Washington, DC (Hinton News) – On July 20, 2023, the U.S. Senate voted 85-14 to agree to Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-WV), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, S.Amdt.926, a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 that would prohibit the sale of petroleum products from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and to their state-owned companies. Chairman Manchin introduced the bipartisan amendment with Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and John Fetterman (D-PA).
“Following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. ramped up production and exports to help meet global demand. It had been devastating to the world. China, on the other hand, stockpiled oil and held back refinery production and while China was stockpiling, one of its state-owned companies purchased over 1.4 million barrels from the United States of America, the people of our great country, from our own stock of reserves. That’s what we’re trying to stop,” Chairman Manchin said in part during a speech on the Senate floor.
