NEVER UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: America’s emergency oil reserve is at a 40-year low — and that could inflate oil prices, Goldman Sachs says.

America’s emergency oil stockpile has plunged to 40-year lows. The shrinking Strategic Petroleum Reserve is limiting Washington’s ability to shield consumers from the fallout of Saudi Arabia’s aggressive supply cuts, according to Goldman Sachs.

“At this point, US energy policy has fewer bullets left. It has less levers left in its policy toolkit,” Daan Struyven, head of oil research at Goldman Sachs, told CNN in a phone interview.

That’s one reason Goldman Sachs expects oil prices to stay high, averaging $100 a barrel this time next year. Triple-digit oil would boost already-high prices at the pump, worsening inflation and potentially influencing the 2024 race for the White House.

To cushion the blow from the war in Ukraine, the Biden administration has released vast amounts of oil from the SPR, the underground series of storage tanks along the Gulf Coast that contains emergency oil.

Industry veterans say that strategy helped mitigate the hit to consumers as gasoline prices plunged after hitting $5.02 a gallon in June 2022.

But the SPR, which acts as a rainy-day fund that presidents can tap during times of war or natural disaster, is down by about 270 million barrels over the past two years to the lowest level since August 1983.

Related:

🔸BIDEN ADMINISTRATION 5-YEAR OFF SHORE OIL PLAN TO BE RELEASED ON FRIDAY DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY SALES FOR 2024 – SOURCES

🔸U.S. 5 YEAR OIL LEASE PLAN WILL INCLUDE THE LOWEST LEASE SALES IN HISTORY – SOURCES

— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) September 28, 2023

Previously: Well, Biden Screwed Us Forever on Another Damn Thing. “The SPR is probably never going to be refilled, according to one expert, and maybe not even for the reason that first popped into your mind.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.