Sky high gas prices in the post-Donald Trump era led to President Joe Biden beocmign a bit reckless with the reserves. Since coming into office, the amount in the reserves has sank to its lowest level in 40 years.
Currently, just 346.8 million barrels are ready to roll, which would last just 18 days if a true crisis were to unfold. Fox Contributor Phil Flynn says the move by Biden will have long reaching effects.
"I believe the reserve was used for the wrong reasons...by using it as a tool to control gas prices short-term, it will leave us vulnerable to price hikes in the future," he says. "We took our supplies, spent them all, and it will be very difficult to replace those any time soon."
Maybe you believe in coincidence, maybe you believe it was something else. But the timing of his use of the reserves was interesting, to say the least. It began right after Biden took the White House. Gas prices began hovering around $5 per gallon i some places, which led to tens of millions of barrels being released in Fall 2021, just mere weeks before the midterm elections.
"This was a situation where Biden used the strategic petroleum reserve as his poltical piggy back," he says.
Of course, it kept going into 2022, and Biden ordered another 200 million barrels released after oil prices shot up with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Which was a convenient cover.
"It was not about the war...everyone said the war made it a justified use of the reserve...no, no, no, no," he says. "Biden began tapping into the reserve long before the war in Ukraine began. He also did it as a message to OPEC and tried to make Saudi Arabia this pariah state."
But all this emptying of our oil reserves has just set up people like the Saudi's, who are licking their chops.
"They will let us empty that reserve...because at the end of the day, if you are reducing U.S. production, we have to buy that oil back...and we have to buy it from the Saudi's and OPEC," he says.
All in all, the use of the reserve did not drop gas prices that much. Sure, it saved us from progressing to the apocalyptic $6 per gallon range, but we are still being raked over the coals. The national average, at the time of this article, sits at $3.15 per gallon.
We will pay an even bigger prices too, if Biden keeps using the reserves as his own little oil well.
"When the market is artificially suppressed, then you end up with a shortage...and it will be a direct result of policies by President Biden," he says. "Demand for oil is going to end up out stretching the supply we have eventually...and when that happens, look out at the pump. Because the prices will surge right back up."
So, the million dollar question. Will we ever refill what has been wasted by our ineffective president?
"Most people in the energy industry do not think that is possible...I also do not believe that it is just as easy as 'filling it back up,'" he says. "A lot of money will have to be invested to fix the caverns in which the oil is stored, and the pumping stations. There is a long road ahead to do that."
He says we will likely see prices go rocketing back up again soon.