protect America's national and economic security by prohibiting the Department of Energy from exporting any crude oil from the SPR to China in the future. It's time to push back against the Chinese Communist Party’s growing influence, and this overwhelming bipartisan support to ensure the CCP cannot purchase our oil reserves is an important step in that direction.
