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An oil pump jack in action at sunset near Midland, Texas, USA, August 21, 2019. Photo taken on August 21, 2019/Reuters
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An oil pump jack in action at sunset near Midland, Texas, USA, August 21, 2019. Photo taken on August 21, 2019/Reuters
The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill that would limit the Energy Secretary’s ability to tap into strategic oil reserves without developing a plan to increase the amount of public land available for drilling for oil and gas.
House representatives supported the bill 221 to 205, with only one Democrat. The White House said this week that President Joe Biden would veto the bill if it passed Congress. The bill is expected to face an uphill battle in the Senate, which, unlike the House, is controlled by Biden’s fellow Democrats.
The Strategic Production Response Act, or HR21, instructs the U.S. Secretary of Energy to plan to increase oil and gas leasing on federal lands, including the submerged land of the Outer Continental Shelf, before utilizing the Strategic Oil Reserve. I am asking you to create In the event of an emergency, such as a hurricane that halts oil production, nothing can stop the president from using her SPR.
Republicans, who took control of the House this month, have pushed a series of political messaging bills that will appeal to conservative voters.
Republican supporters of the bill said the Biden administration acted recklessly in a record sale of 180 million barrels, or 1 million barrels a day, from last year’s reserves. pushed the SPR level to its lowest level since 1983.
SPR should only be used to respond to genuine emergencies, said Rep. Kathy McMorris Rogers, a Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“President Biden has turned a long-standing bipartisan strategic asset, the Strategic Oil Reserve, into a political instrument, hiding the consequences of an agenda to rush costly environmental action,” Rogers said.
The Biden administration has pursued aggressive policies to curb climate change by supporting the energy transition away from fossil fuels, selling oil to counter gasoline prices that have risen to $5.00 a gallon, Last year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the world’s beginning to emerge from the pandemic sent oil prices soaring.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at the White House this week that Biden “will not allow the American people to suffer because of the backward-looking agenda being pursued by House Republicans.”
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