Peach Tree Times

President Biden announced the use of Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) crude oil with the goal of bringing down gas prices for American consumers, on March 31. Since then, the price of gas has increased by over 6% and Georgia's Gas Misery Index has remained high since the SPR was tapped.

Data from YCharts shows that on April 1, the SPR held 564.58 million barrels of oil in stock. As of July 15th, 2022, the SPR inventory stood at 480.1 million barrels of oil, a decrease of 84.48 million barrels since Biden's initial release.

"Wake up America. 1 million barrels per day is being released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Biden is draining the SPR, which last month fell to the lowest since 1986," Louisiana State Rep. Clay Higgins wrote in a July 5 Twitter post.

Although gas prices have fluctuated over the past few months, gas price data from July 19 shows a 6.6% increase in the price of gas since the day Biden announced the oil release on March 31. On that day, gas was $4.22 per gallon, 28 cents cheaper than the national average as of July 19, which is $4.50 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

In the early 1970s, the SPR was created by Congress following the Arab oil embargo with the intent to maintain a reserve to address severe disruptions in supply, CNBC reports. A recent press release from the Functional Government Initiative points out that there has been no major disruption in the oil supply that would have warranted such a withdrawal.

The latest Gasoline Misery Index, which tracks how much more (or less) the average American consumer will have to spend on gasoline on an annualized basis, reports that the average Georgia resident is spending around $742 more on gas this year when compared to the same time a year ago.