On Mondays, Newsweek posted the following headline:
US to Sell Off Entire Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve
The article reports:
The sale of the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve is among the provisions intended to raise funds in one of six bills setting out appropriations for some federal departments this year after Congress narrowly avoided another shutdown last week.
Under a bill providing funding for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the fiscal year, a million barrels of the government’s strategic reserve of petroleum would be sold off—the same amount as in the NGSR, which is located in New York Harbor, Boston, Massachusetts and South Portland, Maine.
“Upon the complete of such sale, the Secretary [of Energy] shall carry out the closure of the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve,” the bill states, and “may not establish any new regional petroleum product reserve unless funding of the proposed regional petroleum product reserve is explicitly requested in advance in an annual budget.”
…Congress is expected to pass the package, which is the result of cross-party negotiations, with votes set to take place this week. Negotiations on a further six spending bills continue.
This is reckless. What part of ‘Gasoline Supply Reserve’ does Congress not understand? This is not to be used to fund America, this is supposed to be used in case of emergency. If the government truly wants to reduce the deficit, they need to look at the amount of land the government controls that could easily be sold without endangering national security.