House Democrats blocked a motion Wednesday that would have barred oil from the nation’s emergency petroleum reserves from being shipped overseas to entities under the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The motion, proposed by California Republican Rep. David Valadao, would have made it illegal for oil from the emergency stockpile to be sent to China after President Joe Biden’s latest release sent 1 million barrels to Beijing enterprises. Democrats killed the motion with 219 voting against and 206 Republicans voting in favor.
“It is irresponsible and dangerous for the United States to provide a foreign adversary with fuel that we need to keep here in the United States in case of an emergency,” Valadao said promoting his proposal on the floor of the House. “It seems the Biden administration is helping to support China’s national security at the expense of our own.”
Earlier this month, Reuters revealed that American oil from the strategic petroleum reserves maintained for sudden supply shocks was shipped to the east Asian adversary as opposed to U.S. refineries. According to the Energy Department, 950,000 barrels ended up in the hands of Unipec, the trading arm of the China Petrochemical Corporation owned entirely by the Chinese government. The company is also known as “Sinopec,” in which the president’s son Hunter Biden invested $1.7 billion through the private equity firm BHR Partners.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer told The New York Times last fall that he “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly,” in the private equity firm built while his father was vice president. According to the Washington Examiner, however, Hunter Biden remained listed as a part-owner of the firm as late as March.
“Business records from China’s National Credit Information Publicity System accessed Tuesday continue to identify Skaneateles as a 10% owner in BHR, and Washington, D.C., business records continue to list Biden as the only beneficial owner of Skaneateles,” the Examiner reported in March. “The White House has routinely deflected questions about Biden’s business dealings to his attorneys, who have remained largely mum.”
On Wednesday, 19 House Republicans sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm with demands for a briefing on the sale.
“The decision to sell to Unipec raises questions about why the Biden Administration is selling oil from the SPR to China, especially when the sale may enrich Hunter Biden, the President’s son,” wrote lawmakers led by Kentucky Rep. James Comer. “This transaction is even more troubling given that evidence continues to mount showing the Biden family peddled access to the highest levels of government to enrich themselves.”
The letter was published exclusively by the New York Post, which also broke a series of stories from an abandoned Delaware laptop that contradicted Joe Biden’s repeated claims of never speaking business with his son “or with anyone else.” Emails from the laptop reportedly belonging to Hunter Biden also implicated the president in corrupt business deals with the CCP, now enriched by American reserve oil.
In May, President Biden tapped the strategic petroleum reserves to unleash 1 million barrels of oil daily for 180 days, which will align conveniently with the fall election cycle, instead of encouraging domestic energy production. By the end of Biden’s latest release, 260 million barrels will be depleted from the reserves, which have an authorized capacity of up to 714 million. The Department of Energy has announced plans to replenish only 60 million barrels, leaving the reserves at their lowest level since 1985.
The Energy Department has also refused to comply with requests made under the Freedom of Information Act probing the use of the emergency reserves in the absence of any real emergency such as a hurricane or cyberattack. Instead, Biden’s ordered releases from the stockpile seem to be efforts to save political capital. Earlier this month, the Functional Government Initiative, a nonprofit government watchdog, filed a lawsuit to compel records that would grant insight into the administration’s decision to tap the storage of petroleum.
The U.S., however, is not the only nation to tap into its emergency oil reserves to tamp down high gas prices. China, which has equally sized reserves, has tapped only 7.4 million barrels of its own stockpile while U.S. emergency supplies are shipped to Beijing.
