Refilling the SPR would’ve required finding money to actually buy some oil. Put simply the SPR is broke/in debt.
Over the last few years congress passed pieces of legislation (infrastructure bills, healthcare changes, BBB) and used future SPR oil sales as an "offsetting receipt". Basically they say the’ll sell off millions of barrels of SPR holdings, count the future revenue as negative spending on paper, and use that money to pay for entirely unrelated legislative projects to make bills look deficit-neutral.
Yet another source for deficit spending (to the tune of $20bn) that doesn’t even show up in the headline numbers. Borrowing from future generations yet again.
(Sorry this is the kind of thing that grinds my gears - setting up some organization that is intended to be revenue neutral and self sufficient, then plundering it when politically useful. Same thing is happening to the Presidio park in SF right now)
Over the last few years congress passed pieces of legislation (infrastructure bills, healthcare changes, BBB) and used future SPR oil sales as an "offsetting receipt". Basically they say the’ll sell off millions of barrels of SPR holdings, count the future revenue as negative spending on paper, and use that money to pay for entirely unrelated legislative projects to make bills look deficit-neutral.
Yet another source for deficit spending (to the tune of $20bn) that doesn’t even show up in the headline numbers. Borrowing from future generations yet again.
(Sorry this is the kind of thing that grinds my gears - setting up some organization that is intended to be revenue neutral and self sufficient, then plundering it when politically useful. Same thing is happening to the Presidio park in SF right now)