The House of Representatives votes to ban President Biden from selling America’s emergency supplies to China
- All Republicans voted in favor of the law and 113 Democrats joined them
- Biden has tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for 200 million barrels of oil after Russia’s war in Ukraine pushed up fuel prices
- Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said the law doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t prohibit sales to the rest of America’s opponents
The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to pass a bill banning President Biden from tapping the Strategic Oil Reserve to sell US oil to China.
On the Democrat side, 113 members voted in favor of the bill, joining all Republicans.
The bill became a priority for Republicans in its first week after reports reported Chinese buyers were buying oil during the record-breaking drop in US emergency supplies, at a time when gas prices were peaking at $5 a gallon.
Biden tapped the reserve for 200 million barrels of oil after Russia’s war in Ukraine drove up fuel prices.
Republicans criticized the move, accusing the president of stifling domestic oil production. They were angered by reports that the Biden administration sold nearly a million barrels in July to a Chinese state-owned company in which Hunter Biden’s private equity firm held a $1.7 billion stake, reports said .
At the same time, it emerged that five million barrels of oil were sent overseas after the White House claimed their release would help ease Americans’ pain at the pump.
The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to pass a bill banning President Biden from tapping the Strategic Oil Reserve to sell US oil to China
The bill became a priority for Republicans in its first week after reports reported Chinese buyers were buying oil during the record-breaking drop in US emergency supplies, at a time when gas prices were peaking at $5 a gallon.
Curbing Chinese competition was a rare bipartisan priority of the first week of the new Congress — a bill to create a special committee to study strategic US-China competition received all Republican and 160 Democratic votes.
Other bills, such as a $72 billion recovery bill from the IRS and an abortion restriction bill, were passed off the party line, with critics saying they were Republican “messaging” laws.
Portal reported in July that SPR oil is being shipped to China, India, Italy and the Netherlands. In some cases, US companies, including Phillips 66, bought the reserve’s oil and then sold it to China.
The SPR inventory is now at 372 million barrels, up from 594 million a year ago.
Republicans in both houses introduced legislation to ban the sale of Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) supplies to China. The idea has even garnered support from some Democrats — Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, along with fellow Republicans, introduced legislation over the summer that would ban sales to China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and other countries under US sanctions.
Houlahan wrote in an op-ed that she was “glad” the House of Representatives would pass legislation to ban sales to China, but said it was a “missed opportunity” not to extend the ban to other nations.
She said she understands the “political points” that could be gained by focusing the bill on China, but argued that her bill has a “better chance” of passing both houses since it beats that of Ted Cruz and the Senate more similar to introduced legislation is John Kennedy, R-La.
The 950,000 barrels offered to China over the summer were sold to Unipec, the trading arm of China Petrochemical Corporation – better known as Sinopec.
Sinopec is also affiliated with private equity firm BHR Partners, which Hunter co-founded in 2013.
In 2015, BHR acquired a $1.7 billion stake in Sinopec, The Federalist reported.
Democratic Rep. Don Beyer, Virginia, said it was Republicans’ fault that oil exports were even possible.
“Today House Republicans are letting us vote on a bill to block oil exports from the SPR. They are very jaded – lots of “Biden is selling us to China”, “time to put America first”, etc. Crude oil exports were banned for decades until 2015. You’ll never guess who lifted the ban,” he wrote on Twitter, referencing a 2015 tweet by Speaker Kevin McCarthy praising House Republicans for lifting the ban on all U.S. oil exports to China.
After an oil crisis in the early 1970s, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act banned almost all US crude oil exports between 1975 and 2015.