With President Donald Trump beginning a “new war” in Iran, and oil prices starting to rise as a result, America’s emergency oil stockpile is reaching dangerously low levels.
Last week, the Energy Department revealed that stocks of crude oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) fell to 316.5 million barrels, its lowest since April 1983. Predictably, this decline can be attributed to years of political maneuvering.
Created in 1975 to mitigate oil supply disruptions after the Arab oil embargo, the SPR has often been used by presidents to score political points and shield consumers from the impacts of bad policies. In 2022, then-President Joe Biden authorized the release and sale of a record 180 million barrels of crude oil in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which sent crude oil prices to over $100 per barrel. The release, conducted in coordination with the International Energy Agency, reduced U.S. gas prices by 17 cents to 42 cents per gallon over six months, according to the Treasury Department.
With average gas prices approaching $3.60 per gallon in May 2024, Biden again tapped oil deposits—this time the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve—to lower the price at the pump ahead of the Fourth of July. This release came after the Biden administration announced plans to begin replenishing the SPR in 2023. However, it repeatedly delayed “the return of about 15.3mn bl of the borrowed crude to the SPR until 2026,” reports market analytics firm Argus.
When Trump reentered the Oval Office in January 2025, he was left with an SPR consisting of 395 million barrels, just above half of what it was when he left office four years before. While the administration has pledged to replenish the SPR, the president has tapped the reserve to cushion consumers from price shocks caused by his war of choice in Iran. In March, the Energy Department announced the release of 172 million barrels of oil. This came weeks before oil prices reached a staggering $115 per barrel and was followed by proposed SPR rebuilding efforts that remain only in developmental stages.
The new wave of emergency releases is not the only reason the reserve is operating at half capacity. Years of frequent withdrawals had already strained the system before the Trump administration took office. Mounting infrastructure issues have also plagued the SPR. The underground salt caverns that make up the reserve have suffered wear and tear from repeated releases over the past 50 years. As a result, risks to wellbore integrity prevent the caverns from being drawn or refilled at the rate at which they were designed, according to The Wall Street Journal. Deferred maintenance projects have also created a backlog of critical work, even leading to a well rupture at a Texas SPR facility in May 2024, resulting in the loss of up to 400,000 barrels of crude oil.
Given the repeated politicization of the SPR and the cost to maintain it—over $200 million in FY 2026—it’s time for lawmakers to, in the words of Reason‘s Joe Lancaster, “scrap the reserve altogether.” The SPR is the product of a bygone era when the U.S. was beholden to foreign oil producers to meet its energy needs. With America producing record levels of crude oil, alongside today’s diversified supply, spot trading, and financial hedging tools, a giant government stockpile is unnecessary.
The news that the SPR is reaching historically low levels may incite panic. But the answer is not to double down on an outdated, government-centric system. The real solution is to get Washington out of the way and finally let energy prices exclusively respond to market signals.
