Congress locks strategic oil reserves away from hostile powers.
H.R. 942 — Banning SPR Oil Exports to Foreign Adversaries Act · Filed by Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) · 37 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 4, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill amends the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to prohibit the U.S. Department of Energy from exporting or selling petroleum products drawn from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, and entities controlled by those countries or the Chinese Communist Party. The Secretary of Energy may waive the prohibition if certifying the export serves U.S. national security interests. The bill requires the Secretary to issue implementing rules within 60 days.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a straightforward prohibition on exporting strategic petroleum reserves to named hostile nations and their controlled entities, with a narrow national-security waiver. This is a direct national-security constraint on executive export authority, not a trade or energy-market measure.
What the text implies
- The waiver provision (subsection b) gives the Secretary broad discretion to override the prohibition if certified as serving national security interests, potentially allowing exports to adversaries if framed as strategic necessity — the bill's restriction is only as strong as the Secretary's willingness to deny waivers.
- The bill does not define 'entity under the ownership or control of' the named countries or the Chinese Communist Party, leaving ambiguity about which companies, subsidiaries, or joint ventures fall within the prohibition and potentially creating enforcement and litigation risk.
- By restricting SPR sales to adversaries, the bill may reduce the pool of potential buyers and lower realized prices for SPR drawdowns, increasing the cost to U.S. taxpayers if the reserve is drawn down for domestic sale or emergency use.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill restricts the executive branch's ability to sell strategic petroleum reserves to hostile foreign powers, preserving a national security asset for domestic use and preventing potential leverage by adversaries. The national security interest in keeping strategic reserves out of adversary hands outweighs any marginal cost from reduced export flexibility.
Named in the bill
Department of Energy, Strategic Petroleum Reserve, People's Republic of China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Islamic Republic of Iran, Chinese Communist Party, Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016
Where it stands
37 cosponsors: 19 Democrats, 18 Republicans.
- Feb 4, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 4, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,882 characters) on Jun 3, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress locks strategic oil reserves away from hostile powers.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr942 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.