VDH mentioned the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in passing.
Most people don’t seem to realize that only a fraction of our Navy ships are nuclear powered, most notably submarines and carriers. All of the smaller ships still rely on bunker oil, aka diesel fuel.
Should the balloon go up, we will need that Strategic fuel supply. Wasting the petroleum reserve just to save a few pennies per gallon is foolish in the extreme.
They are using Dumb-o-cRAT calculus. In their reality it all makes sense.