Who can forget the reckless decision Joe Biden made when he raided the Strategic Petroleum Reserve multiple times during his pseudo-presidency? We were calling him out back then, and it comes as no shock at all that we’re still paying for his decisions now.

Fox Business correspondent Edward Lawrence reported to Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner this week that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is sitting at a 43-year low, following Biden's raid before the 2022 midterm elections, when he drained 180 million barrels from the reserve. The White House called it a response to high gas prices. In reality, he was trying to help his party during the midterm elections.

The reserve never fully recovered.

Kyle Haustveit, the current undersecretary of energy now overseeing the SPR, told Lawrence in an interview that the damage runs deeper than low reserve levels. One of the reserve's four storage sites, he said, is completely inoperable. The Trump administration now has to track down additional equipment just to bring it back online, because weather damage finished off a site the Biden administration had already abandoned mid-repair.

"They completely wasted taxpayer dollars" on equipment for that site, Haustveit said. The gear, he explained, "sat on surface," and the Biden administration "didn't install" it, which is why the site deteriorated to the point of being unusable. "They also failed to maintain some of the sites," he added, describing a broader pattern of neglect across SPR facilities. Haustveit told Lawrence he doesn't believe the Biden administration ever had a long-term plan for maintaining the reserve at all.

Duh.

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Biden’s decision to drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for political reasons rather than during a genuine emergency was a choice with consequences. It left the country with less cushion the next time a real crisis hits, and the wasted equipment and deferred maintenance make the SPR less capable of doing the one job it exists to do.

Lawrence reported that the Trump administration is now releasing some SPR supply to help manage the fallout from the situation with Iran, as part of a coordinated effort involving strategic reserves around the world through the International Energy Agency. But there's an important distinction: for every barrel it releases, the administration replaces that amount through a swap program, so the reserve doesn't end up depleted the way it did under Biden.

It's also worth remembering that Trump tried to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when oil prices were historically low, but Congress did not approve the funding for the purchase.

The confusion on the left about what the SPR is actually for hasn't helped. When the Iran war first began, plenty of Democrats blamed Trump for not tapping the reserve to bring gas prices down. That criticism misunderstands the reserve's entire purpose. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve exists to provide an emergency supply of crude oil during severe disruptions to the global market — which includes war, natural disasters, and other major shocks. It’s there to be a national security buffer meant to stabilize the oil supply during a crisis, not for managing prices at the pump for political convenience.

Trump understands that distinction, even if his critics don't. He's focused on rebuilding what Biden emptied, so the country actually has something to rely on the next time it matters.