Cheap, fast to build, doesn't appear obvious from the air, hard to destroy with conventional weapons. The drawback of damaging the container when you use it wasn't considered as big an issue back when we knew what the words "strategic" and "emergency" meant. When the administration creates a new crisis every week to distract from the Epstein Files, it suddenly seems insufficient.

We did.

Then we decided not to use them.

I mean.. maybe. I like clean energy, but people will starve too. I don't see Trump's government hopping on clean energy as a solution. They will blame and deflect. They will destroy all our national parks scavenging for resources. It will be bad.

OR the Orange Stain will invade another country. Isn't the USA so gosh darn quirky!

It’s a win win for them. They either lose the election and stick the Dems with a fuel crisis, or win the election and finish their dictatorship.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCSSTUS1&f=W

We're still a month out and we mostly stopped pulling from the reserve 3 weeks ago. The last 3 weeks the reserve dropped by less than 1 million barrels, while all summer I think we were averaging more than 5 per week.

And the average dumb American will fall for it and Trump will be elected president again in 2028 lol (yes, he will find a way around the 2 term limit law).

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody" - Epstein Files star

Prices have already skyrocketed. They've doubled since he took office.

It could be argued that Biden shares some of the blame here. My understanding is that his administration released almost half the SPR during Covid to a) help the global economy and b) make a killing (for the government) selling oil when prices were high.

The idea being that they'd replenish the reserves after the crisis, when prices were low/normal again.

The problem with that is that the salt caverns are rated for a limited number of drawdown cycles, so you can't use it as a bank account. They're more like an old-timey piggy bank, you break it to use it.

That being said, the biggest difference is of course that Biden didn't cause Covid. Trump very much started the war with Iran.

The last drop of oil will be burned in a tank fighting over the last drop of oil.

You mean “way past the E”