The United States is now draining the SPR: its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This is the nation's emergency store of oil, that it has set aside to use in times of crisis. The only thing is, there isn't really a major crisis that's going on, only the US government trying to keep prices low for the public.

This is playing right into the hands of OPEC, the world's major oil cartel controlling the vast majority of our oil production. OPEC has the ability to heavily manipulate the supply, meaning they can drive up prices. And the worse the pricing situation gets, the more the USA will dip into the SPR, and the more control OPEC will have.