Woman Charged With Stealing $1.5 Million In Chicken Wings From Chicago Suburb School District
A 66-year-old woman was charged with stealing over $1.5 million worth of food – primarily chicken wings, while working as the Director of Food Services for a school district within a suburb of Chicago.
Bond was set at $150,000 Thursday for Vera Lidell, who began working for Harvey School District 152 in July 2020, placed hundreds of unauthorized orders for items between July 2020 and February 2022 – which included 11,000 cases of chicken wings through the school’s primary supplier, Gordon Food Service.
Liddell is accused of placing the orders alongside legitimate orders for the district.
“The massive fraud began at the height of COVID during a time when students were not allowed to be physically present in school. Even though the children were learning remotely, the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up,” according to prosecutors.
“The food was never brought to the school or provided to the students,” reads the proffer.
Believing the orders were genuine, Gordon Food Service billed Harvey School District 152, which then paid for the food items, according to court records. Lidell would then allegedly use one of the school district’s cargo vans to pick up and transport the stolen food.
A routine mid-year audit conducted by the district’s business manager in January 2022 showed the food service department had exceeded its annual budget by over $300,000 despite only being halfway through the school year, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said Lidell was the only person responsible for placing food orders on behalf of the district. –Fox5NY
“Upon closer review, she discovered individual invoices signed by Liddell for massive quantities of chicken wings, an item that was never served to students because they contain bones,” the proffer continues.
Gordon Food Service employees got to know Lidell “due to the massive amount of chicken wings she would purchase,” while surveillance footage from the facility revealed that she would often arrive prior to them opening to pick up orders.
Lidell, whose bail is set at $150,000, is currently being held at Cook County Jail until she’s scheduled to appear in court again on Feb. 22.
Update 6:00pm: Apple has staged a remarkable reversal after hours, and erased almost the entire loss after the company said that it expects a 5% impact from FX rates in Q2, and also expects iPhone revenue growth to accelerate in Q2. CEO Tim Cook was also asked whether the move to higher ASPs for the iPhone is sustainable in light of the sharp decline in sales, and whether this will continue in a worsening economy. Cook said the 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max did extremely well until the supply-chain constraints. He says this is definitely a “strong Pro cycle” and credits the new features in the device. He says he’s happy that Apple is now shipping to the demand.
Tim Cook also said that AI is critical to Apple and mentions features like crash-and-fall detection and the use of AI in features like EKG on the Apple Watch. He says AI will effect everything the company does, including all products and services.
Apple is quite bullish on India and other emerging markets, with CEO Tim Cook saying the company will soon open its first retail stores in India. He also said Apple saw marked improvement in China in December (versus November) after another round of Covid re-openings.
As Bloomberg notes, the company also stuck to a line that revenue and sales of individual product categories would have been higher if not for supply-chain constraints and issues stemming from the macroeconomic environment.
* * *
With both Amazon and Google sliding after reporting disappointing earnings and mixed guidance, it was all up to the world’s biggest company, AAPL, to provide some hail mary for the tech earnings season which for better or worse is concentrated in a one hour stretch this afternoon. Alas, it was not meant to be and after missing on the top and bottom line, AAPL has joined the parade of selling and tumbled after hours due to numbers which the market was clearly not impressed with.
And here is AAPL’s diluted EPS in context: needless to say, could have been better.
Commenting on the quarter, Tim Cook said that “during the December quarter, we achieved a major milestone and are excited to report that we now have more than 2 billion active devices as part of our growing installed base.”
CFO Luca Maester chimed in: “our record September quarter results continue to demonstrate our ability to execute effectively in spite of a challenging and volatile macroeconomic backdrop. We continued to invest in our long-term growth plans, generated over $24 billion in operating cash flow, and returned over $29 billion to our shareholders during the quarter. The strength of our ecosystem, unmatched customer loyalty, and record sales spurred our active installed base of devices to a new all-time high. This quarter capped another record-breaking year for Apple, with revenue growing over $28 billion and operating cash flow up $18 billion versus last year.”
