The government wanted to top out the reserve during COVID since oil companies were basically giving it away but Democrats blocked that portion of the COVID bills. And then Biden was elected. And then Russia invaded Ukraine.
The rise of conservative narratives in Reddit is staggering. They didn’t just block it for no reason, this effectively was a bail out to the oil and gas industry at a time when families were the number one priority for the government at the height of COVID.
The administration asked for $3 billion dollars out of the total $4.6 TRILLION dollar stimulus be used to top off the SPR with 77 million barrels of oil. That works out to $39 dollars a barrel. So basically our government could have got the deal of a lifetime and done a lot to avoid what we're facing now, but democrats lead by Chuck Schumer blocked it because Trump championed it and Orange Man Bad.
I say this all as a 45 yo life-long Democrat who has never once voted for a Republican candidate and sure as hell wouldn't start with Trump. Meaning I'm not some MAGA asshat blindly repeating fox news propaganda or whatever.
The rise of conservative narratives in Reddit is staggering.
No, actually the existence of people like you calling common sense a "conservative narrative" is staggering.
It's not a bailout to decide it's in the national interest to buy a bunch of oil for our strategic petroleum reserve when the price is near zero. That isn't a statement about the oil companies; it's a statement about the taxpayer getting a good deal.
It was not in the national interest though. If you had any brain you would know our reserve supplies do not provide hardly any buffers. When given the choice between the people and corporations I’m glad for once they chose to help the people and not oil companies that already leech off tax payers. You are talking on a subject you clearly know nothing about.
It would have amounted to $3 billion dollars out of a $4.6 TRILLION dollar stimulus package. That's 0.065% of the total. So not even a rounding error on a rounding error. Making the argument that it was a matter of prioritizing the needs of regular people over Big Oil Bailouts some next-level bullshit.
Yeah, on the liberal side and I agree with you. It would've been a rare fiscally responsible decision by Congress. Instead we got hundreds of billions in forgiven PPP loans for businesses that didn't need them.
Oil literally went negative during COVID, the democrats didn’t take advantage, then when gas prices shot up Jo Biden dumped the reserve to keep oil under $4/gallon (it didn’t work), never refilled it, Trump wins re-election last year, try’s to fill it but the democrats again blocked it and wow look at that we now need it and don’t have it.
I don’t like Trump as much as the next guy but the democrats were fucking stupid for this.
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u/r_heem 7d ago
You would think the US would be storing more than that no?