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Bipartisan groups in Congress introduce bill to protect strategic petroleum reserve

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From The Center Square

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A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a bill to limit, not prohibit, the sale of crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

The Banning SPR Oil Exports to Foreign Adversaries Act was filed in the U.S. Senate by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, John Fetterman, D-Penn., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. U.S. Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn, Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, and Jay Obernolte, R-Calif. filed the bill in the U.S. House.

Instead of repealing provisions of a 10-year-old law to ban the sale or export of SPR oil, the bill seeks to amend the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to prohibit the sale or export of SPR oil to certain countries and entities. It would ban SPR oil from being sold or exported to the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, Russian Federation, Islamic Republic of Iran, any entity owned or controlled by these countries or the Chinese Communist Party.

The SPR is the largest publicly stored emergency supply of petroleum in the world – solely supplied by the U.S. oil industry, led by Texas. The SPR was created after a U.S. energy crisis erupted from a 1973 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo and Carter administration inflationary policies.

Underground tanks in Texas and Louisiana have the capacity to hold more than 700 million barrels of petroleum. Instead of passing balanced budgets, in 2015, Congress mandated that the U.S. Department of Energy sell SPR oil to fund its deficit spending.

Since then, the DOE has sold SPR reserves to the highest bidder through competitive public auctions to anyone in the world. During the Biden and Trump administrations, foreign companies with direct ties to American adversaries purchased SPR oil for anti-democratic regimes.

In 2022, in response to energy policies he implemented that directly contributed to high energy costs and inflation, President Joe Biden instructed the DOE to release 1 million barrels of SPR oil a day for 180 days. Chinese companies benefited from the sale, purchasing large quantities. The 2022 release was the largest SPR sale in U.S. history, according to US Energy Information Administration data.

Biden left the SPR with less than 395 million barrels of crude oil. Under the first Trump administration, the SPR exceeded 695 million barrels. Under the Obama administration, it exceeded 726 million barrels.

“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is meant to protect the U.S. during crises, not supply our adversaries,” Cruz said. “Under President Biden, part of this reserve was sold, benefiting China’s strategic interests. There is strong bipartisan consensus around preventing such a sale from being repeated.”

“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve protects America’s energy, economic, and national security,” Fetterman said. “We must prioritize the safety of America and our allies – we cannot allow our adversaries to purchase oil from our critical energy reserves. This is a commonsense bill with strong bipartisan support.”

Their efforts follow a bipartisan initiative to protect the SPR that was incorporated in the Fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Cruz and Houlahan introduced amendments to their respective chamber’s version of the NDAA, which included similar provisions to this bill. Cruz’s amendment received bipartisan support in the Senate. Houlahan’s amendment unanimously passed in the House.

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Canadian Energy Centre

Experts urge caution with Canadian energy in response to Trump tariffs

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From The Canadian Energy Centre

By Will Gibson

‘We want Americans to stand up for our supply’

A lawyer by training, Gary Mar is also a keen student of history. And he recommends Canadians look at what happened when past U.S. administrations imposed tariffs on imports before jumping to add costs to Canadian energy.

“President Richard Nixon imposed a 10 per cent tariff in 1971 and withdrew it after a few months because it caused so much pain for American consumers,” says Mar, CEO of the Canada West Foundation, who served as Alberta’s trade representative in Washington from 2007 to 2011.

“Canadians and their governments need to be patient. Any tariffs on energy will be passed on to consumers in the United States. We shouldn’t let the president off the hook for raising the price to American drivers by putting more duties on energy we export,” he says.

“We want Americans to stand up for our supply, not displace the anger with President Trump for raising prices with anger towards Canadians.”

A major U.S. supplier

The U.S. imports more than four million barrels of oil per day from Canada, or about one out of every five barrels the country consumes. Most Canadian imports are destined for refineries in the U.S. Midwest including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

About 99 per cent of natural gas imports into the United States also come from Canada. Natural gas imports flow primarily to Idaho, North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Trump tariffs

Nixon put tariffs in place in an attempt to weaken the U.S. dollar against foreign currencies and strengthen U.S. exports.

Mar, who served as cabinet minister in the Klein and Stelmach governments from 1993 to 2007, sees Trump’s tariffs as aimed to repatriate manufacturing and jobs to America.

“President Trump made this explicitly clear…if you want to sell manufactured goods in the United States, you need to move your factories here,” says Mar.