Going back to the results, Apple missed consensus revenue in most product categories, with the exception of iPads, to wit:
Of note: Apple recorded its first decline in iPhone revenue since the third quarter of 2020; yet in context, the 8% drop was still less than the 20% decrease reported by Samsung. Other major smartphone providers that have yet to report are expecting to see double-digit losses. Ironically, Apple may have fared comparatively well on smartphone revenue.
The silver lining: service revenue $20.77 billion, +6.4% y/y, beating estimates of $20.47 billion…
… and rose 6.5% Y/Y, an improvement from last quarter’s 5.0%
One other place where investors were pleasantly surprised was China sales, which at $23.91 billion, beat the estimate of $21.8 billion by more than $2 billion.
None of that changes the fact that AAPL’s sales by region were uniformly negative across the board.
And another potential problem: AAPL’s gross cash continues to slide, dropping to $165 billion, the lowest since June 2014…
… while cash net of debt rebounded modestly from $49 billion to $54 billion, just above a 12 year low with the company having spent hundreds of billions on stock buybacks. Let’s hope that Apple doesn’t actually need to use that cash.
Commenting on the results, Bloomberg writes that the results show that Apple hasn’t been able to dodge the tech slowdown afflicting many of its competitors. Demand for smartphones and computers has slumped in the past year, and Covid-19 restrictions in China added to Apple’s woes during the holiday sales period. Timing was another issue: The company didn’t launch new Macs and HomePods until recent weeks, missing the end of the first quarter.
In response to these disappointing earnings, the stock predictably slumped as much as 4% before recouping some losses, although even with the drop it is back to where it was… yesterday.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the latest developments in the Biden classified document investigation. The latest search occurred on the first day at the office for Robert Hur as Special Counsel. He may find that any potential criminal case has already been made more difficult by decisions by the FBI.
Here is the column:
The FBI issued the “all clear” on its latest search of one of President Biden’s residences. The announcement came with the first day of special counsel Robert Hur on the job at the Justice Department.
It could be challenging to make a criminal case after how the investigation has been handled.
At every stage, the FBI has adopted an approach that would compromise or complicate any criminal charge.
The FBI left the home untouched for over three months after classified documents were found in Biden’s former office in DC. While it was recently learned that the FBI did go to that office a couple weeks later, they reportedly elected to have personal counsel for the president conduct searches on the residences. Biden then spent weeks traveling to these residences after the FBI waited to search the premises.
The private searches clearly went through these documents and moved (and potentially organized) material. Despite being given the opportunity to conduct and record the initial searches, the FBI will now have to rely on the accounts of private counsel on how these documents were originally left, including any visible classification markings.
For example, to go through the papers, counsel had to handle them, sort them, and stack or box them. That means that the original conditions are lost in determining, for example, if anyone in the vicinity could have seen a telltale bordered classified jacket or whether a classified document was partially or fully outside of a jacket.
The FBI allowed uncleared private counsel to tread all over these scenes, creating a nightmare of chain of custody.
It then waited weeks to send its own agents to places like Rehoboth Beach as counsel and the Bidens frequented the property.
It is also not clear how the FBI conducted these searches. Reports recently indicated that Biden included classified information in notebooks that were seized in earlier searches. If true, that is a nightmare for investigators because it would require agents to do more than simply look for classified documents with markings at the beginning of paragraphs and tops of pages. They would have to actually read material to determine if Biden incorporated classified material.
In fairness to the FBI, the same hands-off approach was initially used with Trump as the FBI allowed for material to be collected and stored with additional security at Mar-a-Lago.
There are two differences.
First, Trump never denied having such material. He insisted that he was allowed to have the files because he considered them unclassified.
