Chuck Schumer calls on Trump to release oil reserves amid price spike

The Senate’s top Democrat wants President Donald Trump to tap the nation’s oil reserves as fuel prices soar, years after blocking his attempt to replenish supplies when prices were low.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Trump to release reserve barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) as oil prices soar amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Schumer argued in a statement that the reserve “exists for times just like these.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., during a press conference following the Senate Democratic policy lunches at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, March 3, 2026. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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“When global wars and crises disrupt energy markets, the United States has the capacity to act, but President Trump and his administration refuse to do so,” Schumer said. “Trump should release SPR oil now to stabilize markets, lower prices, and end the price shock American families are already feeling because of his irresponsible war.”

During his first term, Trump wanted to use about $3 billion from a colossal COVID-19 stimulus package submitted to Congress to fill the reserve, but the move was quickly rejected by Schumer and congressional Democrats, who called it a “bailout” for the oil industry.

The price of a barrel at the time was around $29, based on WTI crude oil. Today, oil eclipsed $110 a barrel over the weekend for the first time since 2022.

Although the SPR has a capacity of more than 700 million barrels of crude oil, its reserves are currently much lower.

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President Joe Biden speaks during Greek Independence Day in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, April 4, 2024. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Indeed, under former President Joe Biden, it was tapped twice — once to ease soaring fuel prices while the country was still grappling with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, and another time to combat rising energy costs at the start of Russia’s war with Ukraine.

At the end of Biden’s term, the reserve contained about 415 million barrels of crude, according to Energy Department data. Schumer supported both instances where Biden opened up the nation’s oil reserves but, years before, blocked Trump from stockpiling near the end of his first term.

“Senator Schumer defended Joe Biden’s new green scam, which has raised energy costs, threatened our national security, and stifled American energy independence,” White House Press Secretary Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital in a statement. “President Trump has unleashed American energy dominance since day one, and now American oil and gas production is at record levels.”

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Time-lapse video shows maritime traffic moving through the Strait of Hormuz. (Kpler/Maritime Traffic)

Schumer praised Biden’s first move to tap the SPR in 2021, arguing it provided “much-needed temporary relief at the pump.”

“Of course, the only long-term solution to rising gas prices is to continue our march toward eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels and creating a strong green energy economy,” he said at the time.

And toward the end of Biden’s presidency, his administration actually bought back barrels of oil to replenish reserves, something Schumer did not object to.

Fast forward, and the price of a barrel of oil has soared into the stratosphere since Trump’s Operation Epic Fury and Iran’s response to strangling the Strait of Hormuz – a key route for transporting barrels around the world.

For now, the administration has no public plans to tap the reserve while Americans experience pump shock.

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Energy Secretary Chris Wright argued that the best way to lower prices was to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by neutralizing Iran’s ability to target oil tankers.

Wright told Fox News over the weekend that the disruptions would last “weeks, certainly not months.”

“We think this is a small price to pay to achieve a world where energy prices return to where they were previously,” Wright said. “Iran is finally going to be devastated, and now we can see more investment, more free flow of trade and less ability to threaten energy supplies.”