Senate Passes Cruz Amendment Prohibiting Sale of Strategic Petroleum Reserve Oil to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), along with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va), secured Senate passage of their bipartisan amendment to the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act prohibiting the sale of Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) crude oil to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Sen. Cruz previously introduced similar legislation as the No Emergency Crude Oil for Foreign Adversaries Act in 2022 and earlier this year.

Watch Sen. Cruz’s comments on the Senate floor before the amendment vote here.

With a strong bipartisan vote, the Senate approved Sen. Cruz’s amendment to the NDAA by a vote of 85-12.

About the amendment, Sen. Cruz said, “We know China has been amassing the largest stockpile of crude in the world. Nevertheless, last year, the United States sold off part of our reserves to China. I have been working with Senator Manchin to prohibit such inexplicably reckless moves in a bipartisan way. Our amendment prevents the federal government from selling oil from the strategic petroleum reserve to China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. We should not be selling our emergency oil reserves to our adversaries.”

Sen. Manchin said, “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.”

Read the full amendment text here.

Background:

• In 2020, Sen. Cruz led the fight to protect America and Texas’s energy producers from Russia and Saudi Arabia who were exploiting the pandemic to flood the global oil market.
• Sen. Cruz led the fight against Russia’s dominance of European energy, and specifically Putin’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline. He secured passage of the sanctions that stopped the pipeline during the Trump administration and a second bill expanding the sanctions. He led the battle to force the Biden administration to impose his sanctions halting the pipeline.
• Sen. Cruz uses the annual national defense appropriations process year after year after year after year to include dozens of reforms and amendments supporting America’s Armed Forces in their fight for freedom. His work has secured hundreds of millions of dollars for military construction projects in Texas, fought Chinese infiltration of American universities, banned China and included Taiwan in Pacific military exercises, protected Europe’s energy security from Russian aggression, and supported space-based missile interception efforts to better protect the United States.