Report: Biden expected to announce plan for massive release of oil

A sign showing gas prices in Los Angeles.

(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

published 31 March 2022

President Biden could announce as early as Thursday a plan to release 1 million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for as long as 180 days, a person familiar with the matter told The New York Times late Wednesday.

The White House has been considering ways to lower gasoline prices across the nation, which skyrocketed in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine; in March, the average price of a gallon of gas hit a high of $4.17, six cents higher than the previous record set in 2008.

Biden's public schedule for Thursday states he is scheduled to deliver remarks in the afternoon on his administration's "actions to reduce the impact of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's price hike on energy prices and lower gas price at the pump for American families." The price of the American crude oil benchmark dropped about 4 percent Wednesday evening once reports began surfacing about Biden's plan.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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