Second, while the Trump team insists that the FBI was given access to the documents, Trump resisted efforts to turn over all of the documents. Indeed, the FBI has raised a pattern of obstruction and false statements.
With Biden, the FBI did not know where documents might be located. The findings overlap with residential and office space used by Biden over the years. Moreover, they were reportedly told that they could search and seize any documents. They did not use that opportunity to search all of these locations, even after counsel erroneously stated that no more classified material was present at these locations.
The FBI is moving no more aggressively with other possible areas containing classified material. The FBI still has not reportedly searched the massive trove of Biden documents being stored at the University of Delaware. Reports indicate that Biden removed classified material as senator and these records cover that period. Looking for a few documents in Rehoboth Beach and not the university (roughly 80 miles away) with a truckload of documents is like driving past the ocean to go fishing in a wading pool.
The result for Hur is a case that is messier than Biden’s garage.
It is hard to see how this investigation would yield a solid criminal case absent confirmation that Biden worked off clearly classified material.
If so, he showed both intent and knowledge of unlawful possession during prior years. It would also make his categorical denials of any knowledge appear more sinister and incriminating.
Either way, none of this suggests “transparency,” as Biden likes to boast. The investigation has proceeded with a small fraction of the information leaked or released against Trump. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) also says that the National Archives were blocked from putting out a press release about the case — either by the Department of Justice or the White House. Combined with the fact that nothing was made public until after the midterms, it shows that Biden’s team wanted to keep this quiet.
In the end, both Biden and Trump come out looking bad but that is not nearly as bad a thing for Trump.
Hunter Biden $55,000 Offer For Russian Oligarch Info Falls Under Fresh Scrutiny
An email from Hunter Biden to US aluminum company Alcoa is raising fresh concerns over the first son’s access to classified documents which were recently discovered in his father’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, as House Republicans kick off investigations into allegations of influence peddling.
The emails which date back to 2011 reveal Hunter Biden offering to trade information on Russian oligarchs to Alcoa for $55,000, according to the NY Post‘s original October 2021 report.
Specifically, Hunter – while his father was Vice President – offered to provide a “statistical analysis of political and corporate risks, elite networks associated with Oleg Deripaska, the Russian CEO of Basic Element company and United company RUSAL.”
Deripaska had notably just signed a metal supply agreement with Alcoa – which Hunter also offered a “list of elites of similar rank in Russia, map of [Deripaska’s] networks based on frequency of interaction with selected elites and countries.”
Now, in light of the fact that classified documents have been found all over the house that Hunter was living at, the Alcoa revelation raises new questions over Hunter’s access to sensitive information.
The deeply detailed proposal has come under sharp scrutiny given recent revelations that Hunter Biden had access to the Delaware lake-front home where secret papers from his father’s time as vice president were discovered in a garage, basement and library — combined with Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the high-profile former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, told The Post that the Alcoa solicitation fits within a broader picture. -NY Post
“The Biden family is the most corrupt family in the history of American politics,” said Banks. “The biggest question facing Republican investigators: Where to begin?”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has also raised the question over whether Hunter used classified documents found at the 6,850 sqft mansion in his business dealings.
Specifically, Johnson referenced an April 12, 2014 email from Hunter to his business partners about Ukraine, which looked “suspiciously” like it could have contained classified information.
“It reads like one of those scene-setters — highly detailed information in terms of Ukraine,” Johnson told Fox News on Tuesday.
The email, from Hunter to partner Devon Archer, includes a 22-point memo which he described as “thoughts after doing some research.” It included predictions such as the election of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, as well as “some sort of decentralization will likely occur in the East.”
“If it doesn’t the Russians will continue to escalate there [sic] destabilization campaign, which could lead to a full scale take over of the eastern region most critically Donetsk,” Hunter wrote. “The strategic value is to create a land bridge for RU[ssia] to Crimea.“
Hunter was obviously fed detailed information on Ukraine so he could show Burisma why he was worth millions of dollars.
