Biden tries to tackle his gas price problem by announcing sale of 15 million barrels from Strategic Petroleum Reserve

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By Betsy Klein, Shawna Mizelle and Maegan Vazquez, CNN

President Joe Biden on Wednesday formally announced the sale of an additional 15 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in December as he looks to rein in gas prices ahead of the crucial midterm elections.

“With my announcement today, we’re going to continue to stabilize markets and decrease the prices at a time when the actions of other countries have caused such volatility,” Biden said in a speech from the White House. “And I’ve told my team to be prepared to look further — look for further releases in the months ahead if needed.”

Wednesday’s announcement of the sale comes less than three weeks before Election Day, marking the latest step in the White House’s unprecedented attempt to balance global oil markets. The action is expected to fulfill the administration’s commitment in March to release a historic 180 million barrels from the SPR over a six-month period to counter soaring energy prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

That commitment, which has rolled out in regular sales over the last several months, combined with global economic concerns to help drive gas prices down for nearly three months straight. But a recent OPEC+ decision to cut oil production targets and sidelined refineries also created market pressures.

Earlier Wednesday, Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser for energy security, confirmed Biden’s plan to authorize an additional barrels from the reserve on CNN’s “New Day” and suggested the administration will release more “if necessary.” Any future release, he suggested, would be dependent on global markets and Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Pressed by CNN’s John Berman as to what would lead to any additional releases, Hochstein said, “If necessary — look, the Russians have clearly stated that we can’t be sure what they’re going to do next and we have some measures that are coming into place in Europe over the next several months. So the President’s going to keep a careful eye and announcing today — that whatever we’re doing today could continue and see additional SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) releases, if necessary.”

He suggested a “combination of things” could lead to such a decision, including international actions that lead to a spike in gas prices, but declined to get into hypothetical scenarios.

Hochstein on Wednesday also highlighted Biden’s plans to “replenish” the SPR — which is now at its lowest level in nearly 40 years — and buy back oil when prices go down to approximately $70 per barrel. He said the administration is asking the oil and gas industry to increase production and “start investing” but said there is still “a lot” of oil remaining in the reserves.

“We still have a lot there, we have over 400 million barrels, that’s a lot of barrels. We’re going to use them if we need to. But we want the industry to increase production right now so that their barrels — the private sector barrels can come into the market. That’s not necessarily the role of the SPR,” he said.

Hochstein said the current price of gas is “too high” and argued that the profit gap for oil companies is also “too high.”

“The President wants those prices to come down even further and faster. And he’s going to take whatever action necessary in order to make sure that consumers don’t have to pay the price for wars that are happening in Europe,” he said.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

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CNN’s Phil Mattingly and Sam Fossum contributed to this report.