Just going to leave this graph of reserves over time here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/US...
To me this shows massive withdrawals in 2021-2022 and again in the last two years.
I believe 2021 and some of 2022 was a response to inflation from COVID, and 2022 was obviously also the year Russian oil went off the market. 2026 is the Iran war.
> On March 19, 2020, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Energy to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to maximum capacity, when oil was priced at $24 per barrel. This directive was given to help support domestic oil producers given the impending economic collapse from COVID-19 and extreme drops in international oil markets. However, funding was blocked by Congress, with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer stating that Democrats had blocked a "bailout for big oil".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_(U...
The only consistent position on US politics that won't get you downvoted on HN is "both parties are dumb."
As it should be, because they are. Well, not dumb, but both are complicit and essentially operate as a uniparty for capital interests.
One party is statistically much "dumber" than the other overall, but yeah... Most all of the clowns in D.C. really don't give a rat's ass about anything beyond filling their pockets at the expense of the American people and pushing their (not "We the People") particular individual pet agendas (at the expense of anyone that gets in the way) and anyone that trusts a single damned one of 'em is a gullible fool that shouldn't be trusted to vote.
They're all a buncha professional crooks pretending to rule a nation while they actively corrupt every single value this nation's supposedly supposed to stand for. We need to fire 'em all (or jail, depending on circumstances) and hire all new and better folks (ones who actually care about this nation and it's people) to fill their jobs. Same goes for the corporations that basically own them these days.
For all I hate about him and his admin, the trump admin didn't call it a "bailout" once that I can find (even with the help of AI). The only quotes I can find are Chuck Schumer / Democrats calling it that and no direct quote of Trump saying it. In fact this is what I can find:
> On March 13, 2020, Trump described it as purchasing crude oil “at a very good price.” He said filling the reserve would save taxpayers money while also “helping our oil industry.”
> On April 3, a reporter directly asked Trump whether oil executives had requested a bailout. Trump answered: “No, they didn’t ask for a bailout. No.”
> The “bailout for big oil” wording came from Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats, not Trump. Schumer’s official March 25 press release claimed that the final CARES Act had: “Eliminated $3 billion bailout for big oil.”
Would love to be proven wrong here.
> Trump didn't care about the reserve, he cared about the oil industry.
Does that even make a difference?
Either way it's filling the reserve for instances exactly like this, and was blocked by politicians to try and "win" for their party at the expense of every US citizen.
Yes, intent matters. As an example, Trump and Republicans spent all of Biden's term complaining about the direct relief provided to the common people.
Didn't use the word "bailout", of course, but imo the meaning is pretty similar
helping = just that, helping. They might be hurting, but they aren't going to die without the help.
bailout = (as wikipedia defines it) "the provision of financial help to a corporation or country which otherwise would be on the brink of bankruptcy."
Trump called it help for the struggling oil industry:
> "We're going to fill it right to the top," Trump said Friday in a wide-ranging news conference at the White House. He said it will save taxpayers "billions and billions of dollars" while helping an industry that's been reeling.
[…]
> There have been reports[1] the Trump administration may be willing to help the oil industry in other ways. For example, the White House could reduce federal royalties for oil pumped on government land or offshore. The administration could also offer low-interest government-backed loans.
* https://www.npr.org/2020/03/14/815039722/trump-steps-in-to-h...
As a reminder, in April 2020 oil (futures) prices went negative:
* https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/will-...
Did they go bankrupt? No? Then it wasn't a bailout.
For as much as I love HN, everyone trips over random "achustually" while ignoring the actual definitions to try and be right.
All this to try and claim Democrats were right to AVOID filling the reserves on an article screaming about trump not doing it.
Piece of art right there.
In March 2020 the SPR was at 640 Mbarrels (out of 714M). What was blocked was a US$ 3B line item out of a US$ 2T stimulus budget what would have topped things up to the 714M (a purchase of ~77M).
In 2022, ~340Mbarrels (180+30+40+45+20+10+15) were released due to the effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (and we still can crazy-high inflation due to energy (and food) prices):
* https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/mar/why-have-...
To date in 2026, 172M have been released due to the Iran war:
* https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/28/us-strategic-petroleum-reser...
Having 77M more would not have been a bad thing, but I'm (a) curious how much it would it would have made a difference now (6 years later), and/or (b) if there was more earlier on if more would have been released in previous events (because more was available to be release: a 'self-fullfillng prophecy' of sorts).