Joe Biden Making Efforts to Guarantee U.S. Energy Security

On Wednesday, President Biden stepped up his efforts to ease Americans’ concerns about rising gas costs and decrease their dependence on the unstable global oil markets brought on by Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The United States is expected to release millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), and Joe Biden has indicated that he will consider additional withdrawals this upcoming winter.

The next day Biden’s administration announced $2.8 billion in grant funding to expand domestic production of batteries for electric vehicles and the electrical grid.

The measures indicate how energy security has overtaken inflation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the top priority for the Biden administration’s economic strategy, coming three weeks before the midterm election.

With the recent decision by Saudi Arabia and Russia to limit oil production, the urgent concern about rising gas costs has prompted President Biden to authorize the release of 15 million additional barrels of oil from the SPR.

Since Biden gave the green light to draw into the reserve back in March, 180 million barrels of oil have been released. 

“We’re calling it a ready and release plan,” said Biden on Wednesday. “This allows us to move quickly to prevent oil price spikes and respond to international events.”

“When the cost of oil comes down, we should see the price of the gas station at the pump come down as well,” he said. “My message to the American energy companies is, you should not be using your profits to buy back stock or for dividends. Not now. Not while a war is raging.”

However, some have said that President Biden is endangering the country’s energy security for political advantage by using the strategic oil reserves.

“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was built for a national energy crisis — not for a Democrat election crisis,” said Senator John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican. “Joe Biden is draining our emergency oil supply to a 40-year low.”

Mr. Biden denied allegations that he was releasing extra oil in anticipation of the midterms.

“It’s not politically motivated at all,” stated Biden, saying that he has been trying for months to reduce gas costs. “It’s motivated to make sure that I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing.”

Original source material for this article taken from here