Several Democratic lawmakers sharply criticized President Joe Biden on Thursday after reports of an emergency shipment of US oil to China and other nations. More than five million barrels of oil released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) have been diverted to European and Asian countries instead of US refineries, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing customs data. Biden directed the Energy Department to release a total of about 260 million barrels of oil stored in the SPR over the past eight months to combat record fuel prices that are hurting American consumers. “The American people deserve answers as to why our emergency energy reserves are being sent to foreign adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party, jeopardizing our energy security and our national security,” the Energy Committee member told Fox News Digital and House of Representatives Commerce, Cathy McMorris Rogers. statement. “President Biden needs to remember that our strategic energy reserves are for emergencies, not to cover bad policies. America needs to flip the switch and increase our ability to produce and refine oil here at home,” he continued. “Now is not the time to use our strategic reserve.” FORMER TOP TRUMP OFFICIAL RIPS BIDEN’S RECENT OIL DRILLING PROPOSAL CONTAINED REDUCTION IN LEASE SALES Liberty Oilfield Services President and CEO Chris Wright discusses how uncertainty in the economy is leading to volatility in the oil market on “The Claman Countdown.” McMorris Rodgers and Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., the top Republican on the committee’s energy subcommittee, wrote a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in early June asking for information on how the administration’s SPR policy encouraged China. The two GOP leaders noted similar reports that China had bought oil from US emergency stocks to bolster its own stockpile. McMorris Rogers told Fox News that the committee has yet to receive a response from Granholm about the administration’s “mismanagement” of US oil reserves. “What do they have to hide? she added. ADMIN BIDEN MISSES MAJOR OIL LEASE DEADLINE: ‘ABSOLUTE DISGRACE’ “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is for national emergencies – not policy blunders,” Upton tweeted Thursday. “The administration still has not answered questions from Congress about the mismanagement of the SPR.” Meanwhile, the SPR level has fallen to about 492 million barrels of oil, the lowest level since December 1985, according to the Energy Information Administration. The current level is also 20% below the level recorded days before Biden’s first release in late November. The SPR was established by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 to help the US mitigate the effects of future “severe interruptions in energy supplies.” “After many failed attempts to lower US gas prices by robbing our strategic emergency oil reserve, could someone please inform the decision makers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that we have much larger and more strategic untapped energy resources that can they be mined, processed and used cleaner and safer here at home for the benefit of American workers and businesses?” House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., told Fox News Digital. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Republican of Washington, speaks during a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S., Thursday, May 12, 2022. (Photo by Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images) Westerman added that promoting domestic production would solve many of the current problems facing the US and prevent Biden from “having to go to Saudi Arabia and beg for their oil.” “The emergency stocks of oil that are in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve are designed for international crises,” Rep. Garrett Graves, R-La., the member of the House Select Committee on Climate Change, said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “They’re designed for natural disasters, they’re not designed to mitigate bad energy policy.” TOP DEMO TARGET TO FORCE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TO CANCEL OIL AND GAS LEASE SALES “This is a self-imposed problem and not what our reserves were intended for,” he continued. “It certainly shouldn’t go to rivals like China.” Like Westerman, Graves also criticized Biden for his policies limiting new oil and gas lease sales on federal lands, noting that the Obama administration had leased far more land to energy producers than the current administration. The Interior Department issued a plan last week that bans offshore oil and gas leasing in the Atlantic and Pacific and holds between 0-11 lease sales in other federal waters until 2028. Jason Isaacs of the Texas Public Policy Foundation discusses how Biden’s EPA is targeting the Permian Basin and how Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is pushing back against the proposal on “Fox Business Tonight.” GET THE FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE “President Biden has screwed up American energy policy so badly that this news comes as no surprise,” Rep. Ralph Norman, RSC, the ranking member of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment, told Fox News Digital. “Our strategic reserves are for national security, not to satisfy global oil markets.” “This government owes us an immediate explanation as to why our stocks were sent to other nations,” Norman said. The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment.
