President Joe Biden’s reckless energy policies, including a relentless war on US oil, have now seriously undercut national security.
To wit, the US Energy Information Agency just pegged the nation’s supply of emergency oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at just 351 million barrels — about half its capacity.
Biden has been depleting it periodically in the name of “Message: I care,” as his other policies have driven pump prices far above the level when he took office.
That’s the lowest the SPR has been in 40 years, providing enough to last only 17 days in a national emergency.
What a time to run low!
The Middle East may erupt any day, threatening oil exports from the region; Russian oil remains banned as its war in Ukraine rages on.
Yet Biden’s done everything in his power to halt domestic oil production, to please the Green extreme.
His team actually just bragged that they’re planning for just three potential oil and gas lease sales on federal territory — the “fewest” in “history” — over the next five years.
Their program “phases down oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico,” a Biden press release boasts, including “zero oil and gas lease sales in the Atlantic, Pacific and Alaskan waters.” Great.
That followed the cancellation of seven leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a push to severely limit leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
US oil production has already fallen by as much as 3 million barrels a day, or nearly 20%, from its Trump-era trajectory, the Committee to Unleash Prosperity finds.
Meanwhile, Biden’s reckless economic plans — spending trillions — have rocketed up prices, including for oil and gas at the pump.
The result: Motorists paid than $5 a gallon on average at one point last year, and they still face average prices of about $4 per gallon (vs. $2.42 when Biden took office).
That hit at the pump fueled public outrage, so Biden tried adding supplies by draining the SPR.
Which was nothing but performance politics.
For starters, the SPR supplies were never remotely enough to push down global prices much.
More important, the reserves — unlike oil in the ground — are extremely limited, and thus precious. Which is why they’re supposed to be used only for real national emergencies.
Draining the SPR has now left the nation dangerously short at a time when it well may be needed.
And get this: While Biden was spending down America’s oil nest egg and curbing production, Iran rushed to fill the gap by boosting its own output.
That — and lax sanctions enforcement by Team Biden — has let the mullahs add $40 billion to their global currency reserves, Unleash Prosperity reports.
Money that can be used to buy missiles and fund Hamas, Hezbollah, and Tehran’s other proxies.
Not surprisingly, Hamas’ savage attack in Israel this month has sparked fresh calls for a crackdown on Iranian oil exports.
Yet unless Biden frees up US production, that will only drive prices higher.
That may be why he’s easing oil and gas sanctions on Venezuela — in a deal that also has him flying multiple weekly planeloads of asylum seekers back to that tyrannized nation.
That’s right: He’s abandoning his principles on immigration to allow more purchase of foreign oil, rather than abandon his war on US carbon-fuel production.
Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers union has yet to endorse his re-election, because his mandates for electric vehicles are guaranteed to kill UAW jobs.
That is: Biden has 1) endangered national security, 2) massively increased average Americans’ pain at the pump, 3) empowered America’s enemies and 4) sold out his own beliefs on immigration and labor, all rather than stand up to the Greens.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