Was this classified information? Did Joe Biden know about this?
Next week kicks off fresh hearings in the House Oversight Committee, which will investigate Hunter’s alleged influence peddling – including cashing in on his ties to his father in order to rake in millions from foreign companies.
“We have evidence that … we’ll continue to be transparent with as we start our hearings next week, where this family is taking in millions of millions of dollars from our adversaries,” said Rep. James Comer (R-KY), Chairman of the committee. “And I think we need to determine what was that money for [and] who supplied that money?”
“Why did the FBI, according to Elon Musk and the Twitter Files … the FBI was implying to them that that laptop was Russian disinformation,” Comer continued. “It’s not, and what’s concerning is the FBI had the laptop. Why were they doing that?”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer spreads the baseless conspiracy theory that “there most certainly is a connection” between Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China and President Biden’s classified documents case. pic.twitter.com/GCP5I3KJnE
“The New York Post is fourth biggest newspaper in America; they’re a credible news organization. They’ve done extensive reporting on on the hard drive,” Comer said, adding that the committee must dispel “a lot of misconceptions about the laptop.“
“So we’re gonna start with with the hard drive, because there’s a lot of evidence on the hard drive that would suggest that Joe Biden knew very well what his family was involved in.”
“There’s emails from some of these people’s texting and emailing Hunter Biden saying, ‘Thanks for setting up the meeting with your dad. This is why we’re investigating – we want to make sure that our national security is not compromised,” Comer continued, adding that Hunter’s international business dealings are particularly suspicious given the services he was providing to foreign agencies.
“We’d like to know what that consulting was. I feel like if China or anyone pays you millions of dollars they expect to get a return on that investment,” said Comer. “If they would explain that, then think that a lot of these problems would subside a little bit, but all they do is just like roll their eyes or the audacity of Republicans to ask these questions.”
The oversight committee has pressed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to release more than 150 suspicious activity reports filed by banks regarding foreign transactions and wires to and from Hunter Biden, his businesses and associates. -NY Post
“Right now, we just want the bank records. Those suspicious activity reports were created to help Congress and everyone communicate about foreign suspicious foreign transactions,” said Comer. “If you do a major foreign transaction with a country, the bank is probably going to write a suspicious activity report to cover themselves for liability.”
Chronic absenteeism rates are higher in Chicago than statewide, with 49% of low-income Chicago students missing at least 10% of their days in school. That rate has nearly doubled since the pandemic.
Chronic absenteeism in Chicago Public Schools is on the rise: nearly 45% in 2022, according to state data. That compares to a statewide rate of 30%.
The rate is even higher among Chicago’s low-income students, with 49% missing at least 10% of their schooling, according to Illinois State Board of Education data.
The pandemic and 17 months out of the classroom appear to have seriously aggravated the problem.
Absenteeism in CPS was 24% for all students and just over 25% for low-income students in 2019. That was the final full school year before the pandemic shut down in-person learning in CPS schools.
But those numbers may not show the severity of the absentee issue in CPS. A recent report by the Chicago Board of Education Inspector General shows administrators in CPS may have misreported absent students as transfers, boosting attendance rates and other key metrics.
Chronic absenteeism among Chicago’s low-income students
The Board of Education reported 49% of low-income students in Chicago Public Schools were chronically absent during the 2021-2022 school year. Chronic absenteeism is determined by missing 10% or more of school days per year either with or without a valid excuse. That means nearly half of Chicago students from low-income families missed 18 or more days of school.
Research shows frequent absences from school place children and adolescents at a higher risk of poor outcomes, such as dropping out of school and lower academic achievement. Experts also find lower socioeconomic status is associated with higher levels of absenteeism.
Amid high rates of absenteeism, students from low-income families in CPS are struggling to meet proficiency in core subjects. Just 14% of 3rd through 8th grade students from low-income families met proficiency standards in reading and 9% in math this spring. Compared to students who are not from low-income families, low-income students were 28 percentage points less likely to score as proficient in reading and 27 percentage points less likely in math.
