President Joe Biden is bragging about gas prices dropping in recent weeks – even as fuel today costs roughly $2 more a gallon – or nearly double – than when former President Donald Trump left office.
“Our actions are working, and prices are coming down,” Biden tweeted recently.
But his actions are literally bleeding America’s oil reserves dry. And Republicans in Congress want to stop it.
The “actions” Biden championed in that tweet last week was his plan, launched in April, to drain 1 million barrels a day from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the huge reservoir created in the 1970s to help the U.S. avoid shocks at the pump the last time inflation and supply problems were as bad as they are under Biden.
Biden chose this over encouraging U.S. oil producers to crank up the wells and return America to the days, under Trump, when the nation was the world’s largest oil producer.
As the website JustTheNews.com reported on Sunday, Biden’s actions have consequences. He has reduced the SPR to its lowest level since 1985, when the nation was still trying to fill the reservoir.
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And Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress are fine with making America more dependent on its rivals, and even enemies.
Just The News noted that California GOP Rep. David Valadao offered a measure last week to at least block the sale of the SPR stockpile to communist China.
“It is irresponsible and dangerous for the United States to provide a foreign adversary with fuel that we need to keep here in the United States in case of an emergency,” Valadao said in a statement. “It seems the Biden administration is helping to support China’s national security at the expense of our own.”
Yet every Democrat in the House voted to reject Valadao’s bill.
Last Wednesday, the same day Democrats balked at selling American oil to China, 19 GOP lawmakers sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm questioning why Biden keeps opening the SPR to China.
One purchaser involved in Biden’s most recent oil auction, as The Free Press reported two weeks ago, was Unipec America, a subsidy of an energy company owned by China’s government. Unipec’s parent firm, Sinopec, once received a $1.7 billion investment from a private equity firm owned by Hunter Biden.
“The decision to sell to Unipec raises questions about why the Biden Administration is selling oil from the SPR to China, especially when the sale may enrich Hunter Biden, the President’s son. This transaction is even more troubling given that evidence continues to mount showing the Biden family peddled access to the highest levels of government to enrich themselves,” GOP lawmakers wrote in the letter.
“In order to ensure the American people that DOE and the Biden Administration are properly managing the sale of critical assets from the SPR and not further enriching the Biden family, we request a briefing and documents related to this matter,” they added.
The Republicans noted, “It appears that Hunter Biden still maintains a financial interest in BHR [Hunter Biden’s private equity company], raising serious questions about the motivation behind selling oil from the SPR to Sinopec and whether DOE was aware of Hunter Biden’s financial stake.”
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“The SPR was created so the U.S. would have a stockpile of crude oil supply to be used in the case of an emergency. It was never intended to provide oil to adversaries such as China. The American people deserve to know more about the DOE’s recent sales activity and whether the President’s son benefited financially.”
The lawmakers observed that they asked the DOE for a briefing on the decision to “deplete” the SPR in May. They’re still waiting for that information.
The lawmakers demanded that the DOE conduct such a briefing by Wednesday and turn over any records the department has about selling oil to Unipec by next week.
Among those who signed the letter were GOP Reps. Scott Franklin of Lakeland and Byron Donalds of Naples.
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