To the Editor:

It’s important in the conversation regarding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to set forth the history of its creation.

The British controlled Palestine in 1948 and they, in turn, carved out what is currently known as Israel to be the home for the jews after WWII. The jews were an unwanted class at the end of the war, as neither USA, England, France or other allied countries, would grant them asylum.

As is evident today, the countries surrounding Israel refused to acknowledge their existence. In the early 1970's, backed by Russia, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur. In turn, President Nixon supplied Israel with arms. In response, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) reduced oil shipments to the US. Price for oil rose from $3 per barrel to $12. Even after the war ended OAPEC didn’t lift the embargo until March 1974, causing an international energy crises.

In the mid-1970's Washington embraced environmentalism by redefining our relationship to our sources of energy and passed the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act and creating the Department of Energy. A movement began to stimulate domestic oil production and looking at solar, wind or nuclear power as alternative sources. In addition, the SPR was enacted to safeguard our independency on others for our supply or combat price inflations. The SPR has a storage capacity of 1 billion barrels.

The president is the lead on withdrawals and Congress approves the purchase to refill. When Trump took office price of oil was $52. The SPR had held 695 million barrels. Trump attempted to refill the SPR at a time when capacity was approximately 635 million barrels and the cost per barrel was $24, but Congress wouldn’t approve the purchase. Senate Democrats took credit for the decision stating it was a “bailout” for the oil industry. When Trump left office there was approximately 639 million barrels on hand.

Even though there wasn’t a supply disruption, in November 2021, Biden released 50 million barrels to pressure OPEC to increase production, and act which failed.

Due to Venezuelan’s lack of cooperation dealing with counterterrorism and anti-narcotics efforts, in 2006, the US imposed various sanctions on Venezuelan government, one being blocking oil imports from that country. Trump tightened those sanctions in hopes it would help oust President Maduro. Democrats argue these sanctions have caused the rapid rise of Venezuelan’s to cross our border.

In late 2022, Biden eased sanctions to allow Chevron to resume operations in Venezuela, ignoring the many oil spills which occurred in 2021. Today Biden indicates he may “reimpose” sanctions due to Maduro’s failure to allow “an inclusive and competitive election” to be held. In addition, the easing of the sanctions hasn’t changed the living conditions of most Venezuelans.

In the hope to stabilize oil prices, Biden released an additional 30 million barrels due to the Ukraine war.

During his first two and a half years in office, Biden sold off more than 40 percent of the SPR, bringing it down to 291 million barrels, its lowest level in 40 years. He announced he’d replenish the SPR when the prices fell to $67-$72 a barrel. To date he has purchased 26 million barrels of oil from private companies at an average cost of $76 per barrel. Today the price per barrel is $85. I mean, what a bargain!

Next week Title IX..

Patti Walker
Fillmore, Ca.