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The Biden administration is poised to release more oil from its strategic stockpiles to stem any spike in gasoline prices this summer as the White House battles to contain inflation ahead of the November election.
Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden’s closest energy adviser, said prices at the pump are “still too high for many Americans” and he would like to see them “lowered a little further.”
“We will do everything we can to ensure that the market is supplied well enough to ensure the lowest possible price for American consumers,” Hochstein told the Financial Times.
“I think we have enough in the SPR if needed,” he added, referring to the country’s strategic oil reserves.
Hochstein’s comments come as Biden tries to overcome voters’ concerns about his handling of the economy with the election less than five months away.
The Biden administration has promised measures including curbs on health care costs and bank fees in an effort to reduce inflation, which has fallen by about 60 percent since 2022, when it hit a multi-decade high.
Any decision in the coming months to draw more barrels from the SPR — which Biden has used more than any of his predecessors — would anger Republicans, who have accused him of “political abuse and misuse” of the stockpile.
U.S. gasoline prices averaged $3.45 a gallon on Sunday, according to the motoring group AAA, down slightly from a year ago but still more than 50 percent higher than when Biden succeeded Donald Trump as president in 2021 .
Despite his limited ability to influence prices, many motorists blame the Democratic president for squeezing at the pump.
“I don’t like Biden,” said David Gonzales Broche, an Uber driver in Las Vegas, Nevada, where prices averaged $4.05 a gallon Sunday. “I pay almost $5 a gallon for gas. It used to be $2 — when we had Trump.”
The former president has used gasoline prices as an attack line against Biden in his campaign for the White House, arguing that the administration’s clean energy and climate policies have curbed U.S. oil production.
“We’re going to drill, baby drill,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Las Vegas last weekend. “We will lower your energy costs.”
The US has reached new record levels of oil and gas production under Biden and is exporting more than when Trump was president.
The SPR was established nearly half a century ago as a buffer against spikes in oil prices during supply disruptions. Biden announced the release from the reserve at the end of 2021 and again in 2022 as gasoline prices rose following Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Opec+ this month extended oil supply cuts in a bid to boost prices. Brent crude settled at $82.62 a barrel on Friday, having risen 7 percent over the past two weeks. Goldman Sachs expects the benchmark to reach $86 a barrel next quarter.
“Any president facing tough re-election, especially in a fragile economy, is going to be concerned about the risk of a spike in gasoline prices,” said Bob McNally, a former energy adviser to George W. Bush and head of consulting firm Rapidan Energy.
In a letter sent last month to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, senior Republican politicians urged the administration to “ensure that the SPR is not misused for political purposes in this election year” and described Biden’s release of the 2022 SPR as “a transparent attempt to influence midterm elections.”
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The administration has gradually topped up the SPR since it was launched under Biden to the lowest levels since 1983, arguing that it has done so with a good return for taxpayers by selling oil at higher market prices and buying back barrels at lower levels.
Hochstein said the administration will replenish supplies until oil is needed again.
“We will continue to buy into next year until we think the SPR will again have the volume it needs to serve its original purpose of energy security,” he said.