WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) - Two U.S. senators

introduced legislation on Thursday to harden the ban on selling

crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to China.

The bill, introduced by Senators Joni Ernst, a Republican

and John Fetterman, a Democrat, would ensure that companies

owned or controlled by China's government do not buy oil from

the SPR.

A funding bill signed by President Joe Biden this month

blocked Chinese companies from buying oil, but contained an

exception if the oil was not exported to China.

"This bipartisan bill will ensure America's Strategic

Petroleum Reserve does not fall into the hands of those trying

to harm us and ensure (Chinese Communist Party) controlled

businesses are not making money by stockpiling

taxpayer-subsidized oil," Ernst said.

The bill would also block the export or sale of SPR oil to

countries including Russia, Venezuela and Syria, none of which

have been significant buyers of the oil.

"Our adversaries should not be able to purchase oil from our

SPR - that's just commonsense," Fetterman said.

The desire for a hard line on China is one of the few

bipartisan sentiments in the deeply divided U.S. Congress.

Lawmakers have introduced dozens of bills seeking to address

competition with China's government.

The issue of SPR sales to China heated up after Biden, a

Democrat, announced in 2022 a sale of 180 million barrels of SPR

oil, the largest ever, to tame gasoline prices that spiked after

Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

That year, 1 million barrels of SPR oil was sold to UNIPEC

America, a Houston-based arm of China's Sinopec. In

2017, under former President Donald Trump, a Republican, some

SPR oil was sold to PetroChina International, a subsidiary of

Chinese state oil company PetroChina Co Ltd.