politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:

- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
They're selling the strategic petroleum reserve.
This is a great guess, because it's one of the few ways that explains the lower prices but also allows Trump to both grift public resources to his friends while getting unearned positive MAGA publicity.
And it's in direct response to that Pennsylvania woman on the news at a gas station saying that she voted for him 3 times and "apparently I'm an idiot" over the gas prices. He's trying to keep PA from going blue.
Bold of you to assume they give a shit what voters think or do at the ballot stations any more.
They don't give a shit about voters, they do care about optics though which is exactly what this is.
I think you're wrong. But you are bold as well for making a statement like that.
Their playbook is to do everything they can to make voters not matter.
How? He just fired the last 2 officials on the federal election committee (there's zero now). He already said DHS will be at the polls and they're extorting voting records from the states.
They've been selling that.
One of the major storage sites is dry,and this was reported a month ago.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/12/business/cushing-oil-inventory
Is that how the reserve works though?
Here in Australia the reserve isn't a bunch of big tanks owned by the government. Its a legislative mechanism requiring fuel retailers to hold a reserve.
It wouldn't make sense for the government to own or manage a reserve because it needs to be cycled constantly (petrol deteriorates quickly, diesel too but less so), and they'd need to replicate skills from the fuel industry.
That being the case I don't think there's a big tank of fuel owned by the government.
Edit: ok it seems I'm absolutely wrong about this.
https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/opr/strategic-petroleum-reserve
Sorry Americans.
As an aside, I don't understand how this works because it's certainly true that fuel doesn't last forever. Maybe you can store raw unprocessed oil indefinitely but not fuel.
The SPR holds mainly crude oil, so you can't just open a gas station and start selling it. It has to be sent to a refinery first, and once that happens the product that comes out is fungible.
In short it would be logistically simpler to just buy gasoline on the market and subsidize it. The subsidy is only 20-30 cents / gal as well.
Found here
In short, yes I believe this to be the case
Disclaimer I'm not American, and I don't really have much actual knowledge on this subject.
...but I THINK the US presidents can actually do this. I'm not sure what the legal mechanism is, but I do remember some chatter some15 years ago about Obama releasing the reserves. This makes me believe that the strategic reserve builds up during normalcy, and can be drained through executive action.
You're correct. That's why the US reserve storage holds oil, not fuel.
Socialized gas!