https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2zIOMp0RSA
She addresses additional related misrepresentations from conservative media.
One source she cites is here:
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/07/u-s-selling-oil-from-the-s...
If an American oil company wants to sell their own production to China that would be OK. They shouldn't be able to use oil they procure from a release of the strategic preserve in my opinion. We store the oil to help buffer oil prices from interruptions in production.
Since this is indeed a conservative talking point it's worth noting that the lifting of the ban was passed by a Republican-controlled congress over the objections of then-president Obama, who then signed it despite having previously said he'd veto any lifting of the ban, because the provision was tacked onto a "must-pass" omnibus spending bill. [1]
Of course the right thing here, if there is an actual problem, would be to have a debate about whether to put the ban back in place or make some law specifically about not exporting oil purchased from the strategic reserves, but apparently the Republicans would rather impeach Joe Biden for some reason.
[1] https://www.reedsmith.com/en/perspectives/2015/12/us-governm...
If you want to debate that, sure. It won't work because oil is a commodity. If the US cuts itself off from the global markets that would be kinda stupid (because then it can't swap paper for oil, which is a great trade). If it doesn't then any oil it supplies will have knock-on effects making the market price cheaper in some sense. Foreigners would still get about the same benefit.
China tried to ban Australian coal the other day. It was hilariously ineffective. They bought coal from other countries, and we sold coal to the people who just had their coal redirected to China. Net effect, we continued to enjoy the coal boom.
They can try to put that ban in place, but it is meaningless and quite likely can't do anything unless America tries to go full autarky which, ironically, would probably raise the gas price they pay. It is unbelievably tricky to have a commodity market that has 2 different prices for the same good and has any sort of international trade happening.
PS Indeed, due to the magic of markets, if the politicians succeeded there is every change US citizens would be worse off, because they could have traded the oil for something they wanted and then they ended up with something of lower utility. Starve China of oil & the US gets less iPhones for example. If that special gas was used to drive to the Apple store, the scheme would look pretty silly.
You asked
> > What I don't understand is why we're selling oil from the Strategic Reserve to China.
Yeah how on Earth could that even be a political question.
This might be true, but a lot of people see that and think "yeah right!". The problem when topics become political is any intelligent discussion gets suffocated.
> We store the oil to help buffer oil prices from interruptions in production.
Sort of, but it's a bit more nuanced I think (right or wrong).
From evergy.gov: ---- The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the world's largest supply of emergency crude oil was established primarily to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products and to carry out obligations of the United States under the international energy program. ----
You could easily argue that what they are currently doing is congruent with this mission by participating strategically in the global market.
I don't know that I agree with it being a good approach from my simpleton perspective, but I doubt it's being done as some sort of pro China move at least.
And you want to rotate it anyway so it does not go bad.
Note that if it's not stored properly, it can degrade due to water intrusion and oxidation, and it can just evaporate.
You can make fuel last longer by storing it in a cool, dark, airtight place, and there are products you can add to make it last longer, but the general rule is that petrol lasts about 3 months and diesel lasts around 6, or at least that's what I've read.
Entropy, sadly, is an immutable and inescapable law of the universe.
For instance,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkene
is added to some gasoline to raise the octane but gas with a high Alkene (or Olefin) content goes bad quickly compared to other gas.
If it undermines the pricing China are getting from Russian, maybe it is helping the US tax payer.
Calling such questions "right wing talking points" is the only inappropriate politicisation.
The higher the price of gas, the less people killed by cars.
But you don't actually care about people, just that you can virtue signal that your willing to have half the world die off to save a gallon of fuel.
I do agree - it is a mistake to focus on where the oil is being sold. What is more interesting is that the strategic reserve is not being used strategically. I would argue it is being used ineffectually, the problems here go a bit deeper than what the SPR could possibly cope with. At this rate it is going to run out and not even make a marginal difference.
Seems pretty strategic as $5/gallon gasoline was really hurting consumers.
It’s just absolute hyper hyper hyper partisan nonsense.
Granted, her video may or may not be factually correct but you might as well get your political coverage from Putin himself if you care this little about where it comes from.
Is Zuckerberg trying to buy indulgences?