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The Biden administration is ready to release more oil from its strategic stockpile to stem any rise in gasoline prices this summer, as the White House battles to contain inflation ahead of the November election .
Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden’s closest energy adviser, said prices at the pump were “still too high for many Americans” and he would like to see them “fall a little further.”
“We will do everything we can to ensure that the market is well enough supplied to guarantee the lowest possible price for the American consumer,” Hochstein told the Financial Times.
“I think we have enough in the SPR if we need to,” he added, referring to the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Hochstein’s comments come as Biden tries to overcome voters’ fears about his handling of the economy, with less than five months to go before the election.
The Biden administration has promised measures including cuts to health care costs and banking fees in an effort to curb inflation, which has fallen about 60 percent since hitting a multi-decade high in 2022.
Any decision in the coming months to pull more barrels from the SPR — which Biden has tapped more than his predecessors — would anger Republicans who have accused him of “political abuse and misuse” of the stock.
U.S. gasoline prices averaged $3.45 per gallon on Sunday, slightly lower than a year ago but still more than 50 percent higher than when Biden succeeded Donald Trump as president in 2021, according to the AAA Motoring Group.
Despite his limited ability to influence prices, many drivers blame the Democratic president for putting pressure on the pump.
“I don’t like Biden,” said David Gonzales Broche, an Uber driver in Las Vegas, Nevada, where prices averaged $4.05 a gallon on Sunday. “I pay almost $5 a gallon for gas. It used to be $2 – when we had Trump.”
The former president has used gasoline prices as a line of attack against Biden in his campaign for the White House, claiming the administration’s clean energy and climate policies have limited U.S. oil production.
“We’re going to drill, baby drill,” Trump told his supporters at a rally in Las Vegas last weekend. “We are going to reduce your energy costs.”
The US has reached new record levels of oil and gas production under Biden and is exporting more than when Trump was president.
The SPR was established almost half a century ago as a buffer against oil price increases during times of supply disruption. Biden announced releases from the reservation in late 2021 and again in 2022 as gasoline prices rose following Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine.
Opec+ extended oil supply cuts this month in a bid to boost prices. Brent crude settled at $82.62 a barrel on Friday, after rising 7 percent in the past two weeks. Goldman Sachs expects the benchmark to reach $86 per barrel next quarter.
“Any president facing a difficult re-election, especially in a fragile economy, will be concerned about the risk of a gasoline price increase,” said Bob McNally, a former energy adviser to George W. Bush and head of consultancy Rapidan Energy.
In a letter sent to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm last month, senior Republican politicians called on the administration to “ensure the SPR is not misused for political purposes in this election year” and described Biden’s 2022 SPR release as “ a transparent attempt to influence the midterm elections.”
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The administration has gradually refilled the SPR since it was emptied under Biden to its lowest level since 1983, arguing it has done so at a good return for taxpayers by selling the oil at higher market prices and returning barrels at lower levels to buy.
Hochstein said the government would continue to replenish the reserve until the oil was needed again.
“We will continue purchasing into next year until we believe the SPR has regained the volume it needs to serve its original purpose of energy security,” he said.