Oct. 20, 2022, Sen. Daines (R-MT) sent a letter to Biden to unleash American energy immediately. This is just one more of Biden’s (aka Dems) man-made, national security disasters. Daines said:
“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the world’s largest stockpile of emergency crude oil with the capacity to store 714 million barrels. It has protected America from major supply disruptions and served as a vital windfall in the event of natural disasters and wars since its creation following the 1973 energy crisis. But it was never intended to compensate for domestic policy shortcomings.”
“Manipulating energy reserves to bring gas prices down from historic highs as the midterm elections approach is not an accomplishment, it is a national security risk,” Daines continued.
Daines has been fighting back against Biden’s anti-energy agenda. Tester (202-224-2644) infamously refused to be the one vote necessary to pass Daines’s bill, which would have restored the XL Pipeline. Part of that bill would have forbidden tapping the SPR for reasons other than a severe energy supply interruption. It would have encouraged the Secretary of the Interior to issue a plan to increase oil and gas production on federal lands and waters. Go to Tester’s “issues” pages. As for the pipeline, he shrewdly “voted for the XL ten years” and doesn’t mention that he has since voted against it.