Even without direct funding from Congress, the executive branch has pretty wide discretion for filling the reserve, mostly by accepting royalties-in-kind from p

Even without direct funding from Congress, the executive branch has pretty wide discretion for filling the reserve, mostly by accepting royalties-in-kind from producers on Federal land or offshore. Basically, they can accept oil into the reserve instead of cash payments owed. There's also quite a bit of leeway for borrowing and lending oil as needed, as well as ways to lease unused storage capacity. And the overall capacity is rate limited such that it takes almost half a year to fill/drain accessible reserves, so it's not like we could just purchases $3 billion in oil tomorrow and instantly put it there. It might store 35-40 days of US needs, but it takes 140-180 days to fill and/or access it. Which makes royalty based purchasing over time align more with ability to accept delivery. So just because Congress removed that $3 billion, doesn't mean it's not getting filled.