Instead of actually increasing supply, Biden is using taxpayer money as a campaign tactic while playing a dangerous game.

Biden is once again tapping into the country’s backup oil supply to fight soaring gas prices caused in part by the Russia-Ukraine war, and the latest withdrawal will bring it to its lowest level in almost 40 years.

The country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve had 564.6 million barrels of oil as of Friday. When the latest sale is complete, the number will fall to 384.6 million barrels, a decrease of about 40 percent since Biden took office in January 2021 and a level not recorded since 1984, according to an NBC News analysis of Energy Department data.

“This is a wartime bridge to increase oil supply until production ramps up later this year. And it is by far the largest release from our national reserve in our history,” Biden said at a news conference Thursday.Another 50 million barrels were sold in November, and 30 million more barrels were sold last month.

Production won’t ramp up because Biden won’t let it. He decided to put environmentalists and Qatar’s Jamal Khashoggi crusade ahead of Americans. His administration is crippling any efforts to authorize drilling.

A whole lot of oil was burned off with limited impact. Now it’s time to pay through the nose to refill it.

The Department of Energy announced Wednesday it will solicit bids to buy 60 million barrels of oil to help start to replenish the record release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) that President Biden approved earlier this spring to address high gas prices.

The bidding process will begin in the fall, with a goal of replenishing about one-third of the 180 million barrels released in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The department said in a statement that it has timed the buyback and subsequent delivery for when it projects oil prices to have dropped significantly.

“Projects”.

Considering Biden’s track record on projecting things, that may not be such a good idea.