U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a transportation bill which plans to generate funding through sales from the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR).
The bill known as the FAST Act, or 'Fixing America’s Surface Transportation,' passed the U.S. House of Representatives by 359-65 votes, and the U.S. Senate by 83-16 votes last week. The White House's Office of the Press Secretary said Friday that Obama signed the bill into law.
'[The bill] is the first law enacted in over ten years that provides long-term funding certainty for surface transportation, meaning [U.S.] states and local governments can move forward with critical transportation projects, like new highways and transit lines,' the U.S. Department of Transportation said in a statement on Friday.
The bill plans to sell a total of 66 million barrels of crude oil from the SPR between 2023 and 2025 to generate $6.2 billion to partially fund $305 billion.
The remaining amount needed will be generated by the Federal Reserve, and by implementing financial solutions such as through the government's collection of outstanding taxes throughout the country.
The SPR is devised for the U.S.' supply security, and serves as a buffer against supply shocks in regions in which the U.S. imports crude oil from.
Since the U.S. has increased its domestic oil production to over 9 million barrels a day on average in 2015, from 5 million barrels per day in 2008; the amount of SPR has reached 695 million barrels at present.
By Ovunc Kutlu
Anadolu Agency
ovunc.kutlu@aa.com.tr