Protecting America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve From China Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to point out to my colleagues some context and facts that are totally missing from this debate.

Exports of oil from the SPR regardless of destination were not a problem before 2015. Many of us were here, and we remember exactly why that 40-year policy of the United States, a ban on crude oil exports, changed. It changed because that year a Republican-controlled Congress insisted on lifting the export ban.

The Republicans in charge at that time refused to consider an amendment that was offered by our friend and former colleague, Representative Gene Green. That amendment would have required exporters to have a permit finding that their export of crude oil was consistent with the national interest. Republicans did not create any restrictions on the destination of oil exported from our strategic reserves or any other source.

If Republicans had not lifted that export ban, we would not have this problem. If Republicans hadn't blocked Representative Green's amendment from even being considered on the floor of the House, we would not have this problem.

Instead, we are left with a Republican messaging bill which purports to address a small part of the problem while ignoring the much bigger problem that they created back in 2015.

If my friends across the aisle were truly concerned with U.S. oil exports going to China, then they would put a more serious measure forward. At the very least, they would block not just some small amount of petroleum from the SPR, but the sale of all crude oil exports to China which includes much larger volumes outside of the SPR.

In the international market, we don't know where crude oil ends up once it hits the global marketplace. That is the way it works. Sales to entities with connections to China may not go to China. Sales to entities with no connection to China may go straight to China. That is just how it works.

The fact is the only way we can be sure that U.S. crude doesn't end up in the hands of foreign entities of concern is to reinstate that crude oil export ban.

I agree with my friends across the aisle. We shouldn't be exporting our strategic oil reserves to China. I just wish they hadn't gotten us into this mess in the first place, and I wish they would put forth a more serious bill now.

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