Missing school certainly can’t help.
It may be worse than the numbers show
While CPS absenteeism rates are already high, the data may be worse than reported because of miscoding of students as transfers rather than truant.
The CPS Inspector General’s 2022 annual report released in early January 2023 questioned the reliability of CPS’s transfer and dropout data, which is used to calculate metrics such as attendance rates. The investigation found “a districtwide problem of schools failing to document transfers and lost children as required by law and CPS policy.”
This misreporting of students is not new to CPS. The Office of the Inspector General has investigated and reported on this kind of misconduct five times since 2014, according to the report.
The report concludes the consequence of this misreporting is twofold: it causes significant negative effects on vulnerable students and produces unreliable CPS metrics.
CPS has procedures in place to locate and reengage missing students. Students whose absenteeism is hidden by administrators do not receive those interventions and the reengagement assistance they need and would otherwise have received if they were properly reported.
The district’s key metrics, such as attendance and graduation rates, may be skewed by misreporting.
CPS student attendance isn’t helped by the frequent Chicago Teachers Union walkouts
The militant bargaining tactics used too often by Chicago Teachers Union leaders to get their demands met have not been in the best interests of CPS students and families. They have left district students missing even more days of classroom instruction. CTU has walked out on students five times since 2012, with students missing at least 24 days of school as a result.
It’s probably hard for students to take school seriously when CTU walks out at a moment’s notice.
CPS is committed to improving student attendance
The Illinois Policy Institute contacted CPS for comment about the district’s low rates of absenteeism.
The district responded that it is committed to improving and expanding methods which work to help students return and stay in the classroom. CPS has made additional investments during the 2022-2023 school year since COVID-19 impacted student attendance in districts across the country. Investments include targeted interventions, additional systems of support, mental health services and other support services.
An MSNBC anchor revealed in a recent segment that she was hospitalized with heart inflammation in December, leading her to miss work for about a month.
Yasmin Vossoughian said that the health scare started on Dec. 20 when she started to experience chest pains that “waxed and waned over a period of 10 days.” Those pains “continued to get worse” over the coming days, she added.
The anchor, who hosts a weekend program on the left-wing network, said she went to urgent care on Dec. 30 and was told she had acid reflux. A day later, she woke up with severe chest pains and pain in her left shoulder, leading her to believe she was suffering from a heart attack.
Vossoiughian, 44, said she went to the emergency room. Doctors diagnosed her with pericarditis, or inflammation of the lining of the heart. They claimed it was caused by “a literal common cold,” she said.
She added that she doesn’t smoke, she runs several miles per week, does yoga, doesn’t eat meat, and drinks occasionally. “I’m a pretty healthy person,” she said.
After she was admitted to the hospital, she spent several days there before she was released on Jan. 4, Vossoiughian said.
“But that was not the end … three days later, I was readmitted when I felt a flutter in my heart like a butterfly,” she said. Doctors then informed her that she developed myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, and she spent another five days in the hospital.
Vossoiughian then said that it was “just the cold that was doing … all the inflammation in and around my heart.”
Speculation
With Vossoiughian’s confirmation that she suffered pericarditis and myocarditis, there was widespread speculation on social media that it may have been caused by a COVID-19 vaccine or booster. The MSNBC host did not make mention of COVID-19 or vaccines during her segment, and she said her doctors blamed it on the common cold virus.
Both pericarditis and myocarditis are considered side effects of mRNA vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna, according to the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But, according to Johns Hopkins University, while rare, myocarditis can be caused “by an infection in the body,” including the common cold, influenza, and COVID-19. Bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections can also lead to myocardial inflammation.
The Myocarditis Foundation, meanwhile, says that “viral infections are the leading cause of myocarditis,” but it notes that “a wide range of infections, diseases, and substances may cause this condition.”
