(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump hasn’t given up on his plan to buy crude on the cheap.
The administration is still moving forward with a plan to purchase oil for the nation’s emergency stockpile in a bid to help oil producers stung by a massive downturn caused by a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia and the coronavirus pandemic.
Democrats blocked funding for the plan in the last stimulus bill because it didn’t come with aid for renewable energy.
Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, told Trump during a White House meeting with oil industry executives on Friday that it was “inexcusable” that congressional Democrats blocked spending on an oil purchase.
Trump mused about that, too, saying he didn’t think “anyone could reject” the idea. “At these prices,” Trump said, “you would think you would want to fill up every cavity that we have in this country.”
Trump told senators to go back and see if they can get funding to buy more oil as part of another bill.
Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said his department had “found a different alternative financing mechanism” to purchase oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve without providing more detail.
Trump’s plan to buy more oil for the stockpile builds on a related initiative to make 30 million barrels of storage capacity available for U.S. producers to stash crude. The Energy Department announced the rental plan on Thursday.
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