US could release oil from SPR to lower gasoline prices: Biden advisor

The US could release more crude oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to control a potential spike in gasoline prices at the pump this summer, a Biden administration official has said.

Amos Hochstein, US President Joe Biden's Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security, said that gasoline prices were "still too high for many Americans" and that he would like to see them "cut down a little bit further," according to a June 17 report in the Financial Times.

"We will do everything we can to make sure that the market is supplied well enough to ensure as low price as possible for American consumers," Hochstein told the newspaper. "I think that we have enough in the SPR if it's necessary."

The comments come amid a years-long debate among Washington lawmakers about the role of the US' SPR. In 2022, facing spiking global energy prices in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Department of Energy authorized a 180 million-barrel SPR release, alongside coordinated releases from other countries. A Treasury Department report has since claimed that sale brought the price of US gasoline down by as much as 40 cents/gal. Still, the sale spurred widespread criticism from Republicans, who accused the administration of risking the US' energy security in an attempt to curry favor with voters ahead of the crucial 2022 midterm elections.

The administration has steadily refilled the SPR in 2023 and 2024 after the 2022 sales brought the reserve to its lowest level since 1983.

"We will continue to purchase into next year, until we think that the SPR has the volume that it needs again to serve its original purpose of energy security," Hochstein said.

The latest solicitation for 6 million barrels for delivery in the fall will bring the total number of barrels repurchased to nearly 46 million, at an average price of $77/b. In its messaging, DOE has consistently touted the "good deal" for taxpayers represented by those prices, down from the $95/b the US sold for in 2022.

"Our sales in the summer of 2022 kept Russia's weaponization of energy markets from hurting our consumers at the pump," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told the Republican-led US House Oversight Committee May 24. "And now our replenishment strategy has almost finished restoring those supplies at a bargain for the taxpayer."

Combined with the cancellation of congressionally mandated sales, the administration says it has accounted for nearly all of the 180 million barrels it sold in 2022. According to the US Energy Administration, the SPR currently holds 370.5 million barrels. When Biden took office in January 2021, it held 638 million.

"We would have an ability to respond" to an extreme disruption, Granholm told the US House Oversight Committee. "We have the largest reserve in the world right now."

On May 29, two key energy-focused Republicans, US House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Republican-Washington, and US Senate Committee on Energy and National Resources Ranking Member John Barrasso, Republican-Wyoming, sent a letter to Granholm urging her to prevent Biden and his staff from further SPR releases.

"We urge you, in the strongest terms, to put this country's energy security first and stop abusing the SPR for political purposes," McMorris Rodgers and Barrasso said. "As the Secretary of Energy, it is your responsibility to ensure that the SPR is ready to respond to true energy supply disruptions. We ask that you ensure that the SPR is not abused for political purposes in this election year, as it was in 2022."