House GOP again seeks oil reserve restrictions

WASHINGTON — For the second time this month, House Republicans have advanced a measure to restrict presidential use of the nation’s emergency oil stockpile — a proposal that has already drawn a White House veto threat.

A GOP bill approved Friday would require the government to offset any nonemergency withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with new drilling on public lands and oceans. Republicans accuse President Joe Biden of abusing the reserve for political reasons to keep gas prices low, while Biden says tapping the reserve was needed last year in response to a ban on Russian oil imports following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Biden withdrew 180 million barrels from the strategic reserve over several months, bringing the stockpile to its lowest level since the 1980s. The administration said last month it will start to replenish the reserve now that oil prices have gone down.

The bill was approved, 221-205, on a near party-line vote. The measure heads to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it is expected to languish.

White House press secretary Karine JeanPierre attacked the GOP proposal, which follows a bill approved two weeks ago that would prohibit the Energy Department from selling oil from the strategic reserve to companies owned or influenced by the Chinese government.

“House Republicans will vote to raise gas prices on American families ... and help Putin’s war aims by interfering with our ability to release oil,” Jean-Pierre said Monday. “These extreme policies would subject working families to immense financial pain and balloon our deficit, all just to benefit the wealthiest taxpayers and big corporations.”