Dems Push For Tapping of Strategic Oil Reserve... (gas prices, Iran, Obama)
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"In the energy realm, as in every other, Democrats are all about instant gratification. They’ll disparage the idea of opening federal lands to domestic drilling because “it would take years for the new oil to come online” (never mind that if we’d opened them years ago, the oil would already be available!), but they’ll champion the depletion of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve because tapping it might drive gas prices down quickly enough to ensure reelection."
Quote:
Three House Democrats, Reps. Ed Markey, Peter Welch and Rosa DeLauro, sent a letter to the president recently calling for an “aggressive strategy” for releasing oil from the reserve and pointing to past actions that helped drive down prices.
“As we approach the summer driving season, we must carefully consider all immediate options in order to prevent a runaway increase in prices,” they wrote. …
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the country’s supply of excess oil and was created to deal with spikes in the cost of oil because of natural disasters, war or terrorist attacks.
Obama tapped the SPR, as it’s known, last June, releasing 30 million barrels of oil to compensate for supply disruptions in Libya. Democrats applauded the move but Republicans viewed it as a political stunt. …
Top Republicans had argued that the threshold for using the reserve should be an emergency, not for gas price reductions.
Not surprising. What is surprising is if Obama decides not to do so. He really cant afford gas prices to continue to rise this year.
However, at least one Dem has a little sense:
Quote:
But House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said he believes the SPR should be used in “emergency times when supply is being disrupted,” and added, “there are no lines at the gas tanks anywhere in the country as far as I know.”
Last time the Democrats tapped into the reserve to score political points there was no meaningful drop in gas prices. IIRC the Saudis actually raised their prices due to the misdirected and poorly reasoned attempt at getting more votes. There were at least several threads on this board regarding the action and it's results.
This is another shameless political ploy from a group of politicians desperate to keep and expand their power. Our strategic reserves were no more intended to be used as tools for political advancement by greedy and power hungry elected officials that have no business holding office than Social Security funds were intended to be used as an alternate source of funding for more pork barrel projects.
The assclowns in DC are in serious need of reigning in. That need applies to career politicians on both sides of the aisle. They've all been looting the public coffers for their own benefit for decades. It needs to stop now.
Tapping into the reserves merely to lower oil prices is wrong no matter which party is in power. Open up more land to drilling within our own nation and start work on new refineries. The EPA and enviro whackos have stonewalled the building of a new refinery for decades. The oil prices are set by commodities speculators. Just the decision to open up drilling and building a new refinery could reduce oil prices. But I guess liberals are fine with Russia and China getting our nations oil instead of our own nation.
Sure Eddie, and if it were a Republican that did this you'd be talking about how great they were. In terms of this happening in an election year, it has more to do with the price of crude. It's odd that if an election was their motivation, that they would have done this last year outside of an election cycle. You guys know that right?
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