Donald Trump told us a fairy tale about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On March 31, 2022 Donald J. Trump made the following statement:

 

“So after 50 years of being virtually empty, I built up our oil reserves during my administration, and low energy prices, to 100% full. It’s called the Strategic National Reserves, and it hasn’t been full for many decades. In fact, it’s been mostly empty. It’s supposed to only be used for large-scale emergency or conflict. Now I see where Biden has just announced he’s going to take what we so carefully and magically built, and what will be a futile attempt to reduce oil and gasoline prices. They will soon bring it down to empty again. It just never ends!”

 

Is that correct? No, it’s another fraud - a Complete and Total Fairy Tale. As usual Trump is the hero, and everyone else is a fool. But the truth is in an article by D’Angelo Gore at FactCheck.Org on April 1, 2022 titled Strategic Petroleum Reserve Oil Stocks Declined Under Trump, Contrary to His Claim.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That facility actually is called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Currently has an authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels. The year-end numbers for the stocks there are shown above in a chart from a government web page. If we divide them by that current capacity, we can express the percent full. Since the end of 1983 it has been more than half full, by 1987 it was more than three-fourths full, and in 2005 it was 95.9% full.

 

At the beginning of the Reagan terms (end of 1980) the reserve was just 15.1% full. At the beginning of the George H. W. Bush term (1988) it was 78.4% full. At the beginning of the Clinton terms (1992) it was 80.5% full. At the beginning of the George W. Bush terms (2000) it was 75.6% full. At the beginning of the Obama terms (2008) it was 98.3% full. At the beginning of the Trump term (2016) it was 97.3% full. And finally, at the beginning of the current Biden term (2020) it was 89.4% full. Obama gave Trump an almost full reserve, which he lowered by 7.9% rather than ‘magically’ built up. Biden lowered it too, and as of March 25 it was 79.6% full.  

 

The fairy tale image was adapted from this poster at the Library of Congress.