Why Is Congress Nuking Northeast Gasoline Reserve As Part Of Bill To Avert Shutdown?

March 04, 2024, 09:59 AM

WTF is going on here? This is REALLY concerning as a resident of this area:

These commies seem determined to cram EV's down our throats one way or another

quote:

Why Is Congress Nuking Northeast Gasoline Reserve As Part Of Bill To Avert Shutdown?

Zero Hedge
MONDAY, MAR 04, 2024 - 08:55 AM

On Sunday night, Congressional negotiators revealed a bill which will fund key parts of the government through the rest of the fiscal year which began in October.

The 1,050-page legislation sets a discretionary spending level of $1.66 trillion for FY24, which comes just days after lawmakers passed the fourth stopgap measure since Oct. 1 to keep the government funded a bit longer.

According to Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer's office, the bill "maintains the aggressive investments Democrats secured for American families, American workers, and America’s national defense."

House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement that "House Republicans secured key conservative policy victories, rejected left-wing proposals, and imposed sharp cuts to agencies and programs critical to the President Biden’s agenda."

But what neither of them mention is that the bill also nukes the entire Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve - which, at roughly 1 million barrels, is too small to matter on a national scale - but which could serve as a critical cache of energy in the event of another major disaster.

The Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve was established in 2014 following Hurricane Sandy, which cut through refineries and fuel terminals resulting in fuel shortages in some parts of the northeast. The rationale for draining it is that it "does not have the operational functionality that was envisioned post-Sandy"

What's more, once the reserve is drained, the bill mandates that the entire thing will be shut down.

https://x.com/zerohedge/status...421167295639914?s=20

Link

March 04, 2024, 02:19 PM

cas

Our electric tanks and aircraft won't need it.

March 04, 2024, 03:23 PM

preten2b

I'm suspicious that it may just be an effort to continue to lower the price of gas this summer. However I know I don't really know. Could just be honest cost savings. I'd need to ask who wrote this into the bill, and based on what reasons???

March 05, 2024, 07:30 PM

tatortodd

Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve is different than anything else in Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It was created by Obamalamadingdong after Sandy. They've been renting a million barrels of above ground storage tanks since 2014, and that is approx 1/8 of the storage in New England. All of the rented storage is on the coast (i.e. area of storm surge from hurricane), and it's split in 3 areas - 700k New York Harbor, 200k Boston, and 100k Portland (Maine). I'm not sure why the one near Boston had 0 inventory at the end of February.

Contrast to the Strategic Petroleum Reserves which were purpose built by DOE in late 70s and early 80s. Almost all storage is in deep salt caverns, and the 4 DOE sites range from 55.1 million barrels to 215.3 million barrels.

To put the key differences in perspective:

leased facilities vs purpose built owned facilities. Leased leaves room for crony capitalism, and it's taking ~1/8 of regional storage out of the free market.

above ground storage vs below ground storage. The later is more hardened and strategic.

Size. A million barrels is 2.5 hours of US daily consumption. The real SPR sites individually have 3 days to 11.75 days of max US refining capacity, and combined it's 31 days of max US refining capacity.

1 million barrels is better than 0 barrels, but what they've been doing the past 10 years certainly isn't strategic. If they wanted to be strategic, they'd have several hardened below ground facilities several dozen miles off the coast that hold 7+ days of New England usage. To be even more frank and make green heads explode, the 3 states have zero refineries and it'd be even more strategic to have refineries rather than store gasoline refined in other states (e.g. Texas).

March 05, 2024, 07:54 PM

wrightd

That makes sense from someone who doesn't know about that stuff. But I know enough that being unprepared to deal with National and Regional shortages is monumentally stupid, particularly these days with all the shit going against the US from multiple enemies around the world. At some point it could really put another hurt on us, and possible at a whole nuther level of trouble depending on who pulls the trigger first.

Thanks tatortodd. IIRC you are our resident energy guru, big oil industry guy. Your analysis on these national energy topics is GREATLY appreciated on the Sigforum.