Joe Biden sold 180 million barrels of America's emergency oil reserve to buy himself a midterm election.
Now Trump is fighting a war in the Middle East with the stockpile Biden left half-empty.
And this week it fell below 300 million barrels – the lowest level since Ronald Reagan was in his first term.
Biden's Political Heist of America's Last Line of Defense
The SPR was never meant to be a campaign prop.
Gerald Ford signed it into law in 1975 after OPEC cut off America's oil during the Yom Kippur War – the idea being that if hostile nations ever tried to strangle us again, we'd have a cushion.
For decades, the reserve sat near capacity – 726 million barrels at its peak in 2009.
Biden inherited 638 million barrels.
He left office with less than 400 million – after draining the reserve in 2022 at the precise moment Democrats needed to hold Congress.
https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2087124368065511529?s=20
Senator John Barrasso called it exactly what it was: "The president announced the release of 180 million barrels of oil from the SPR in the middle of an election year, a transparent attempt to influence the midterm elections."
Republicans warned Biden was emptying the reserve right before a crisis they couldn't predict but knew was coming.
They were right.
Iran Closed the Strait and Now We're Burning Through What's Left
On February 28, 2026, Iran launched the attacks that shut down the Strait of Hormuz.
That choke point carries 27 percent of the world's maritime oil trade – roughly one in four barrels moved by ship anywhere on earth.
Trump had no good options.
He authorized the release of up to 172 million barrels – the largest single-country emergency release in history – to keep gas prices from exploding and the economy from seizing up.
Trump himself said the reserves could have run out in four weeks if the Strait hadn't partially reopened.
Before the drawdowns began, the SPR was sitting at about 415 million barrels.
https://twitter.com/SullyCNBC/status/2086880877796016568?s=20
This week, it sits at 298.7 million – the lowest since January 1983.
The reserve that was supposed to give America 90 days of breathing room against a hostile-nation shutdown is now projected to fall to 243 million barrels when Trump's authorized release is fully executed.
That covers about 16 days of U.S. oil demand.
Sixteen days.
The Structural Damage Biden Left Behind
If Biden had left the SPR at even 500 million barrels – far below its peak but above his starting line – Trump would have an extra 100 million barrels of cushion right now.
That's the difference between 16 days of supply and potentially 24 or 25 days.
It's the difference between a manageable crisis and a catastrophic one.
The One Big Beautiful Bill that Trump signed in July 2025 included $171 million to start rebuilding the reserve – because Republicans understood the strategic vulnerability Biden had created.
They just didn't know Iran would act before the refill was complete.
The GAO warned in May that Congress and the Department of Energy needed a real plan for keeping it full.
https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/2086858893649445157?s=20
Biden sure wasn't running one.
His plan was to sell the reserve to 2022 voters at $75 a barrel, pocket the political goodwill, and leave the consequences for whoever came next.
Whoever came next was Donald Trump.
That is Joe Biden's legacy on energy security – not wind turbines or solar panels or the rhetoric.
America went into the worst energy crisis in decades with an emergency stockpile that was half what it should have been, because the previous president raided it for midterm votes.
Sources:
- Eric Revell, "Oil in US Strategic Petroleum Reserve falls to lowest level since 1983," Fox Business, August 11, 2026.
- "Trump Administration Deploys Record 172 Million Barrels from SPR to Blunt Global Energy Shock," Financial Content/Market Minute, March 16, 2026.
- Sen. John Barrasso, "Barrasso Op-Ed: Biden's Political Abuse of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve," National Review/Senate Energy Committee, September 27, 2022.
- "U.S. oil reserve stressed as emergency oil releases strain infrastructure," CNBC, July 28, 2026.
- "The Strait of Hormuz: Security Developments and Impacts on Oil, Gas, and Other Commodities," Congressional Research Service, Congress.gov, August 2026.
- "Donald Trump: Oil reserves could have run out in 4 weeks without Iran deal," The Hill, June 17, 2026.
- National Taxpayers Union Foundation, "A Legislative ATM: Oil Crisis Exposes How Washington Drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve," March 20, 2026.
