By E. Calvin Beisner

So, President Joe Biden is taking 50 million barrels of oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to cool the rapid rise in gasoline prices. Will it work?

Not for long — if at all.

We use about 8.78 million barrels per day. So 50 million will last at most 5.7 days.

Meanwhile, it’s a complete misuse of the SPR, designed, when created in response to the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, for truly catastrophic situations imposed on the U.S. by hostile foreign actors — not to cushion the ill effects of domestic policy.

But let’s develop that a bit more. 5.7 is 1/104th of 365. So this release represents 1/104th of annual use.

If that had proportional impact on prices at the pump, and today’s average price for regular at the pump is $3.40, then it would take 1/104th off that price, i.e., $0.033.

Compared with the $0.936 increase from the average price of $2.464 on January 18, 2021, that makes this a potential price reduction of just 11.24% of the price increase Biden’s policies have caused.

Grateful, everybody?

Dr. Beisner is founder and national spokesman of The Cornwall Alliance; former Associate Professor of Historical Theology & Social Ethics at Knox Theological Seminary, and of Interdisciplinary Studies at Covenant College; and author of “Where Garden Meets Wilderness: Evangelical Entry into the Environmental Debate” and “Prospects for Growth: A Biblical View of Population, Resources, and the Future.”