Forbes: “No, Former President Trump Did Not Fill The Strategic Petroleum Reserve”

From Senior Contributor to Forbes Robert Rapier:

The announcement (that President Biden is releasing one million barrels of crude oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gas prices) prompted an odd response from former President Trump. Through his spokesperson, President Trump claimed:

“So after 50 years of being virtually empty, I built up our oil reserves during my administration, and low energy prices, to 100% full. It’s called the Strategic National Reserves, and it hasn’t been full for many decades. In fact, it’s been mostly empty.”

There’s just nothing about that statement that is true. As you can see in the graphic below, the SPR levels have never fallen below 500,000 thousand (i.e., 500 million) barrels of crude oil since the 1980s.

After all this time and all the familiarity we’ve gained with Trump, the world should be used to his brazen lies, but it’s still shocking to hear something akin to “Colorado is on the East Coast.”

If you want to lie about a certain subject, make the assertion something that can’t be disproved in a matter of a few seconds.