A big part of what President Donald Trump has been doing these last 10 months has been fixing the problems caused by his predecessor, Joe Biden. Or, at least, by whomever it was in the Biden White House who was really making the decisions; as time goes on, it grows more and more obvious that whoever had their hands on the controls in the Biden White House, it wasn't Joe.
One of the dumber things the Biden administration did was to drain almost half of the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), to try to gain a slight, short-term reprieve in energy prices. That's not what the SPR is for, of course; that's why it's called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, after all. And, to be fair, the Biden administration isn't the first to have succumbed to this temptation. But the problem this time is that the SPR was drained so carelessly and quickly that it actually damaged the great underground salt domes where this petroleum is stored. Last April, Energy Secretary Chris Wright noted that two of the four storage caverns were unusable due to damage caused by the sudden withdrawals.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated in a CNBC interview that America is now refilling its depleted oil reserve, but warned the process will be long and costly.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), meant as a national safeguard against major oil supply disruptions, was drastically reduced during President Biden’s term—from 650 million barrels to 395 million.
Wright explained that the rapid drawdown under Biden damaged essential infrastructure, leaving only half the reserve’s storage facilities operational.
Repairs are underway, and Wright is pushing for more funding to accelerate both the physical restoration and oil repurchasing efforts.
Now, the Trump administration has started repair work and is slowly refilling the SPR.
About 1 million barrels of crude oil that will go toward replenishing the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve have been purchased, the U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday.
The oil will be delivered to the Bryan Mound Strategic Petroleum Reserve site near Freeport, Texas, in December and January, the Energy Department said in a statement. The U.S. petroleum reserve contains about 410 million barrels of crude oil and at full capacity can hold approximately 714 million barrels.
The strategic reserve, the Energy Department said in a release, was weakened by the previous administration’s “reckless” 180-million-barrel drawdown in 2022. The drawdown caused delays to critical infrastructure maintenance and put unprecedented wear and tear on storage and injection facilities, the department said.
A million barrels, of course, won't raise the level of the 714 million barrel capacity of the SPR, but at least we're putting petroleum into it, not taking it out.
This raises the question: What should this reserve be for? Why are we worried about the level of the SPR?
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Strategic Petroleum Reserve: 'We're Filling It Right Now'
Well, here's why, and I'm going to tell you. The SPR has been used by many presidents as an energy piggy bank. Yes, propping up the economy isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but when it's done to make up for policies like the Biden administration's feckless and irresponsible energy policy - like putting half of Alaska's North Slope off-limits - then that's a serious error. It's even worse when we consider the fact that, not only during the Biden administration but also during the Obama administration, this was done to appease the climate scolds.
That's right. Bad energy policy, misuse of a strategic resource, to try to keep the planet from warming up by a degree or two.
But now? We are producing oil, we will be producing more oil, and there's no reason not to fill this reserve up and keep it for a real national emergency - a no-Schiff national emergency, like a war.
“President Trump promised to protect America’s energy security by refilling and managing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve more responsibly,” said Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “Awarding these contracts marks another step in the important process of refilling this national security asset. While this process won’t be complete overnight, these actions are an important step in strengthening our energy security and reversing the costly and irresponsible energy policies of the last administration.”
The Department of Energy received 18 offers from six companies vying to supply oil to the reserve.
It's a good start. We've seen a lot of good starts since January of 2025. Let's hope we start seeing some good finishes, as well. Let's get the SPR filled up - and leave it filled. In case anyone hasn't noticed, it's an unsettled world at the moment. Russia's President Putin is growing ever more bellicose, and is longing for what he thinks were the good old days of the Soviet Union. China, by which I mean the Chinese Communist Party, is casting a narrowed gaze at Taiwan - and maybe at the Philippines. Iran's nuclear program is a smoking rubble and the country is suffering under a horrible drought, but they still have AK-47s to hand out to wannabe terrorists.
We may need that strategic reserve for what it should be used for - fueling the forces that defend the United States of America.
