"The Energy Department is suspending its plan to buy low-priced oil to restock the nation’s emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve after Congress chose not to provide funding for the purchase in its emergency pandemic relief package.
The department withdrew a solicitation Thursday for buying 30 million barrels of oil from U.S. producers, which would have been the first round of purchases for a total of 77 million barrels — the full amount of open capacity in the SPR.
That doesn't mean Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette is abandoning President Trump's order to fill the oil reserve in order to help U.S. producers struggling from a historic price crash. But he needs Congress to allocate $3 billion in funding in order to proceed, and he's calling on lawmakers to do it in future rounds of legislation responding to the coronavirus."
Josh Siegel reports for the Washington Examiner March 26, 2020.
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