A GOP bill set for a vote Friday would require the government to offset any non-emergency withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with new drilling on public lands and oceans. Republicans accuse President Joe
The Big GuyBiden
...46th president of the U.S. Former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect hacked up by the World's Greatest Deliberative Body. The guy who single-handedly lost Afghanistan...
of abusing the reserve for political reasons to keep gas prices low, while Biden says tapping the reserve was needed last year in response to a ban on Russian oil imports following President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
's invasion of Ukraine.
Biden withdrew 180 million barrels from the strategic reserve over several months, bringing the stockpile to its lowest level since the 1980s. The administration said last month it will start to replenish the reserve now that oil prices have gone down.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre attacked the latest GOP proposal, which follows a bill approved two weeks ago that would prohibit the Energy Department from selling oil from the strategic reserve to companies owned or influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.
"House Republicans will vote to raise gas prices on American families ... and help Putin's war aims by interfering with our ability to release oil,'' Jean-Pierre said, referring to the current GOP bill. "These extreme policies would subject working families to immense financial pain and balloon our deficit, all just to benefit the wealthiest taxpayers and big corporations.''
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
...Former Dem governess of Michigan, Energy Secretary under the Biden administration. She'll likely consider that enough to qualify her for a presidential bid come next election..., appearing with Jean-Pierre at the White House, said the bill would make it "harder to offer Americans relief in the future" from oil disruptions that could raise prices.
That tw@t is Canadian-born, so no POTUS for her
Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee and sponsored the GOP bill, accused Granholm and the White House of multiple misleading claims, including an erroneous assertion that the bill could affect use of the reserve during a presidentially declared emergency.
"At a time when gas prices are on the rise, Secretary Granholm and the Biden administration (aka the Wilmington comorra)
...the pack of self-imagined masterminds of strategy and intrigue at the service of the Biden Crime Family and a grateful nation...
need to be transparent with the American people about their efforts to cover up how they've abused the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as an election-year gimmick,'' McMorris Rodgers said.
"Republicans want durable, long-lasting relief at the pump. The best way to do this is by unleashing American energy,'' which her legislation helps accomplish, added McMorris Rodgers, of Washington state.
The heated rhetoric is part of a larger fight over oil drilling and climate change. Republicans say restrictions on oil leasing imposed by the Biden administration hamper U.S. energy production and harm the economy, while Democrats tout a sweeping climate law approved last year as a crucial step to wean the nation off fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. The measure authorizes billions in spending to boost renewable energy such as wind and solar power and includes incentives for Americans to buy millions of electric cars, heat pumps, solar panels and more efficient appliances.