news.freeptomaineradio.com

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

The price of the U.S. WTI crude oil has finally stayed in the low $70s per barrel for a sustainable period of time, allowing the Biden Administration to ramp up the refill of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which it had said would do at prices of $79 a barrel or below.

WTI Crude is now at $70 per barrel as of Tuesday morning, after spending days below that threshold.

But the Energy Department has just $841 million left to buy crude for the SPR, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing an estimate by ClearView Energy Partners, a consulting firm. That money would be enough to buy only around 12 million barrels of crude at today’s prices, per Bloomberg’s calculations.

This would be a drop in the ocean, considering that the SPR is only just over half full compared to its capacity of 700 million barrels.

DOE’s Office of Petroleum Reserves has recently announced a call for bids to supply up to 1.5 million barrels of oil to the Bayou Choctaw site in January 2025. An additional solicitation will follow on August 12, 2024, for another 2 million barrels destined for the Bryan Mound site, also for delivery in January 2025.

The replenishment strategy comes in the wake of the SPR’s critical role in stabilizing the market during global supply disruptions, notably the release of more than 180 million barrels of oil from the SPR starting in 2021, as gasoline prices remained high. The Department of Treasury claims that these releases, along with coordinated international efforts, helped reduce gasoline prices by up to 40 cents per gallon in 2022.

The SPR currently houses 375 million barrels of crude—a figure that is 263 million barrels less than oil in the SPR at the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term in office. The SPR, capable of storing as many as 714 million barrels of crude oil, is kept in underground salt caverns at four sites in Texas and Louisiana and was designed to protect the economy and American livelihoods during oil shortages.

Authored by Rep. Matt Gaetz via RealClearPolitics,

This week, Merrick Garland held a pep rally at the Department of Justice (DOJ) for his employees. Why now? Well, two nights ago, we heard President Donald Trump take aim at the weaponization of DOJ, and we heard Kamala Harris’s non-response. Trump clearly won that exchange, and the Swamp now has to play clean-up for her mess.

Remember that in the debate, the ABC moderators interrupted Trump’s answer about illegal immigrant crime to push fake FBI statistics, which Trump swatted aside. In her response, rather than talk about immigration, Harris brought up that Trump has been prosecuted. Trump explained that each of the cases against him were fake, failing, and coordinated by Garland and the Biden-Harris administration. Of course, we know this is true. But the icing on the cake is that Harris’ final non-answer was that Donald Trump would weaponize the DOJ.

They are telling on themselves.

But the Harris campaign strategy, and the orders to Garland are clear: blame Trump for things Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are doing right now.

Frankly, it has to be tough to be an employee of Biden and Harris. You might be asked to violate Departmental Protocol and do a pre-dawn raid of a former President but turn a blind eye to a legally worse situation involving Joe and classified documents in his garage. You might be asked to surveil your neighbors at church, or at school board meetings. You might be asked not to prosecute real crimes involving immigration, opioids, or Black Lives Matter, but asked to prosecute grandma for praying on a sidewalk.

It must be demoralizing to go into work every day like this.

And if you complain? If you follow the rules, but go to the Inspector General, or to Congress, or to your boss? Forget that. In violation of law, you might find yourself without a job, suspended without pay, sidelined, or with your security clearance revoked. That happened under Garland and Harris to Marcus Allen, to Stephen Friend, and to so many others.

This is unacceptable.

So while Harris and Garland use their platforms to gaslight America, saying that the Department is “proud” to remain “independent” and free from “political interference,” ask yourself: who is really politicizing the justice system?

Who is bussing in tens or hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into our cities, merely for their votes? It’s Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump. Harris and the current administration are responsible for the tragedies on the border every day.

Who refuses to say the names of Laken Riley, or Rachel Morin, or Jocelyn Nungaray, because it’s not politically expedient? Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump.

Who has fundraised for violent criminals in Minnesota to keep them out of jail? Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump. It’s the California soft-on-crime policies that Harris brought to that state which are tearing our cities apart, even, perhaps especially in the deep red rural areas in swing states like Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin that she wants to target.

Whose DOJ is sending letters to county clerks across the country, and to Secretaries of State, warning them of prosecution if they get too aggressive in protecting our elections? Kamala Harris’s, not Donald Trump’s. Just this past week states acting under federal law to clean up their voter rolls were threatened by Garland. You can’t make this up.

Whose DOJ has failed to investigate election issues across the country, from the election technology being wide-open to foreign access and control, to ballots being mailed without proof of citizenship? Kamala Harris’s, not Donald Trump’s.

And whose DOJ has made head-fakes at consumer protection, while letting drug prices soar, and who was the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which has led to Medicare Part D dropping 21 drugs and raising premiums by the double-digits, with far higher increases to come in 2025? Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump.

America is at a crossroads, and Merrick Garland is right to be concerned about the politicization of DOJ and the federal government, but maybe he and Kamala Harris should look in the mirror.

Congressman Matt Gaetz (R) represents the 1st Congressional District of Florida. He is a member of the 117th Congress currently serving his third term in the U.S. House of Representatives.