House speaker asks Bush to stop stockpiling oil
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080424/...ongress_spr_dc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Speaker of the House of Representatives on Thursday called on the White House to temporarily stop sending crude oil into the nation's emergency stockpile.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters she was calling on President George W. Bush to work with Democrats to find a way to "temporarily suspend" oil deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The White House immediately rejected the plea. "We don't believe the fill rates have a meaningful impact on oil supplies," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

"We continue to fill the reserve to provide an added layer of protection to the American people in cases of severe supply disruption."

Pelosi said suspending deliveries would save drivers 5 cents to 24 cents per gallon at the pump.

As U.S. benchmark crude oil prices hit a record near $120 a barrel this week, the Bush administration insists that filling the reserve accounts for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of daily supply, and has no meaningful effect on prices.

The nearly 701 million barrels of crude oil stored in underground salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas are meant as a supply buffer in case of major supply disruptions like the 2005 hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast oil patch. It was created by Congress in 1975 after the Arab oil embargo.

Current shipments come to about 70,000 barrels per day, while the United States uses about 21 million bpd.

Democrats in the Senate are also pursuing legislation that would require the Energy Department to suspend shipments to the reserve if prices are too high.

Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said he would seek to attach an amendment to an upcoming supplemental appropriations bill that would forbid the government from sending oil to the SPR if oil prices are above $75 a barrel.

"I believe I have the votes," Dorgan told reporters. "I think I'm going to be able to get this dome."

There's a much deeper reason why the reserve is being filled up:

Venezuela.

Nancy Pelosi honnestly believs oil will go back below $75 a barrel. She must be smoking some of her California medical marajuana.

If you don't fill the reserves then you don't have them when you need them. It's called planning. If we didn't have them after Katrina they would have been yelling why we didn't have them. What do you think OPEC would do if we didn't have reserves. $400 a barrel or we won't ship to you.

I believe you nailed that one on the head!

What Pelosi is wanting to do is nothing more than a political move aimed at gaining support for herself and her party.

The White House is correct on this one. Stopping the filling of the reserves would have little to no effect of oil and fuel prices.

If refineries would operate at 100% capacity fuel would come down. If speculators would stop driving up the price of oil then fuel would come down. If the US government would stop all of its infighting and present a united front on domestic and especially foreign policy the oil prices would drop. If there wasn't a very good chance of the US pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan in the very near future and leaving those regions in utter chaos fuel prices would drop.

It had absolutely no effect when Clintoon did it back when he was President, it will have no effect now. Pelosi is counting on the short attention spans of the general public.

All the Democrats want is to be able to point the finger at the Republicans and say "They don't want you to have cheap gasoline!" The fact that they believe the voters are dumb enough to fall for it says a lot about them.

Each and everyone of you hit it on the head....there is a guy in Penn state thats riding a horse in protest also.

Heh - maybe we all need to hook a team of horses to a wagon and start hauling. Of course, then we'd get nailed for the exhaust.

The number of Republicans calling for a stop to the diversion of oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve continues to grow.

Eight Republican members of the House of Representatives joined Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME, who have previously called for a halt to SPR contributions.

Lawmakers breaking ranks from the Bush administration’s policy of continuing to stockpile oil in the SPR include Reps. Michael N. Castle, R-DE; Ray LaHood, R-IL; Roscoe G. Bartlett, R-MD; Wayne T. Gilchrest, R-MD; Todd Russell Platts, R-PA; Vernon J. Ehlers, R-MI; Jim Gerlach, R-PA; Christopher Shays, R-CT; and Timothy V. Johnson, R-IL.

The lawmakers sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi encouraging her to support legislation that would temporarily suspend oil diversion to the stockpile.

This is nothing but show by the democrats. The dems have done everything possible to prevent further domestic drilling and building of increased refining capacity. If they were serious they would encourage building of new refineries and competition among the oil companies. In addition, they would encourage alternative fuel sources. We have the largest natural gas reserves in the world. Texas is in a virtual boom in natural gas discoveries. There are so many of the democrats who are also in bed with the oil companies. Remember Al Gore? He used to own a lot of stock in Occidental Petroleum, if I remember correctly. I would bet that many of these democrats and republicans have oil stocks. In addition, the government itself is making a lot of additional revenue from higher fuel prices. It is getting close to biting them in the backside. All it takes is for people to wake up. Vote "NO" to incumbents in November.