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They're selling the strategic petroleum reserve.
This is a great guess, because it's one of the few ways that explains the lower prices but also allows Trump to both grift public resources to his friends while getting unearned positive MAGA publicity.
And it's in direct response to that Pennsylvania woman on the news at a gas station saying that she voted for him 3 times and "apparently I'm an idiot" over the gas prices. He's trying to keep PA from going blue.
Bold of you to assume they give a shit what voters think or do at the ballot stations any more.
They don't give a shit about voters, they do care about optics though which is exactly what this is.
I think you're wrong. But you are bold as well for making a statement like that.
Their playbook is to do everything they can to make voters not matter.
How? He just fired the last 2 officials on the federal election committee (there's zero now). He already said DHS will be at the polls and they're extorting voting records from the states.
They've been selling that.
One of the major storage sites is dry,and this was reported a month ago.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/12/business/cushing-oil-inventory
Is that how the reserve works though?
Here in Australia the reserve isn't a bunch of big tanks owned by the government. Its a legislative mechanism requiring fuel retailers to hold a reserve.
It wouldn't make sense for the government to own or manage a reserve because it needs to be cycled constantly (petrol deteriorates quickly, diesel too but less so), and they'd need to replicate skills from the fuel industry.
That being the case I don't think there's a big tank of fuel owned by the government.
Edit: ok it seems I'm absolutely wrong about this.
https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/opr/strategic-petroleum-reserve
Sorry Americans.
As an aside, I don't understand how this works because it's certainly true that fuel doesn't last forever. Maybe you can store raw unprocessed oil indefinitely but not fuel.
Found here
In short, yes I believe this to be the case
Disclaimer I'm not American, and I don't really have much actual knowledge on this subject.
...but I THINK the US presidents can actually do this. I'm not sure what the legal mechanism is, but I do remember some chatter some15 years ago about Obama releasing the reserves. This makes me believe that the strategic reserve builds up during normalcy, and can be drained through executive action.
The SPR holds mainly crude oil, so you can't just open a gas station and start selling it. It has to be sent to a refinery first, and once that happens the product that comes out is fungible.
In short it would be logistically simpler to just buy gasoline on the market and subsidize it. The subsidy is only 20-30 cents / gal as well.
You're correct. That's why the US reserve storage holds oil, not fuel.
Socialized gas!