Golden Votes to Bar Strategic Petroleum Reserve Exports to China

WASHINGTON — Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02) joined House colleagues from both parties today to pass H.R. 22, the Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act. The legislation would prohibit sales of oil from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to any entity owned, controlled, or influenced by the Chinese Communist Party. 

“Releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve have been an important tool over the past year to spare American families from some of the pain at the pump and on heating bills,” said Golden. “I’ve been proud to lead successful efforts to press the Biden Administration to use the SPR to lower prices and then backfill the reserve. The additional protections we’re signing into law today are an important companion to those efforts.”

Energy experts estimate that the releases from the SPR have discounted prices by about 40 cents per gallon of regular gasoline.

Since 2021, Golden has led members of the House to successfully push for releases from the SPR to help combat rising oil and gas prices. In November of 2021, he led a group of New England lawmakers to call on the White House to release oil from the SPR to get ahead of rising energy prices that winter. Shortly afterwards, the White House announced it would release 50 million barrels from the reserve. In March of the following year, Golden worked across the aisle with Representatives Dusty Johnson (SD-AL), Jim Baird (IN-04), and Don Bacon (NE-02) to propose a three-pronged plan to the administration to lower oil and gas prices, including continued releases from the SPR and a long-term commitment to oil and gas producers to backfill the SPR to provide certainty to oil producers. Later that month, the president announced a “huge” release of 1 million barrels a day. In September, Golden and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05) led a group of lawmakers to call on the president to continue to make significant releases from the SPR and to outline a plan to backfill the reserve. In October, the White House announced additional releases from the reserve and plans to backfill its supply. 

###