A US funding bill unveiled by congressional leaders on Sunday would bar China from buying oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR. The desire for a hard line on China is one of the few truly bipartisan sentiments in the deeply divided US Congress, and lawmakers have introduced dozens of bills aimed at addressing competition with the Chinese government.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images
A US funding bill unveiled by congressional leaders on Sunday would bar China from buying oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR.
The desire for a hard line on China is one of the few truly bipartisan sentiments in the deeply divided US Congress, and lawmakers have introduced dozens of bills aimed at addressing competition with the Chinese government.
The issue of SPR sales to China heated up after President Joe Biden, a Democrat, announced in 2022 a sale of 180 million barrels of SPR oil to tame fuel prices that spiked after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
That year, SPR sold 1 million barrels to UNIPEC America, a Houston-based arm of China’s Sinopec. In 2017, under former President Donald Trump, some SPR oil was sold to PetroChina International, a subsidiary of China’s state oil company PetroChina Co Ltd.
The SPR currently holds more than 360 million barrels of oil but is near a 40-year low due for sales in 2022.
Last July, the Democratic-controlled Senate passed a bill 85 to 14 to ban exports to China of SPR oil. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, said at the time it created the illusion of solving the problem while having very little political impact and likely doing more harm than good.
US oil companies sold 83 million barrels of oil to China in 2022.
Congressional negotiators released the 1,050 page bill on Sunday laying out funding for six of the dozen segments of government charged by Congress with appropriating money, with the next six due next month.
The US House must vote on the bill first before the Senate can take up the package by Friday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. The House is scheduled to return to Washington on Tuesday.
