Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was left scrambling Tuesday to explain the positive impact of releasing 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — admitting at one point she had no idea how many barrels are used by Americans each day.
“I’m curious if you know, how many barrels of oil does the US consume per day?” CBS News reporter Ed O’Keefe asked Granholm during the White House briefing.
“I don’t have that number in front of me, sorry,” Granholm replied.
“Some suggest it’s about 18 million,” O’Keefe responded, “which would suggest you are releasing less than three days’ supply from the petroleum reserve. Why is that enough?”
According to the federal Energy Information Administration — part of Granholm’s own department — Americans used an average of 20.7 million barrels a day during September, meaning that Tuesday’s release equals about two and a half days of additional supply.
Granholm defended the release as a “short-term strategy” that would offer a “bridge” to lower prices — and called on US oil companies to do more domestic drilling, despite President Biden’s actions to shut down oil pipelines and scrap new oil leases amid what he calls a “climate crisis.”
“We have 250 fewer oil rigs that are functioning today than we did before the pandemic,” explained the former Michigan governor. “And yet the oil and gas industry has leases on 23 million acres of public lands and offshore … We want to encourage them to increase supply. We want supply to be increased both inside the United States and around the world so that we can reduce the pressure.”
According to the EIA, the nationwide average price for a gallon of regular gas was about $3.39 as of Monday, down less than half a cent from last week and up $1.29 from the same time one year ago.
“In December, the price will be about $3.19 a gallon and then in January it’s going to go down,” said Granholm citing projections from what she mistakenly called the “Energy Information Agency.”
“We’re hopeful that prices will be stabilized and start to move down. We’re not saying there’s going to be some dramatic difference,” Granholm said. “But we also recommend that everybody needs to be a partner in letting people know that last year was an anomaly because demand for gasoline was so low.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also struggled to explain the real-world effects of the release, which followed a letter from Biden asking the Federal Trade Commission to look into potential price-gouging by oil companies.
Psaki, asked by a reporter to explain what impact the move “might actually have for drivers,” suggested there could be price reductions at the pump without being more specific.
“The president took this step because he’s going to do everything he can to lower costs for the American people,” she said. “He knows that the price of gas is something that is impacting people as they go into the holiday season as they’re working and looking at their budgets.”
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Granholm stumped on US oil consumption while explaining reserve tap - New York Post
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