President Biden’s Dangerous Abuse Of The Strategic Petroleum Reserve

The most striking aspect of President Joe Biden’s press engagement Wednesday related to his announced release of another 15 million barrels of oil from the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was the question that was not asked by any of the reporters in the room.

In his statement, Biden scolded U.S. oil companies, saying “My message to the American energy companies is this: You should not be using your profits to buy back stock or for dividends. Not now. Not while a war is raging,” Biden said. “You should be using these record-breaking profits to increase production and refining.”

This statement raises several key questions, but the most obvious is this: If “a war is raging,” why, then, does the President of the United States remain so steadfastly focused on depleting the volumes of crude oil contained in the SPR? Unfortunately, no one in the room thought to ask this crucial question.