Washington Post
October 19, 2022
President Biden will announce on Wednesday that he is releasing 15 million more barrels of fuel from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move aimed at easing gas prices three weeks before voters anxious over rising costs head to the polls as Democrats have been battered by GOP attacks on the economy.
Biden and the Democrats face strong head winds in the upcoming midterm elections, and Republicans have zeroed in on inflation and rising costs as they try to persuade voters that Biden’s economic policies are hurting their pocketbooks. Polls regularly show that the economy and the cost of living are at the top of voters’ concerns by a wide margin.
Biden has largely tried to pin those cost increases on Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the fuel shortages and supply disruptions that followed. The president has repeatedly called the cost increases “Putin’s price hike,” while working on other measures to bring down prices at the pump.