Gas prices are falling - so why isn't Trump refilling the oil reserve faster? WH blames Biden-era 'damage'

Considering the administration is touting falling gas prices as they champion Trump's economic plans in the face of Democrat "affordability" pushback, Fox News Digital asked the White House Wednesday if the administration was taking steps to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which Trump pledged to do from the campaign trail and during inauguration. 

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve serves as the U.S.' emergency stash of oil that was established after the 1970s oil crisis and stored along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana. The Department of Energy oversees the reserve. 

A Trump official explained that the administration is working to "gradually" refill the stash of oil, while citing significant "damage" left to the reserve following the Biden administration releasing millions of barrels of oil in 2021 and 2022. 

"Joe Biden's disastrous green energy policies sent gas prices soaring across the country, making the past four years painfully unaffordable for Americans filling their gas tanks to commute to work, take their children to school, and travel during the summer and holiday seasons," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital. 

"In a desperate attempt to provide an illusion of relief during his 2024 campaign, Joe Biden irresponsibly depleted our Strategic Petroleum Reserve - shamelessly jeopardizing our economic and national security. President Trump's energy dominance agenda has already brought gas prices down across the country, while gradually replenishing the SPR, and they will continue to drop as we unleash American energy."

Biden released 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2021 to lower gas prices and address the nation's supply chain issues, citing the move was needed after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a "near economic standstill."

He upped the ante on draining the SPR in March 2022, announcing that his administration would release one million barrels of oil per day from the SPR for six months to combat rising gas prices. The announcement followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with the U.S. and other allies imposing steep sanctions on oil-rich Russia in response. Biden released roughly 300 million barrels of oil across his four years. 

Biden holds the top spot among presidents for releasing the most oil from the SPR, with his administration acknowledging at the time that it was "unprecedented" but needed to lower energy prices. SPR levels dropped to a 40-year low of 347 million barrels in July 2023 after the drawdowns in 2021 and 2022, compared to its record high at 727 million barrels under the Obama administration in 2009. 

Other presidents have released oil from the reserve, including the President George H.W. Bush administration releasing 17.3 million barrels in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm, and the President George W. Bush administration ordering an 11 million barrel drawdown in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina rocked the Gulf Coast. 

A Trump administration official told Fox Digital that the "repercussions of this damaging decision" to release roughly 300 million barrels of oil "persist." 

The SPR currently holds just more than 400 million barrels, with a capacity of roughly 700 million barrels, Fox Digital learned. Refiling the reserve could cost up to $20 billion, according to the administration official, who underscored that the "damage the Biden administration did to America's SPR and national security cannot be overstated." 

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's office for comment on the SPR and Trump administration's comments but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Congress needs to appropriate funds in order to refill the reserves. Currently, the Department of Energy has refill authority and funds granted under the "big, beautiful bill," which appropriated $218 million for maintenance and repairs to the storage facilities and $171 million to refill the SPR. 

The Trump administration told Fox Digital that the Energy Department and Trump are working to gradually refill the reserve and remain committed to their previous pledges to do so, while awaiting additional funding from Congress. 

The Department of Energy began refilling the SPR in October, Fox Digital learned, in October with a notice of intent to purchase a million barrels of oil, which was followed by the department awarding contracts to begin refilling the reserve. The Department of Energy expects that oil to be delivered to the reserves by the end of 2025.

The administration said it is examining other avenues to refill the reserves as it awaits further funding action from Congress, including exchanging 1 million barrels to ExxonMobil in July to address a temporary supply disruption at its Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery. Exxon will return the oil, plus an additional amount that will be returned under a negotiated schedule by the third quarter of fiscal year 2026.

Trump railed against Biden's plan and subsequent release of the oil in his interim between his first and second administration, including in 2021 when he told the New York Post that the reserve should only be tapped during "serious emergencies, like war, and nothing else."

"Now I understand that Joe Biden will be announcing an 'attack' on the newly brimming Strategic Oil Reserves so that he could get the close to record-setting high oil prices artificially lowered," Trump told the outlet at the time. "We were energy independent one year ago, now we are at the mercy of OPEC, gasoline is selling for $7 in parts of California, going up all over the Country, and they are taking oil from our Strategic Reserves. Is this any way to run a Country?"

The U.S. Department of Energy under Trump's first term worked to purchase $3 billion in crude oil under the $2 trillion stimulus package in 2020, but Senate Democrats dropped the funding from the final version of the bill that Trump signed into law. 

As the federal election cycle heated up, Trump vowed to refill the reserves if re-elected.

Biden is "using the strategic reserves, which is meant for military, which is meant for war, and very important things, he's using it to try and keep gasoline prices down," Trump said in August 2024, saying he would "immediately refill" the reserve if re-elected. "We can't allow that to happen."

Trump also vowed in his inauguration speech on Jan. 20: "We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top, and export American energy all over the world." 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt Thursday, during a press briefing, celebrated the nation's current falling gas prices as evidence that the Trump economy is easing the financial anxiety Americans are feeling.

Democrats in the off-season 2025 election cycle campaigned on the platform of "affordability," claiming the Trump administration was worsening cost-of-living woes. The president and his administration have hit back against the Democrats' new winning campaign strategy, pinning blame for high costs on Biden administration policies that have had a lasting effect on the economy.

"American families faced constant pain at the pump, and those costs caused the price of everything else to go up as well," Leavitt said Thursday. "In fact, the average cost for a gallon of regular gas in the country was the most expensive price during a presidential term in U.S. history under Biden's disastrous leadership, even with them recklessly draining our strategic reserves to try and artificially decrease prices. But thanks to President Trump, those days are long behind us. In the months ahead, Americans can expect prices to fall even further."