Should We Use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a Revenue Stream?

The U.S. currently maintains one of the world’s largest stockpiles of government owned oil, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). In response to the 1970s oil embargo and supply shocks, the U.S. created the SPR to ensure access to oil in the event of a severe energy supply interruption. The current SPR consists of four storage sites, housing 694 million barrels of oil that is equivalent to at least 90 days of net oil imports. The SPR has only been tapped three times, but the recent budget deal provides that the government sell 58 million barrels of oil to fund a… [more]