And the UK National Health Service says that “pericarditis often follows a viral infection, such as a sore throat or cold.”
In 2021, Vossoiughian wrote on social media that she was fully vaccinated for COVID-19. “We are both vaccinated…that was confirmed before this pic!” she said in April of that year. Comcast’s NBCUniversal also mandated that its employees, including those working at MSNBC, get the vaccine before returning to the office in early 2022.
Trader Makes Huge $80 Million Bet Fed Is Wrong Again, Will Cut Below 4.2% By Year End
Earlier this week, we quoted Bloomberg trader and market commentator Vince Cignarella who said that “In More Than 40 Years Of Trading, Never Have I Witnessed A Market Fighting The Fed As Boldly As This One” and judging by Powell’s remarkable verbal pivot yesterday, there was good reason for that: the market was spot on, and Powell appears to have conceded that inflation will run much hotter, as he refuses to push back against risk prices any more.
So now that Powell pussied out, it’s open season on the residents of Marriner Eccles, and as Bloomberg reports a trader has put on a massive bet that the Fed will soon cave on promise that it will not cut rates this year, but will instead start slashing rates at a frenzied pace later this year.
The $80 million bet which was placed via options tied to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, or SOFR, underscores the sentiment shift across markets that not only is the Fed’s tightening cycle almost over, but that the next step will be an accelerating easing campaign.
As Bloomberg’s Edward Bolingbroke observed, an unidentified investor started amassing the position in the morning and continued buying through the afternoon as Fed Chair Jerome Powell expressed confidence that inflation was improving.
The trade’s $80 million outlay would turn into a $400 million profit if the Fed were to cut its benchmark rate to 2.5% by the end of the year. A lesser amount of cuts, to 3.8%, would lead to a $100 million gain, according to Bloomberg’s Option Scenario Analysis function.
While the market is certainly pricing in aggressive rate cuts by year end – a 50bps cut to 4.4% in December from a 4.9% June peak, is now very much a given – a plunge to 2.5% in Fed Funds would be unprecedented and even a drop to 3.8% would require some unexpected shock to startle the Fed. The breakeven for the trade at expiry is a yield level of approximately 4.2%, so it is only profitable if the Fed cuts below this level.
As Bolingbroke explains, the $80 million SOFR bet was placed via a December 2023 SOFR call spread, where the owner of the position is long one strike equivalent to a 4.5% yield and short a higher strike equivalent to a 2.5% yield, where the maximum profit would be reached. Thursday’s preliminary Chicago Mercantile Exchange open interest data suggested the trade was a new position. Those options expire December 15, two days after the Fed’s final policy meeting of 2023.
Of course, once you start fighting the Fed – successfully – you don’t stop until you win, and on Thursday, another big SOFR options trade hit the tape, amounting to about $50 million. It stands to benefit from a continued collapse in volatility through the end of the year that would coincide with the steep rate cuts priced into markets.
Old clips of Mister Rogers, a children’s TV show from the 1980s, have gone viral on social media after leftists were triggered by the character in the show singing a song about ‘boys being boys and girls being girls’.
Fred Rogers, who hosted Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for decades, is seen in the footage singing a song explaining to children that there are two genders, that boys and girls are different, but that everyone is equal.
“Boys are boys from the beginning, girls are girls right from the start. Everybody’s fancy, Everybody’s fine. Your body’s fancy and so is mine,” Rogers sings.
Further stanzas of the song include the assertions “If you were born a boy, you stay a boy,” and “Only girls grow up to be the mommies, only boys can be the daddies.”
The message was considered entirely wholesome, even up until the show aired its last episode in 2001, yet now in our 2023 reality the message is being labelled triggering and upsetting.
