U.S. President Joe Biden announced a plan to sell off 15 million barrels of crude oil from the nation’s emergency supply and begin refilling the reserve as he tries to dampen high gasoline prices ahead of midterm elections on the 8th of November.
The move came two weeks after the Saudi Arabia-led OPEC+ organization rankled Biden by siding with Russia and agreeing to a production cut, raising fears of a new spike in U.S. pump prices.
Biden’s efforts to use federal powers to balance the U.S. oil market underscores just how much the war in Ukraine, rampant inflation and the OPEC production cut have upended the plans of a president who came into office vowing to undo the oil industry and move the country swiftly to a fossil-fuel-free future.