The Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Fewer issues in America impartially affect all its citizens than gas prices. 

With the national average price per gallon of gas at $4.16 (last year at this time it was $2.87), rising inflation, sanctions on Russia, and questions about energy supply, last week President Joe Biden authorized releasing 1 million barrels a day for the next six months from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

“This is a wartime bridge to increase oil supply until production ramps up later this year. And it is by far the largest release from our national reserve in our history,” Biden said. “It will provide a historic amount of supply for a historic amount of time—a six-month bridge to the fall.”

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is what its name sounds like—a massive emergency stockpile of crude oil. Its purpose, the Department of Energy says, is to “alleviate the market impacts of both domestic and international disruptions, caused by weather, natural disasters, labor strikes, technical failures/accidents, political disputes or conflicts.”