GOP proposes blocking Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases without plan to boost production

Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee introduced legislation that would prevent the government from opening the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve for nonemergency reasons until it develops a plan to boost oil and gas production on federal lands.

The bill, which was introduced on Tuesday and is co-sponsored by each of the committee’s 10 Republican members, follows the Biden administration’s recent decision to make 50 million barrels of SPR crude oil available to refiners and other energy companies in an effort to ease high gasoline prices.