WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government funding bill U.S. lawmakers are trying to pass cancels “certain” congressionally mandated sales of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a summary showed on Tuesday.
Congress mandated in previous laws a sale of about 26 million barrels of oil from the SPR in fiscal 2023 and about 147 million barrels of oil from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2027.
“Cancels certain future Congressionally mandated sales, reducing the technical burden on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve system,” said a summary of supplementary legislation on aid for Ukraine released with the text of the $1.66 trillion funding bill.
The Biden administration is beginning to buy back oil for the reserve after it sold 180 million barrels from the SPR to counter high oil prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The sale shrunk levels in the SPR to about 380 million barrels, their lowest since 1984, raising concerns about energy security.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Mark Porter)
