Rep. Kelly statement on Biden administration's short-sighted Strategic Petroleum Reserve release

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) issued the following statement about President Biden's decision to release up to 180 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to combat record-high gas prices.

"The purpose of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is to counter severe supply chain disruptions and enhance national security, not to score quick political points," Kelly said. "This strategy is short-sighted, politically motivated, and dangerous because we've seen that releasing oil from the Reserve has a very minimal impact on lowering gas prices. By releasing a record amount of oil from our Reserve, President Biden is weakening our national security, plain and simple.

"The best way to lower gas prices is unleash American energy, open our pipelines, and consider purchasing more oil from our allies like Canada rather than from the world's bad actors like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela."

BACKGROUND
On Thursday, President Biden announced the U.S. is preparing to order the release of up to 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation's strategic petroleum reserve, up to 180 million barrels over the next six months. President Biden has released a combined 80 million barrels since November to lower record-high gas prices. The 180 million barrels Mr. Biden plans to release is nearly one-third of all U.S. oil reserves, with 568 million barrels on-hand.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and media reports, "following the Nov. 23 release, the average price of gas dropped by 2 cents in the following days. By Dec. 6, it only dropped another 3 cents."

Rep. Kelly proposed several solutions to lower gas prices and explains why reducing the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the wrong strategy to take in his editorial published earlier this month in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.