Biden Administration Overpays to Refill 1 Percent of SPR

May 21, 2024

In another late Friday afternoon news release, the Biden Administration announced its commitment to buying 3.3 million barrels of oil to begin refilling America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). At first glance, this seems like a significant announcement, but if you look a little further, you find that 3.3 million barrels is barely a drop in the bucket.  

This effort will fill about 1 percent of the reserve that President Biden drained during his time in office, and it will be purchased at nearly $80 a barrel. That price tag is much higher than the proposed cost of $31 a barrel when former President Trump proposed refilling the SPR in March 2020 to take advantage of low prices. That effort was stopped by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who called the purchase a “bailout for big oil.”

Power The Future Founder and Executive Director Daniel Turner calls out the hypocrisy of now wanting to fill the SPR for over double the costs,

“The Biden Administration said they would wait to refill the SPR when prices came down, this must mean they think the price won’t drop further. If Senator Schumer and his colleagues thought $31 a barrel was a bailout, they should be raging mad about this lousy deal. This is yet another example of how President Trump understood America’s energy economy while Joe Biden and his allies can’t buy a drop of common sense.”