alt Hacker NewsNever mind this
> On March 19, 2020, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Energy to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to maximum capacity, when oil was priced at $24 per barrel. This directive was given to help support domestic oil producers given the impending economic collapse from COVID-19 and extreme drops in international oil markets. However, funding was blocked by Congress, with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer stating that Democrats had blocked a "bailout for big oil".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_(U...
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Not sure why you’re being downvoted. It seems like it would have been a sensible time to buy back then with such a low price, although of course government spending was already very high due to COVID.
It was a missed opportunity to top it off from about 625m to 714m barrels. But the Trump administration really shot themselves in the foot by loudly championing it as a bailout for big oil. Trump didn't care about the reserve, he cared about the oil industry. A lot of money was going out the door.
I'm no fan of Mr Schumer. However, perhaps he was of the opinion that US-Israel wouldn't have been as stupid as they were to go war with Iran in the way that they did.
> Never mind this
In March 2020 the SPR was at 640 Mbarrels (out of 714M). What was blocked was a US$ 3B line item out of a US$ 2T stimulus budget what would have topped things up to the 714M (a purchase of ~77M).
In 2022, ~340Mbarrels (180+30+40+45+20+10+15) were released due to the effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (and we still can crazy-high inflation due to energy (and food) prices):
* https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/mar/why-have-...
To date in 2026, 172M have been released due to the Iran war:
* https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/28/us-strategic-petroleum-reser...
Having 77M more would not have been a bad thing, but I'm (a) curious how much it would it would have made a difference now (6 years later), and/or (b) if there was more earlier on if more would have been released in previous events (because more was available to be release: a 'self-fullfillng prophecy' of sorts).