The nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, designed to ease supply shortages and price shocks, has been shrinking and President Donald Trump wants to cut its budget. That’s stoking concern in Congress and among energy experts that one of the reserve’s most crucial missions — providing not only supplies but economic and psychological security in the event of a major disaster — could be compromised. The government could have smoothly responded to any oil supply disruptions related to the Sept. 14 attack on the Saudi oil fields. But it could have a more difficult time responding to a more catastrophic disruption, experts said.
“It’s a problem,” said House energy subcommittee chairman Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, of plans to further reduce the reserve’s supply. “If there’s a big disruption U.S. producers can’t just jump in and replace the lost oil,” said Samantha Gross, a foreign policy fellow at Washington’s Brookings Institution. “We’ll feel the price increase in the U.S. just like we have in the past.” The United States remains a net oil importer, and oil in the reserve still needs to be refined for consumer use, she pointed out.