House Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) sent a letter on Wednesday to U.S. Dept. of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm inviting her to testify before the Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
“The Committee has held hearings with Department spending levels, energy efficiency standards, critical minerals, and nuclear energy,” Mr. Comer wrote. “The expansive nature of these topics and your direct involvement as the leader of the Department necessitates your participation in this hearing.”
The letter goes on to say that the DOE has failed to provide Ms. Granholm’s availability to testify before the Oversight Committee despite multiple scheduling attempts with her staff over the past two months.
“My staff first conveyed to the Department my intention to invite you to a hearing in March by contacting your staff on January 23, 2024,” the letter continues.
The initial date proposed was March 6 but the letter says that Ms. Granholm’s staff declined, citing she would not be available for the hearing.
“Two months have gone by since that first outreach. Yet, despite numerous interactions between our staffs, the Department continues to fail to provide your availability for proposed hearing dates or specific details as to why you would be unavailable.”
The letter says that Mr. Comer’s office had offered Ms. Granholm additional hearing dates, including April 30, May 1, May 15 or 16, and June 12 or 13, but the Energy Department “has declined to provide your availability.”
“The Department has indicated to my staff that the Department will only make the Deputy Secretary [David Turk] available to testify on the proposed dates in May or June,” wrote Mr. Comer.
He added that it is “unacceptable” that the Energy Department has been “unable to perform a basic scheduling function” regarding the availability of the department secretary.
“To avoid any further delay in scheduling this hearing, and to reiterate my invitation for you to testify as opposed to a subordinate official, I now write to you directly to invite you to appear,” the letter continued.
SPR at Lowest Level in Decades
The SPR was established during the 1973-1974 oil embargo that disrupted oil imports and drove up oil prices.Oil reserves are stored primarily in underground salt caverns along the Gulf Coast and Louisiana. These sites have the capability to store hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil.
However, shortly after taking office, the president responded to rising gasoline prices and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the most aggressive drawdown on the SPR in history.
Over two and half years, the Biden administration released 291 million barrels of the nation’s SPR, bringing the nation’s reserves to 347 million barrels—the lowest level since 1983.
The Energy Department has refilled some of the reserves; the SPR currently sits at 362 million barrels, well below its capacity of 713 million barrels.
Some analysts fear that low stockpiles could put the nation at risk during an actual supply emergency, such as a natural disaster or war.
“In the meantime, with the reserve at its lowest level in 40 years, the U.S. could be vulnerable to oil price shocks,” John Shages, former head of the SPR at the Energy Department, told Bloomberg in July 2023. “It also means during domestic supply crunches, the nation will be left at the mercy of global exporters like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the rest of the OPEC+ cartel.”
LNG Pause Investigation
Earlier this month, the Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the DOE after the Biden administration announced in January its order blocking new LNG export licenses, specifically between U.S. firms and non-Free Trade Agreement countries.President Biden cited concerns about the U.N.-predicted “climate crisis” and that the administration would be reevaluating the impacts of LNG exports on energy costs, energy security, and the environment.
“At a time when war is ongoing in Ukraine, and tensions are rising in the Middle East and Asia, it is particularly important that allied nations can rely on the United States for reliable, long-term fuel supply,” they wrote.
The states have asked a U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to overturn the pause, arguing it is unlawful and raises “serious questions of national security,” according to the court documents.
