Energy Crisis: Biden Considers Draining Yet Another Key Emergency Fuel Stockpile
President Joe Biden is mulling taking action to release federal diesel stockpiles in an attempt to curb the worsening supply shortage of the key fuel in New England, CNN reported Monday.
Biden recently asked officials to begin preparing a plan to order a release of fuel from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve (NEHHOR), a government stockpile of ultra-low-sulfur diesel last tapped in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy, a senior administration official told CNN. The move reportedly reflected the president’s and White House officials’ concerns about surging diesel fuel prices and declining private sector inventories in the northeast.
“The system is definitely under strain,” the senior administration official told CNN.
“We think this looks like the exact circumstance where consideration of the release should be done and that’s what the president has directed,” the official continued.
The average price of diesel fuel, which is vital for transportation, construction and agriculture, skyrocketed to an all-time high of $5.58 a gallon on Wednesday, according to AAA data. Diesel prices have been particularly high in New England where prices reached $6.43 a gallon last week, exceeded only by prices recorded in California.
Prices have surged largely due to declining East Coast diesel inventories which dipped to 21.3 million barrels in early May, the lowest level ever recorded. The region consumes roughly 1.53 million barrels of ultra-low-sulfur diesel per day, meaning current inventory levels translate to about 13 days of supply.
The entire NEHHOR contains slightly more than a million barrels of ultra-low-sulfur diesel, or about 65% of East Coast daily demand.
“It’s small potatoes. It might buy a couple of weeks or even months, but it doesn’t solve the underlying issues,” Lipow Oil Associates President Andy Lipow told CNN. “It’s a band-aid — one that isn’t going to last very long and when it comes off the injury is not healing.”
Biden’s historic releases from the much larger Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) have had a minimal effect on oil and gasoline prices. Gasoline prices have hit multiple records highs and oil prices have remained elevated in the aftermath of Biden’s 180-million-barrel release from the reserves in late March.
The recent SPR releases have also led to a dwindling of national oil stockpiles. SPR stocks fell to about 538 million barrels on May 13, the lowest level since 1987, according to the latest government data.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation.
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Catenacci has correctly called out Biden for increasing the U.S. insecurity over its petroleum supplies, including diesel fuel reserves. While the author is correct in blaming Biden for deepening our insecurity over energy independence, he is being too kind and gentle to Biden.
It is way past time political commentators and reporters start reciting the list of terrible, despicable actions Biden is guilty of.
It is clear to me, Biden is pulling out all the stops to stoke the socialist fervor in America. He has put a process in place at the southern border that will flood the U.S. interior with immigrants, including many foreign citizens of African and Asian nations, some of whom are enemies of America. He simply wants to overwhelm the Republicans in the next election cycles. In doing so, he is forcing the DHS to violate rules and health standards, etc…anything to insure there will be hundreds of thousands-to a few million extra voters in 2022 and 2024. There has been almost no in-dept coverage of this phenomenon in the media. He intends to press Congress to approve statehood for Puerto Rico and pssibly D.C. and stack the Supreme Court. He considers himself a sacrificial lamb to prop up the Left in future elections. His personal behavior vis-a-vis his son, Hunter and Ukraine, China and even Russia are issues that should be exploited on behalf of the ruleof law and common decency. Of course, his rejection of the petroleum industry as a credible enterprise even in today’s economy should be fodder for public accountability, but no one will take it on. Sad day for America!
A Monkeypox on all of Biden’s houses!