“But Canadian oil and natural gas are key inputs that help U.S. manufacturing. We ship the products or partially refined products that support manufacturing of finished products in the United States. Tariffs will raise those costs for U.S. manufacturers and ultimately American consumers.”

A divisive rerun of the National Energy Program?

Mar’s former cabinet colleague Ted Morton agrees Canada needs to exercise patience and caution in any response to U.S. tariffs.

Morton, who served as an Alberta cabinet minister from 2006 to 2012, strongly disagrees with the idea of placing countervailing tariffs on energy exports to the United States. Morton casts it as a divisive rerun of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s controversial National Energy Program in the early 1980s.

Energy export tariffs “would be an attempt to revive Liberal Party support from disillusioned voters in Ontario and Quebec,” he says.

“The biggest loser in Trump’s new tariff war will be Ontario due to the integration of the auto sector between the U.S. and Canada. It’s simple political arithmetic. Ottawa could collect $4 or $5 billion by taxing energy exports in western Canada and send that money to prop up struggling industries in Ontario and Quebec,” Morton says.

“Ontario and Quebec combined have a total of 199 MPs, more than enough to form a majority government. It’s the ‘screw the West and take the rest’ strategy. It’s how the Liberals won the 1980 federal election, and they could try it again.”

Legal and constitutional precedents

And while imposing export tariffs on Canadian energy could be politically popular in central Canada, Morton suggests the action would not withstand a legal challenge thanks to legal and constitutional precedents set by former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed.

“Peter Lougheed left future Alberta premiers with some very effective legal weapons. His government successfully challenged the constitutionality of Trudeau’s export tax on natural gas. He then teamed up with the other western premiers to negotiate a new constitutional amendment that affirms provincial jurisdiction over the development and conservation of natural resources,” Morton says.

“Premier Danielle Smith should win any constitutional challenge if the federal government tries to impose an export tariff on oil or natural gas.”

Morton, like Mar, also counselled patience in responding to tariffs because “Trump’s tariffs on Canadian energy will punish American consumers more than Canadians.”

The national interest

David Yager, who has studied and analyzed energy policy for more than 40 years, agrees tariffs on energy have the potential to drive a wedge between Alberta and the rest of the country in the same way the National Energy Program did.

“The dynamic definition of national interest is what I struggle with. Going back several decades, it was in the national interest to get oil and gas across Canada so there was a drive to build pipelines east and west,” says Yager, a consultant who also serves as a special advisor to Premier Smith.

“Today, the national interest has flipped again, and energy exports are now a source of revenue to save the ‘real’ Canada, which is central Canada. It’s the same kind of logic that has seen the emissions cap on oil and gas as well as the carbon tax.”

If Canada wants to retaliate, Yager recommends putting a duty on the 1.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas imported by Ontario and Quebec from the northeastern United States.

“That would be the appropriate tit for tat response,” Yager says.

“You could build a nice pool of capital and clobber U.S. producers without driving a wedge between Alberta and the rest of the country.”

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Alberta

Alberta power outages and higher costs on the way with new federal electricity regulations, AESO says

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From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

Clean Electricity Regulations put Alberta grid at risk for ‘minimal emissions reductions’

Alberta is at risk of power outages by the mid-2030s as a result of the federal government’s Clean Electricity Regulations (CER), says a new report by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO).

The AESO’s analysis found the new regulations, which came into effect on January 1, will make the province’s electricity system more than 100 times less reliable by 2038.

Alberta has already reduced emissions from electricity production by 59 per cent since 2005 without the CER, according to the federal government’s national emissions reporting.

The finalized CER in December 2024 pushed out the federal government’s target of a net zero power grid from 2035 to 2050, but the AESO said the costs of the regulation continue to outweigh its minimal environmental benefit.

The CER essentially mandates the rapid and widespread adoption of technologies that remain under development or have not been commercially tested in Alberta, the AESO said.

This includes nuclear, large-scale hydroelectric generation, natural gas generation with carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen generation.

Due to restrictions on natural gas generation, the AESO forecasts an additional $30 billion in capital and operational costs between now and 2049.

The regulations will have high costs for Albertans, increasing wholesale electricity prices by 35 per cent above what they otherwise would be, the AESO said.

Along with potential reliability and affordability issues, the regulations will result in less than one million tonnes of emissions reduced annually, according to AESO.

“The significant cost that the CER will impose on Alberta’s electricity system for minimal emissions reductions means the regulation is inefficient and ineffective,” the AESO said.

“The threat to reliability resulting from the CER means that the regulation puts Alberta’s electricity grid at significant risk for little to no benefit.”

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