The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday (January 12) aimed at banning the export of strategic oil reserves to China. The bill will then be sent to the Senate for a vote. This is the second major bill related to China passed by the new House of Representatives controlled by Republicans this week. Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed a resolution formally creating an ad hoc committee to reassess U.S. policy toward China.
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| U.S. Passes Bill Banning Oil Tanker |
The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly 331-97 Thursday morning to pass legislation banning the export of oil released from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China. 113 Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the legislative action, even though all 97 of the no votes came from Democrats.
The bill, Protecting America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act, prohibits the sale of oil released from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to any entity controlled, owned, or influenced by the Chinese Communist Party unless it can be ensured that these oils will not be exported to China.
The bill will then go to the Senate. It remains unclear whether the legislative measure will win support in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
"We also know that China is stepping up its purchases of crude oil from Russia and the United States to add to its own reserves," House Energy Committee Chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-WA, told a chamber session on Thursday. "China now controls perhaps the world's largest government-controlled oil reserve, with nearly 1 billion barrels of oil, at the expense of the American taxpayer and our energy security cooperation," the statement said.
“The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is designed to deal with real energy supply disruptions, such as those caused by hurricanes and natural disasters, not to help China,” she said.
The issue of U.S. oil exports to China has become one of the main focuses of congressional Republicans' criticism of President Joe Biden's administration's energy policies. Republican dissatisfaction stems from the Biden administration's decision last year to sell 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in response to rising global oil prices caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.
As of October last year, U.S. oil companies exported nearly 67 million barrels of oil to China, according to Reuters. However, in 2020, under the presidency of Republican Donald Trump, the United States exported 176 million barrels of oil to China.
The Biden administration has no plans to withdraw further from the strategic oil reserve for sale. Still, some of the deals that required legislation passed by Congress a few years ago may be implemented this year, and those deals are more minor.
Republicans, who control the House of Representatives by a narrow majority, have pushed forward two bills targeting China this week. On Tuesday, with the support of lawmakers from both parties, the House of Representatives passed a resolution creating an ad hoc committee to deal with the U.S.-China rivalry.
In a Jan. 8 statement, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) emphasized that a Republican-majority House would be critical to how America was built in the modern Cold War. There is a bipartisan consensus to outdo Beijing in the race.
"House Republicans have the plan to end President Biden's supply of our emergency fuel to China," Scalise said in a statement. "We cannot allow the Biden administration to strengthen China's nation at our own expense. Safety."
Although Thursday's vote reflected the unity of the two parties in dealing with China issues, nearly 100 Democratic members of the House of Representatives still disapprove of the bill.
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-NJ, the top Democrat on the House Energy Committee, said he doesn't think the Republican legislation really solves the problem, but he also opposes exporting U.S. oil to China.
"If Republicans are serious about tackling this issue, they should introduce a bill that would ban all oil exports to China," Pallone said in a statement Thursday. That accounted for 2% of all the oil we supplied to China last year."
“If we really want to address China’s use of U.S. oil to build its own reserves, let’s really take that seriously instead of skirting the issue because Republicans fear the wrath of Big Oil.”
Analysts, however, were generally critical of the legislative measure. Height Capital Markets analyst Benjamin Salisbury (Benjamin Salisbury) told Reuters that the legislation was one of several "signaling bills" that Republicans sought to pass early this year, but bipartisan disagreement on the issue. There are still differences.