TRIGGER WARNING. ⚠️ This is the most upsetting thing you will see all weekend. pic.twitter.com/eVLPZ3J3RI
In an appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Rogers expanded on the meaning of the song, explaining to some laughter in the audience that it is an important societal responsibility to define gender roles to children:
Mister Rogers knew something way back in 1980 and tried to warn us. We laughed at him because we thought what he said was silly and nonsense.
And if he were still alive today, he’d say that it’s okay to be trans and nobody should hurt you because of it.
The man cared about everyone and transpeople weren’t as prevalent and as forthcoming as they are now with science backing them. He’d love them just as well.
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By Ven Ram, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategist
On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell often peppered his answers by intersplicing “Let’s see.”
As it turned out, that provided enough comfort for the markets.
You could parse his entire post-meeting remarks and why Treasuries rallied, but here’s what I took away.
This is what he essentially said:
“It’s a forecast of slower growth, some softening in the labor market and inflation moving down steadily, but not quickly…
…If the economy performs broadly in line with those expectations, it will not be appropriate to cut rates this year…
…If inflation comes down much faster, we’ll be seeing that, and that will be incorporated into our thinking…we’ll see.”
The markets read it thus:
“Well, essentially, let’s invert what you just said:
if the economy goes pear-shaped and inflation comes down a lot, you are willing to cut. We will bet our last farthing that inflation will come off rapidly.”
So what will decide who wins that tussle between the markets and the Fed?
There are plenty of indicators to look at, including core PCE ex-housing, which he emphasized.
For me, I will be watching core PCE inflation – now at 4.4% to come down to the 3.5% penciled in by the Fed for this year – before holding my breath.
Manchin, Cruz Reveal New Bipartisan Bill Halting Biden From Selling Emergency Oil Reserves To China
The Biden administration’s draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to four-decade lows to ease market tightness drew sharp criticism from the fossil fuel industry and Republican lawmakers. What ignited controversy last summer was when one SPR shipment was delivered to an entity tied with the Chinese Communist Party.
Now a group of bipartisan lawmakers wants to ensure America’s emergency crude oil reserves are never sent to China again.
On Wednesday, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and several other lawmakers introduced the Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act.
The bipartisan legislation would prohibit exporting crude oil from the SPR to China. A similar piece of legislation was recently passed in the US House of Representatives by a large majority, 331-97.
“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a vital piece of our nation’s infrastructure that bolsters our energy and national security. While the reserve has been a policy Band-Aid for rising gas prices and the global unrest caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the reserve is, above-all, meant to help the United States and our allies through difficult times, not to help China power its economy,” Manchin, who serves as the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, wrote in a statement.
He continued: “This bill would ensure that we are not risking our energy security by selling our petroleum reserves to China, and the bipartisan support this legislation has received shows just how important it is for America to be energy secure and independent.”
The latest Department of Energy data shows the Biden administration drained the SPR to the lowest levels since 1983, all in an attempt to ease crude market tightness.
What sparked outrage was when Biden sent 5.9 million barrels to a Chinese firm last July. This is because strategic reserves are to ensure domestic energy security.
“The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was intended to ensure that America had sufficient oil reserves in the event of an emergency. Under no circumstances should we sell any part of this stockpile to the Chinese Communist Party or any company under its control.
“We need to immediately act to stop this from happening in the future and unleash American energy, and I’m proud to work with my colleagues and Sen. Joe Manchin on this important, bipartisan issue,” Cruz said in a statement.
The SPR is the world’s largest supply of emergency crude oil, with four storage sites in Texas and Louisiana designed to alleviate significant oil supply shortages during major geopolitical events or natural disasters. The steep declines by Biden, who blamed Russia’s Ukraine war for the “price hike at the pump,” has been hellbent on draining the reserves.
Some good news: Biden Administration plans to replenish the SPR later this year.
Remember a few years ago when former President Trump received criticism for his plan to fill up the SPR when crude prices crashed?
Also, we might add that gas and diesel prices at the pump are elevated because the US has a refinery capacity problem.
