To the editor: I was once a teacher and altogether too frequently found myself writing on a student’s paper their need to actually research their topic. Listening to Republican talking points on oil in general and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) specifically brings that advice to mind.
First, understand the intention behind the SPR. Federal law gives the president the power to draw down the reserves to alleviate supply disruptions such as the one created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Department of Energy offers the released oil for sale to an approved list of companies under competitive bid, therefore, generally above the price paid. Thanks to the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 (the product of a heavily Republican-controlled 114th Congress) companies making the purchases are free to export the oil outside the United States or to sell it to secondary buyers both inside and outside the U.S. In other words, there is nothing nefarious about oil going to China either directly or indirectly. The idea is to increase the supply of crude oil worldwide, which should, barring major changes in demand, bring down oil prices. Once the oil is sold, it is beyond U.S. government control.
Second, where crude oil goes for refining depends on the quality of the oil. Refineries are not all the same and are configured for a particular grade of crude. Some of those refineries are overseas. During 2020, the last year of the Trump administration, Alaska shipped a record 15.6 million barrels of crude oil to China for refining, a two-decade record high.
Third, in the United States refineries are operating at or near capacity. The recent moves toward lowering dependency on fossil fuels plus better automobile gasoline MPG has disincentivized building more stateside refinery capacity.
Biden’s decision to use the SPR to increase supply to lower costs is not new and exactly the reserves’ purpose. The question critics fail to address is what the cost at the pump would have been had the Biden administration not dipped into the SPR.
The Constitution of the United States grants neither the president under Article 2, nor Congress under Article 1, the power to control gasoline prices, nor in a capitalist system should it. The market does that and in truth, we, as consumers, have a vote in the market’s demand side workings.
We can affect price on the demand side by consuming less fossil fuels. We can move toward more electric vehicles. In our gasoline and diesel burning vehicles, we can prioritize mpg in our buying decisions. We can drive less. And we can better incentivize wind and solar power in the power grid to name but a few.
If this debate is really about “strengthening our defenses” as some critics suggest in these days of war and near war, real patriots stop looking for scape goats and ask what they can do to better secure not only our shores, but that of our allies as well. To do otherwise renders their motives suspect.
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