Schumer once blocked Trump's move to fill the nation's oil reserves, now he wants them opened
The top Senate Democrat wants President Donald Trump to tap the nation’s oil stockpile as fuel prices skyrocket, years after blocking his attempt to replenish the supply when prices were...
By Fox News · Fox News
The top Senate Democrat wants President Donald Trump to tap the nation’s oil stockpile as fuel prices skyrocket, years after blocking his attempt to replenish the supply when prices were low. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Trump to unleash reserve barrels of oil from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) as oil prices spike amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Schumer argued in a statement that the reserve "exists for moments exactly like this." TRUMP’S ENERGY DOMINANCE REWRITES THE STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE AFTER BIDEN DRAWDOWNS "When wars and global crises disrupt energy markets, the United States has the ability to act, but President Trump and his administration are refusing to do so," Schumer said. "Trump should release oil from the SPR now to stabilize markets, bring prices down, and stop the price shock that American families are already feeling thanks to his reckless war." During his first term, Trump wanted to use about $3 billion from a colossal COVID-19 stimulus package making its way through Congress to fill the reserve, but the move was promptly rejected by Schumer and congressional Democrats, who panned it as a "bailout" for the oil industry. The price per barrel at the time was roughly $29, according to WTI Crude Oil. Now, oil has eclipsed $110 per barrel over the weekend for the first time since 2022. Though the SPR has capacity for over 700 million barrels of crude oil, the reserve currently has far less. TANKERS TO RESUME NORMAL MOVEMENT IN MIDDLE EAST IN 'A FEW WEEKS' AT WORST, ENERGY SEC SAYS, ENDING OIL SURGE That’s because under former President Joe Biden, it was tapped twice — once to relieve soaring fuel prices as the nation still grappled with the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, and another time to combat increased energy costs at the onset of the war between Russia and Ukraine. At the end of Biden’s term, the reserve had about 415 million barrels of crude on hand, according to data from…